into the open and extensive burying-place which surrounds the Minster or
Cathedral Church of Glasgow. The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather
than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; but its peculiar
character is so strongly preserved, and so well suited with the
accompaniments that surround it, that the impression of the first view
was awful and solemn in the extreme. I was indeed so much struck, that I
resisted for a few minutes all Andrew's efforts to drag me into the
interior of the building, so deeply was I engaged in surveying its
outward character.

Situated in a populous and considerable town, this ancient and massive
pile has the appearance of the most sequestered solitude. High walls
divide it from the buildings of the city on one side; on the other it is
bounded by a ravine, at the bottom of which, and invisible to the eye,
murmurs a wandering rivulet, adding, by its gentle noise, to the imposing
solemnity of the scene. On the opposite side of the ravine rises a steep
bank, covered with fir-trees closely planted, whose dusky shade extends
itself over the cemetery with an appropriate and gloomy effect. The
churchyard itself had a peculiar character; for though in reality
extensive, it is small in proportion to the number of respectable
inhabitants who are interred within it, and whose graves are almost all
covered with tombstones. There is therefore no room for the long rank
grass, which, in most cases, partially clothes the surface of those
retreats where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
rest. The broad flat monumental stones are placed so close to each other,
that the precincts appear to be flagged with them, and, though roofed
only by the heavens, resemble the floor of one of our old English
churches, where the pavement is covered with sepulchral inscriptions. The
contents of these sad records of mortality, the vain sorrows which they
preserve, the stern lesson which they teach of the nothingness of