summons of duty would have induced I trust you will excuse the length of this communication. Nothing but the OLIVER CROMWELL'S FIRST VISIT TO GLASGOW. AFTER the battle of Dunbar, where Cromwell obtained a victory over General Leslie and the army of the royalists, he marched directly to Edinburgh. He entered the capital of Scotland without resistance, for the terror of his name and triumphs had compelled the clergy and principal citizens to take refuge in the castle. He resolved on moving westward, and left Edinburgh with the intention of dislodging the royalists in Stirling, which was now their rallying point. He felt anxious to visit Glasgow, and though his first visit was a short one, the incidents connected with it are not without interest. He approached Glasgow on the evening of a Friday. The citizens had calculated on his entering their city by the Townhead Road—the road which at present passes the St. Rollox works and the western boundary of the Royal Infirmary. Two hundred years ago, the old castle of Glasgow, which was the palace also of the archbishop, occupied a site immediately in front of the present building of the Infirmary. Its vaults were hastily filled with gunpowder and other destructive materials; a train was carefully laid; and it had been resolved upon to explode the whole at the moment Cromwell and his attendants were passing, in the hope of overwhelming them in one common ruin. It is highly probable that Cromwell had intimation of the plot, as on nearing Glasgow he struck westward by what is now known as the Cowlairs station of the Glasgow and Edinburgh Railway, towards the Cowcaddens, and entered the city by what was then called the "Cowloan"-the lane by which the cows of the burgesses were driven to their pastures at the Cowcaddens. Queen Street and Dundas Street form the line of what, even so late as the beginning of the present century, was known as the "Cowloan. Cromwell proceeded along the Trongate to the lodgings provided for him at the bottom of the Saltmarket. These lodgings were in " 'Silvercraig's Land," a fine old baronial-looking mansion, which was but a few years ago removed to make way for structures realizing a more profitable rental. The older portion of our Glasgow readers will doubtless recollect it. It stood immediately in front of the entrance to the Bridgegate, and receded somewhat from the line of the street. In our boyhood days we looked at it for "old Noll's" sake. Its arched entrance-the national arms on the front wall, surmounting two shields, on which the armorial bearings of the Campbell and Stewart families were sculptured-its lofty and antique windows, lighting the apartment in which James Guthrie the martyr, Patrick Gillespie, Hugh Binning of Govan, and Zachary Boyd, discussed with Cromwell the subject of his "invasion," and the merits of "the covenant," have disappeared, like too many other relics of the olden time, but they remain imprinted on our recollections of the old buildings of Glasgow, which were associated with the more interesting events of our national history. By and by Glasgow will have little of antiquarianism to exhibit. Edinburgh is still rich in buildings of historic interest; but the merchant enterprise of Glasgow has overturned the venerable memorials of events alike dear to the patriot and the Christian; calico warehouses and provision shops now occupy the notable places in the olden times of Glasgow. The shops marked 145, 147, and 149 in Saltmarket Street, stand immediately in front of the site of "Silvercraig's Land," where Cromwell lodged, and behind them a venerable ruin, bearing traces of having been a kitchen, is all that now remains of the palace of Bishop Rae, who founded the old Glasgow Bridge five hundred years ago, and where Cromwell's dinner was cooked, on the 12th October, 1650. As Cromwell had entered Glasgow unscathed, and was safely and comfortably domiciled, the magistrates and several of the ministers thought proper to fly the city. Robert Baillie, then professor of theology in Glasgow College, having recorded the principal events of the period, mentions that "he got to the isle of Cumbray with my lady Montgomery, but left my family and goods to Cromwell's courtesy, which indeed was great; for he took such a course with his soldiers that they did less displeasure at Glasgow than if they had been in London, though Mr. Zachary Boyd railed on them to their very face in the High Church." Baillie had been particularly active in bringing Charles I. into Scotland, and in provoking the war which was then waged between Cromwell and the royalists, and could not but regard himself as a marked man, and that flight to some safe retreat was his best policy at the time. Zachary Boyd, who "railed" on Cromwell and his party "to their very face," had been valiant for "king and covenant," and within a very few months after this day's "railing" took part in the coronation of Charles in Scone Palace. He was the minister of the Barony parish of Glasgow, whose place of worship was then in what is now the grand crypt, beneath the Inner High Church. This was the parish kirk of the Barony till the close of last century. Mr. Boyd seems to have occupied the pulpit of the High Church on the Sabbath of Cromwell's first visit to Glasgow. The Bible from which he preached is in preservation, and in his own neat handwriting there is a note on the margin of Daniel viii. 5-7, intimating that this was the pas sage on which he lectured. The passage is as follows:-"As I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground; and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him.” Whether the preacher took a license with the passage, and Cromwell was the ram who had come to be stamped upon by the Scotch he-goat, the chroniclers of the period say not; but it is not improbable there may have been a good deal of accommodation in the preacher's plan of exposition, and that he may have ran on for an hour and a half in such a strain. As he "railed on them to their very face," he was not the man to make short work of it under such circumstances. On the afternoon of that Sabbath the text, in the circumstances, was certainly much more remarkable than the passage which had been lectured on. We shall quote it also. Psalm xxxviii. 13, 14:-" But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth there are no reproofs." This, we repeat it, was, in the circumstances, a seemingly inappropriate text for such a preacher as Zachary Boyd. What he said towards the exposition of the text we cannot affirm, but we must say that he did not on this occasion "stick to his text." We will further affirm, that on the occasion he was neither "deaf nor dumb," nor shut his mouth from "reproving." When the Scottish covenanting clergy of that day had an opportunity to speak out, they were not "dumb dogs.' In Zachary Boyd's mouth there were "reproofs" that afternoon. And he could do more than bark-he could bite. The sermon was a biting one, especially to some of Cromwell's party. The Protector sat very meekly under it, without betraying the reflections of his own powerful mind; but Secretary Thurlow, who sat near him, at a particular allusion in the sermon could no longer bridle his indignation. He laid his hand on a loaded blunderbuss before him, and, whispering into the Protector's ear, craved permission to blow out the preacher's brains. Cromwell had far more good sense than to tolerate such an act, and far more humanity. He had stood a more hazardous fire on the fields of Dunbar, and knew that hard words were more harmless than bullets, and instantly checked his secretary. "No, no; I will manage him in another way." The preacher having concluded the service, retired to the session-house. Cromwell immediately followed him; for he must have felt he was no ordinary man to whose patriotic preaching he had been listening, and that much might be learned in a private interview with him. This was undoubtedly more than Mr. Boyd had anticipated; and we may well imagine what his feelings must have been, as the bold and thick-set figure of the Protector stood before him. He had dared to denounce him and his "invasion" from the pulpit, and he was not the man to quail before him in the chapter-house of the cathedral, where they were now confronted. There were, however, too many eyes and ears in that place of meeting for more than brief and commonplace conversation between the preacher and Cromwell. Cromwell felt this; and sensible that greater privacy and more satisfaction would be enjoyed in his own lodgings in "Silvercraig's house" in the Saltmarket, he at once invited Mr. Boyd to accompany him to dinner. Mr. Boyd accepted the invitation. The large congregation had yet scarcely retired from the extensive burial-ground through which they had to pass before reaching the street. Some would be turning their eyes to the oft-read inscription on the family tomb-stone. The receding steps of all must that afternoon have been slower, for friends and acquaintances had heard that Sabbath from their esteemed pastor words which afforded matter for keen remarks. Familiar as the times had made them with strange sounds and strange sights, the worshippers, slowly wending their way towards the city, had their conversation arrested by the heavy and measured step, and the clanking of the scabbards, of so many orderlies on "the crown of the causeway." They must have looked with astonishment, on seeing Mr. Boyd in the company of Cromwell, not as a prisoner, but in the freedom of conversational intercourse; and various conjectures must have been uttered by them, when Mr. Boyd, instead of turning to the right hand, towards his own dwelling in the Rottenrow, continued in Cromwell's company down the High Street. The dinner-party that afternoon was a select one, and the conversation suited to the day and the occasion. After dinner the interview between Cromwell and Boyd was strictly private; but the fact of its having been occupied in discussion, conference, and prayer till three o'clock on Monday morning, proves that two brave spirits had met, and that a conversation so protracted was found to be profitable as well as pleasing to both. Mr. Boyd was a superior scholar, and displayed much originality in thought and mode of expression. He possessed a fervid imagination, and great fertility of lan guage in presenting his ideas. These mental endowments must have contributed to take off the rough edge of rigid austerity which, on the great point in debate between him and Cromwell, he possessed in common with the Scottish clergy who adhered to the cause of the covenants and of Charles. On matters of civil and ecclesiastical polity Cromwell and Boyd were in opposition, but they were alike sound in the faith in Christ." They had both felt the power of divine grace on their souls; and Boyd, who had probably heard nothing of Cromwell but what was calculated to fill him with bitterest prejudice, must have found himself in communion with a spirit as familiar as his own with the things of God. He may hitherto have regarded him as a man only to be resisted on the floor of debate or the field of bloody conflict; but he found him a kindred spirit to commune with in the closet, in audience with Jehovah, otherwise he would not have absented himself to so late an hour, and on a Sabbath evening too, so far from his own household. When Cromwell was eating his breakfast on Monday morning, he received the intelligence that the Royalists were marching towards Edinburgh, in order to secure the castle. The breakfast was speedily finished; and the burgesses of Glasgow were alike surprised and delighted to find the man who had so terrified them, and his followers, with their martial accompaniments, leaving their city at so rapid a pace on their way to the metropolis. We find Cromwell on a second visit to Glasgow a few months afterwards. He occupied the same lodgings in "Silvercraig's house." His stay on this occasion was longer, and the incidents connected with his visit more numerous, and fully more interesting. The principal room of "Silvercraig's house" was one day, during that visit, crowded with the covenanting clergy. They were there by special invitation from Cromwell. Zachary Boyd, James Guthrie, Patrick Gillespie, Hugh Binning, John Carstairs, Robert Ramsay, and James Durham were among them. In a subsequent article we may give a sketch of this interesting conven tion, and other incidents connected with Cromwell's second visit to Glasgow. A SABBATH WITH EDWARD IRVING, IN THE CALEDONIAN CHAPEL, WE have heard Edward Irving so often ket. There Brougham sits coiled up in his critical might, his nose twitching, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes retired under the dark lids, his whole bearing denoting eager but somewhat curious and sinister expectation. Yonder you see an old, venerable man, with mild placid face and long gray hair. It is Jeremy Bentham, coming, in the plenitude of his bonhommie, to hear his own system abused as with the tongue of thunder. Near him note that thin, spiritual-looking, little old individual, with quiet philosophic countenance and large brow. It is William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams." In a seat behind him sits a yet more meagre skeleton of man, with a pale face, eager eyes, dark close-cropped hair, and tremulous nervous aspect. It is the first of living critics, William Hazlitt, who had "forgot what the inside of a church was like," but who has been fairly dragged out of his den by the attraction of Irving's eloquence. At the door, and standing, you see a young, short, stout person, carrying his head high, with round face, large eyes, and careless school-boy bearing. It is Macaulay, on furlough from Cambridge, where he is as yet a student, but hopes soon to be equal with the proudest in all that crowded Caledonian Chapel. And in a corner of the church Coleridge-the mighty wizard, with more knowledge and more genius under that one white head than is to be found in the whole of that bright assembly-looks with dim nebulous eyes upon the scene, which seems to him rather a swimming vision than a solid reality. And then besides there are belted earls, and feathered duchesses, and bishops not a few, and one or two of the Guelphic race included in a throng which has not been equalled for brilliance in London since Burke, Fox, and Sheridan stood up in Westminster Hall as the three accusing spirits of Warren Hastings. For nearly half an hour the audience has been fully assembled, and has maintained on the whole a decent gravity and composure. Eleven o'clock strikes, and an official appears, bearing the Bible in his hands, and thus announcing the approach of the preacher. Ludicrous as might in other circumstances seem the disparity between the forerunner and the coming man, his appearance is welcomed by the rustle and commotion which pass through the assembly, as if by a unanimous cheer, a rustle which is instantly succeeded by deep silence, as, slowly and majestically, Edward Irving advances, mounts, not with the quick hasty step of Chalmers, but with a measured and dignified pace, as if to some solemn music heard by his ear alone, the stairs of the pulpit, and lifting the psalm-book, calmly confronts that splendid multitude. The expression of his bearing while he does this is very peculiar; it is not that of fear, not that of deference, still less is it that of impertinence, anger, or contempt. It is simply the look of a man who says internally, "I am equal to this occasion, and to this assembly, in the dignity and power of my own intellect and nature, and MORE than equal to it in the might of my Master, and in the grandeur and truth of my message. Ere he proceeds to open the psalm-book, mark his stature and his face. He is a son of Anak in height, and his symmetry and apparent strength are worthy of his stature. His complexion is iron-gray, his hair is parted at the foretop, and hangs in sable masses down his temples, his eye has a squint, which rather adds to than detracts from the general effect, and his whole aspect is spiritual, earnest, Titanic, yea, that of a Titan among Titans, a Boanerges among the sons of thunder. He gives out the psalm, perhaps it is his favourite psalm, the twenty-ninth, and as he reads it his voice seems the echo of the "Lord's voice upon the waters," so deep and far-rolling are the crashes of its sound. It sinks, too, ever and anon into soft solemn cadences, so that you hear in it alike the moan and the roar, and feel both the pathos and the majesty of the thunder-storm. Then he reads a portion of Scripture, selecting, probably from a fine instinctive sense of contrast, the twenty-third psalm, or some other of the sweeter of the Hebrew hymns, to give relief to the grandeurs that are past or that are at hand. Then he says, "Let us pray," not as a mere formal preliminary, but because he really wishes to gather up all the devotional feeling of his hearers along with his own, and to present it as a whole burntoffering to Heaven. Then his voice, "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," rises to God, and you feel as if God had blotted out the Church around and the universe above, that that voice might obtain immediate entrance to his ear. You at least are conscious of nothing for a time, save the voice and the auditor. It is a great being conversing with God. "Reverence and lowly prostration are most striking," it has been said, "when paid by a lofty intellect, and you are reminded of the trees of the forest clapping |