Life cannot have been very comfortable in Edinburgh. There were no open spaces or squares in the royalty, with the exception of the Parliamentary close. The houses were so well and strongly built that the city was seldom troubled by fire, but they were poor inside, with low, dark rooms. We find, in consequence, that houses inhabited by the gentry in the early part of the eighteenth century were considered almost too bad for very humble {86} folk at its close, and the success of the new town was assured from the day when its first foundation-stone was laid. But if not very comfortable, life was quiet and simple. People generally dined at one or two o'clock in Edinburgh when George the First was king. Shopkeepers closed their shops when they dined, and opened them again for business when the meal was over. There was very little luxury; wine was seldom seen on the tables of the middle classes, and few people kept carriages. There were not many amusements; friends met at each other's houses to take tea at five o'clock, and perhaps to listen to a little music; for the Edinburghers were fond of music, and an annual concert which was established early in the century lingered on till within three years of its close. But this simplicity was not immortal, and we hear sad complaints as the century grows old concerning the decadence of manners made manifest in the luxurious practice of dining as late as four or five, the freer use of wine, and other signs of over-civilization. [Sidenote: 1714--Lowland agriculture] Glasgow, in the Clyde valley, ranked next to Edinburgh in importance among Scotch towns. More than twenty years later than the time of which we treat, the author of a pamphlet called "Memoirs of the Times" could write, "Glasgow is become the third trading city in the island." But in 1714 the future of its commercial prosperity, founded upon its trade with the West Indies and the American colonies, had scarcely dawned. The Scotch merchants had not yet been able, from want of capital, and, it was said, the jealousy of the English merchants, to make much use of the privileges conferred upon them by the union, and Glasgow was on the wrong side of the island for sharing in Scotland's slight Continental trade. Still, Glasgow was fairly thriving, thanks to the inland navigation of the Clyde. Some of its streets were broad; many of its houses substantial, and even stately. Its pride was the great minster of St. Mungo's, "a solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld keep hands and gunpowther aff it," to quote the {87} enthusiastic words of Andrew Fairservice. The streets were often thronged with the wild Highlanders from the hills, who came down as heavily and as variously armed as a modern Albanian chieftain, to trade in small cattle and shaggy ponies.