Old Greenock from the Earliest Times to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century, with some account of the Burgh of Cartsburn and Burgh of Barony of Crawfurdsdyke, etc

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FROM THE Earliest Times to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE BURGH OF CARTSBURN AND BURGH OF BARONY OF CRAWFURDSDYKE. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BY GEORGE WILLIAMSON. ALEXANDER GARDNER, PAISLEY; AND PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1886. " Wordsworth, who visited this place [Greenock] a few years ago, in the course of a tour, has celebrated it in one of his ' Itinerary Sonnets,' with which our notice may be concluded : 'GREENOCK. ' Per me si va nella Citta dolcnte. ' We have not passed into a doleful city, We who were led to-day down a grim dell, By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell ! " Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity ? These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty, As from the hive where bees in summer dwell, Sorrow seems here excluded, and that knell, It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.

Alas ! too busy Rival of old Tyre, Whose merchants princes were, whose decks were throng ; Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde Whose rustling current brawls o'er noisy stones, The poor, the lonely, herdsman's ioy and pride ! ' Far distant may the days be, which the Bard of Rydal Mount has, in the concluding lines, so gloomily foreshadowed." — "Ramsay's Views in Renfrewshire," 1839.