Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/52

 arranged he left Paisley and took up his abode in Glasgow in the beginning of that year. The first number of the Courier which appeared after his accession to the office of editor has the date of 2d Feb., 1830; and he continued in connection with that paper till his death in November, 1835.

Whether journalism was exactly the vocation that was best suited to a man of his tastes and peculiar acquirements I shall not take upon me to determine, but there can be no doubt that he entered upon his new duties at Glasgow at a time of great difficulty and considerable public danger. The political world was at that moment upheaved from its foundations, and the revolution in France, consequent upon the three glorious days of July, followed as that event was by the accession of Lord Grey's Administration, and the Reform Bill excitement, presented to a lover of the olden ways a mass of embarrassment which we may admit to have been unsurmountable. Whatever Motherwell's views may have been in boyhood they were now fixed. He saw one after another of his most cherished prejudices first derided and then destroyed. Change followed change with the rapidity of lightning, and in the midst of this universal whirlwind the only man in this immense community who was expected to keep himself free from the common contagion, and to observe the most philosophical abstinence in the discussion of passing events, was the Tory editor of the Tory newspaper! Mere humanity is not equal to so