sor particularly introduced me to

a Mr James

Wan, "brother to the poet. This young poet. This young ils on gentleman follows the profession of a Writer to the Signet, (which, as I have told you, is the name for the highest class of attornies in Edinburgh); but forms, as Mr Jamas. sured me, a brilliant exception to the neglect with which matters of science are commonly treated by the members of the profession. He is very young-many years junior to his more celebrated brother, and no casual observer would suspect them to be of the same family. I have already described to you the exterior of the poet; James is a thin, pale, slender, contemplative-looking person, with hair of rather a dark colour, and extremely short-sighted. In his manners also, he is as different as possible from his brother; his voice is low, and his whole demeanour as still as can be imagined. In conversation he attempts no kind of display but seems to possess a very peculiar vein of dry Humour, which renders him extremely diverting. Notwithstanding all these differences, however, I could easily trace a great similarity in the construction of the bones of their two faces; and, indeed, there is nothing more easy to imagine, than that, with much of the same original powers

and propensities, some casual enough circum stances may have been sufficient to decide, that the one of the brothers should be a poet, and the other a naturalist. The parts of the science of which Mr James Wn is fondest, are Ornithology and Entomology-studies so delightful to every true lover of nature, that, I suspect, they are, in some measure, practically familiar to every poet who excels in depicting the manifes tations, and in tracing the spirit of beauty in the external universe. Professor Jay indeed, informed me, that his young friend is, in truth, no less a poet than a naturalist that he possesses a fine genius for versification, and has already pub lished several little pieces of exquisite beauty, although he has not ventured to give his name along with them.

-

On leaving the professor's, Mr Wen and I adjourned to this house (where, by the way, Mr Oman enjoys very little of my company,) and had a quiet bowl of punch together, and a great deal of conversation respecting subjects connect ed with the science in which he so greatly excels, and for which I myself, albeit nothing of an adept, have long entertained a special partiality. Among other topics, the brumal retreat of the swallow was handled at considerable length. Mr

Win Ffind rather inclined to that theory, which would represent Africa as the principal winter-depot of at least several of the species the Hirundo, Apus, and Rustica, in particular; and he adduced, in confirmation of this, a passage from Herodotus, which I had never before heard pointed out with a view to this subject→ according to which, one kind of swallow (from the description, he seemed to suppose it must be the Swift,) remains in Egypt throughout the whole year δι' έτεος εοντες εκ απολείπεσι. I have never, indeed, met with any man who seemed to possess a greater power of illustrating subjects of natural history, by quotations from writers of all kinds, and in particular from the poets. Milton and Wordsworth, above all, he appears to have completely by heart; and it was wonderfully delightful to me to hear matters, which are commonly discussed in the driest of all possible methods, treated of in so graceful a manner by one who is so much skilled in them. Nothing could be more refreshing than to hear some minute details about birds and insects, interrupted and illuminated by a fragment of grand melancholy music from the Paradise Lost, or the Excursion.org

I shall have occasion to say a great deal more

to you, both about Professor Jamar and his young friend.

Meantime, believe me ever

Most affectionately your's,

P. M.

?

I BELIEVE I have already hinted to you, that the students in this University are very fond of Debating Societies, and, indeed, the nature of their favourite studies might prepare one abundantly to find it so. They inhale the very atmosphere of doubt, and it is in the course of nature that they should exhale the very breath of disputation. They are always either actually struggling, vi et armis, to get over some quagmire or another, or, after establishing themselves once more on what they conceive to be a portion of the Terra Firma, falling out among themselves, which of the troop had picked his way along the neatest set of stepping-stones, or made his leap from the firmest knot of rushes. Before they have