He climbed staircases with the same light and elastic spring which had been wont to carry him unfatigued to the brow of Cairngorm or Ben-Nevis; and he executed the commands of his employer pro tempore, whatever they might be, in the same spirit of unquestioning submission and thorough-going zeal, with which he had been taught from his infancy to obey the orders of Maccallamore, Glengarry, Gordon, Grant, or whosoever the chieftain of his clan might be. In order to qualify him for the exercise of this laborious profession, it was necessary that the apprentice-cadie should make himself minutely familiar with every stair-case, every house, every family, and every individual in the city, and to one who had laid in this way a sound and accurate foundation of information, it could be no difficult matter to keep on a level with the slight flood of mutation, which the city and its population was at that period accustomed to. The moment a stranger arrived in Edinburgh, his face was sure to attract the observation of some of this indefatigable tribe, and they knew no rest till they had ascertained his name, residence, and conditionconsidering it, indeed, as a sort of insult upon their body, that any man should presume to live within the bounds of their jurisdiction, and yet remain unpenetrated by the perspicacity of their unwearied espionage. But why should I say any more of this race?-They are now gathered to their fathers; and their deeds, are they not written in the Book of the Expedition of Humphrey Clinker?

Although, however, the original and regular fraternity no longer exists, and although, indeed, the change which has taken place, both in the residence and in the manners of the inhabitants, has removed almost all shadow of pretence for the existence of any such fraternity-Edinburgh is still possessed of a species of men who retain the name, and, in so far as the times permit, the functions of the cadies. At the corner of every street is usually to be seen a knot of these fellows lounging on a wooden bench in expectation of employment. They are very busy in the evenings during the gay season of the year; for they are exclusively the bearers of the chairs which convey the beaux and belles from one rout and ball to another; but even at that season, their mornings, for the most part, are passed in a state of complete inaction, A pack of sorely blackened cards, or an old rotten backgammon board, furnishes a small proportion with some

thing like occupation; but the greater part are contented with an indefatigable diligence in the use of tobacco, which they seem to consume indifferently in all its shapes-smoking, chewing, and snuffing, with apparently the same intensity of satisfaction. Whenever I pass one of these groupes, my ears. are saluted with accents, which the persons I usually walk with talk of as coarse and disgusting, but which are interesting at least, if not delightful, to me, because they remind me most strongly of those of our own native dialect. At first, indeed, the only resemblance I was sensible to, lay in the general music and rythm of their speech; but, by dint of listening attentively on all occasions, I soon began to pick up a few of their words, and am now able, I flatter myself, to understand a great part of their discourse. With a few varieties in the inflections, and some more striking variations in the vowel sounds, the Gaelic is evidently in the same language with our own. I do not mean merely, that it is sprung remotely from the same Celtic stem; but that it is entirely of the same structure in all essential respects, and bears, so far as I can judge, a much nearer resemblance to our tongue, than is any where else to be traced between the languages of people that have lived so long asunder. I shall pay particular attention to this subject during my stay in Scotland, and doubt not I shall be able to give you some very interesting details when we meet. In the mean time, I have already begun to read a little of the Gaelic Ossian, not, you may believe out of any reverence for its authenticity, but with a view to see what the written Gaelic is. Nothing can be more evident than its total inferiority to the Welsh. It is vastly inferior in perspicuity, and immeasurably inferior in melody; in short, it bears no marks of having undergone, as our language has done, the correcting, condensing, and polishing labour of a set of great poets and historians. These defects are still more apparent in a collection of Gaelic songs which I have seen, and which I believe to be really antique. The wild and empassioned tone of sentiment, however, and the cold melancholy imagery of these compositions render them well worthy of being translated; and, indeed, Walter Scott has already done this service for some of the best of them. But I have seen nothing that should entitle them to share any thing like the high and devout admiration which we justly give, and which all Europe would give, had they the opportunity, to the sublime and pathetic masterpieces of our own great bards. I trust, David,

you are not neglecting your truly grand and important undertaking. Go on, and prosper; and I doubt not, you will confer the highest honour both on your country and yourself.

The cadies, from whom I have made this digression, have furnished me with another, and almost as interesting field of study, in quite a different way. Their physiognomies are to me an inexhaustable fund of observation and entertainment. They are for the most part, as I have said, Highlanders by birth, but the experience of their Lowland lives has had the merit of tempering, in a very wonderful manner, the mere mountaineer parts of their aspect. A kind of wild stare, which the eyes retain from the keen and bracing atmosphere of their native glens, is softened with an infusion of quiet urbane shrewdness, often productive of a most diverting inconsistency in the general effect of their countenances. I should certainly have supposed them, prima facie, to be the most unprincipled set of men in the world; but I am told their character for honesty, fidelity, and discretion, is such as to justify the most implicit reliance in them. This, however, I by no means take as a complete proof of my being in the wrong. Honesty, fidelity, and discretion, are necessary to their employment, and success; and therefore I doubt not they are honest, faithful, and discreet, in all their dealings with their employers. But I think it is not possible for fellows with such faces as these, to have any idea of moral obligation, beyond what is inspired in this way by the immediate feeling of self-interest; and I have no doubt, that with proper management, one might find on occasion an assassin, almost as easily as a pimp, among such a crew of grinning, smiling, cringing savages, as are at this moment assembled beneath my window. I am making a collection of drawings of all the most noted of these cadies, and I assure you, my sketch-book does not contain a richer section than this will afford. You will be quite thunderstruck to find what uniformity prevails in the development of some of the leading organs of these topping cadies. They are almost all remarkable for projection of their eye-brows-the consequence of the luxuriant manner in which their organs of observation have expanded themselves. At the top of their heads, the symbols

*This refers to a great work on Welsh Poetry and History, in which Mr. Williams has been engaged for some years, and which, when it is published, will, I doubt not, create a greater sensation in Wales, than any thing that has occurred since the death of Llewellyn.

of ambition, and love of praise, are singularly prominent. A kind of dogged pertinacity of character may be inferred from the knotty structure of the region behind their ears; and the choleric temperament betrayed in their gestures, when among themselves, may probably be accounted for by the extraordinary development of the organ of self-love, just above the nape of the neck-which circumstance again is, no doubt, somewhat connected with the continual friction of burthens upon that delicate region.

It is very ungrateful of me, however, to be saying any thing disrespectful about a class of men, from whom I have derived so much advantage since my arrival in this place. Whenever a stranger does arrive, it is the custom that he enters into a kind of tacit compact with some of the body, who is to perform all little offices he may require during the continuance of his visit. I, myself, was particularly fortunate in falling into the hands of one whom I should take to be the cleverest cadie that at present treads the streets of Auld Reekie.

His name is D—d M1N—, and, if one may take his word for it, he has gentle blood in his veins, being no less than "a bairn o' our chief himsell." Nor, indeed, do I see any reason to call this account of his pedigree in question, for Donald is broad of back, and stout of limb, and has, I think, not a little of the barbarian kind of pride about the top of his forehead; and I hear, the Phylarchus with whom he claims kindred, led, in more respects than one, a very patriarchal sort of life.

LETTER XXI.

TO THE REV, DAVID WILLIAMS.

I SPENT an afternoon very pleasantly the other day at Dr. Brewster's, the same who is so celebrated for his discoveries concerning light-his many inventions of optical instruments-and his masterly conduct of that best of all works of the kind, the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. Dr. Brewster is still a young man, although one would scarcely suppose this to be the case, who, never having seen him, should form his guess from considering what he has done. He cannot, I should think, be above forty, if so much. Like most of the scientific men in Edinburgh, the doctor is quite a man of the world in his manners; his countenance is a very mild and agreeable one, and in his eyes, in particular, there is a wonderful union of penetration and tenderness of expression. From his conversation, one would scarcely suspect that he had gone so deep into the hidden parts of .science, for he displays a vast deal of information concerning the lighter kinds of literature, although, indeed, he does all this with a hesitative sort of manner, which probably belongs to him as a man of abstruse science. It is, no doubt, mainly owing to this happy combination of accomplishments, that he has been able to render his great work so much more truly of an Encyclopædic character, than any other which has been published under the same name in our island. In a work of that kind, which cannot be finished without the co-operation of a vast variety of contributors continued throughout many successive years, it is quite obvious how much must depend on the superintending and arranging skill and judgment of the editor. Now, it is a very rare thing indeed, to meet with a person of fine talents, who is alike a man of science, and a man of literature; and unless under the care of such a person, I do not see how an Encyclopædia can be conducted in such a way as to give equal satisfaction to both the great classes into which readers of Encyclopædias must necessarily be divided. All the other Encyclopædias published in this coun