LETTER XX.

TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS.

DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE life I have led here has been such a strange mixture of all sorts of occupations, that were I to send you a literal diary of my transactions, I believe you would not fail to discover abundant room for doubting the authenticity of the MS. I shall therefore reserve the full and entire history of this part of my existence, till I may have opportunity of communicating it to you viva voce over a bottle of Binn D, and proceed in the meantime, as I have been doing, to give you little glimpses and fragments of it, exactly in the order that pleases to suggest itself.

In Smollet's time, according to the inimitable and unquestionable authority of our cousin, Matthew Bramble, no stranger could sleep more than a single night in Edinburgh, with the preservation of any thing like an effectual incognito. In those days, as I have already told you, the people all inhabited in the Old Town of Edinburgh-packed together, family above family, for aught I know, clan above clan, in little more than one street, the houses of which may, upon an average, be some dozen stories in height. The aerial elevation, at which an immense proportion of these people had fixed their abodes, rendered it a matter of no trifling moment to ascend to them; and a person in the least degree affected with asthma, might as soon have thought of mounting the Jungfrau, as of paying regular devoirs to any of the fair cynosures of these υπερτατα δώματα. The difficulty of access, which thus prevented many from undertaking any ascents of the kind, was sufficient to prevent all those who did undertake them, from entering rashly on their pilgrimages. No man thought of mounting one of those gigantic staircases, without previously ascertaining that the object of his intended visit was at home-unless it might be some Hannibal fresh

from the Highlands, and accustomed, from his youth upwards, to dance all his minuets on Argyle's bowling-green. To seek out a stranger among a hundred or two such staircases, was of course an undertaking beyond the patience even of a person who had enjoyed such an education as this; and so it became a matter of absolute necessity, that Edinburgh should possess some body of citizens set apart, and destined ab ova, for climbing staircases, and carrying messages.

From this necessity, sprung the high lineage of "the Cadies of Auld Reekie." When I use the word lineage, I do not mean to say that their trade ran in their blood, or that the cadies, as the Lake poet sings,

"To sire from grandsire, and from sire to son,
Throughout their generations, did pursue

With purpose, and hereditary love,

Most stedfast and unwavering, the same course
Of labour, not unpleasant, nor unpaid."

The cadies bore more resemblance in this respect to the Jamissaries and Mamelukes of Modern, than to the hereditary hammermen, cooks, physicians, and priests of Ancient Egypt. The breed of them was not kept up in the usual way,

"By ordinance of matrimonial love;"

but by continued levies of fresh recruits from the same rugged wilds, wherein alone, the Ganus Iapeti was supposed to retain sufficient vigour for the production of individuals, adapted for so aspiring a course of life. Every year broughtfrom the fastnesses of Lochaber and Braemar, a new supply of scions to be engrafted upon the stock rooted immoveably in the heart of Auld Reekie-so that season after season, tree of the cadies, like that of Virgil, might be said,

"Mirari novas frondes et non sua poma."

the

However produced and sustained-whatever might be the beauties or the blemishes of their pedigree-this race continued for many generations, to perform with the same zeal

and success the same large variety of good offices to the citizens of Edinburgh. The cadie preserved amidst all his functions not a little of the air and aspect natural to him in his own paternal wilderness;

"A savage wildness round him hung,

As of a dweller out of doors;

In his whole figure and his mien

A savage character was seen,

Of mountains and of dreary moors."

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 something 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 ur

*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.