cause 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 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 peoples 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 evi

dent 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 in anything 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.

* This refers to a great work on Welsh Poetry and History, in which Mr Williams has been engaged for some years, and

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 inexhaustible 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 urban 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 em

which, when it is published, will, I doubt not, create a greater sensation in Wales, than anything that has occurred since the death of Llewellyn.

ployment, 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 developement 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 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 be

themselves,

trayed in their gestures, when among may probably be accounted for by the extraordinary developement 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 anything 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 Dd MN, 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