bane 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 donbt, 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 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 propably 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 Dd M'N, 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.

I SPENT an afternoon very pleasantly the other day at Dr. B'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. 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 country, have been edited either by persons possessed of skill in one department only, and negligent of the rest, or, what is still worse, by persons alike destitute of skill in all departments whatever-in other words, members of the great corporation of charlatans.

There were several very pleasant men of the party, and the conversation, both during dinner, and afterwards, was extremely lively and agreeable, as well as instructive; but from the time we sat down, there was one face which attracted my

attention in a way that I was quite at a loss to account for. I experienced, in looking at it, a strange and somewhat uncomfortable sort of feeling-of which you must often have been sensible as if I had seen the conntenance before, where, when, or how, it was impossible for me to recollect. At last, the gentleman who thus occupied my attention, happened, in talking to Dr. B—, to utter the word Freyberg, and the whole affair flashed across me as swift as lightning. That single sound had opened a key to the whole mystery, and a moment after, I could not help wondering how I should have been at a loss. Some years ago, (I shall not say how many,) when I was stronger, and more active than I now am, and capable of making longer excursions in ruder vehicles than I now venture upon in my shandrydan, I remember to have travelled in the common post-wagon from Dresden to Leipsig. I had gone on horseback quite through the Hartz, and passed from thence in the same manner all up the delightful banks of the Elbe, from Magdeburg to the Saxon Switzerland. I then sold my horse, (much the worse for the wear I had given him,) and was making the best of my way toward the west, in that most coarse, and most jumbling of all machines,

"The neat post-wagon trotting in."

We had got as far as within a single stage of Leipsig, when a little adventure befel us, which, till this face recalled it, I had, for years, as utterly forgotten as if it never had occurred. We were just about to enter a village, (I cannot recollect its name,) when our vehicle was surrounded by a party of mounted gens-d'armes, and a fierce-looking fellow, thrusting his mustachio and his pipe into the window, commanded the whole party to come out and show ourselves. A terrible murder, he said, had been committed somewhere by a Jewa watchman, I think, of Koningsberg, and he had every occasion to believe, that the murderer had left Dresden that morning in one of the post-wagons. After we had all complied with his order, and dislodged ourselves from the pillar

of tobacco smoke in which we sat enveloped, there were two of the company on whom our keeper seemed to look with eyes of peculiar suspicion. I myself was one, and the other was a thin, dark-complexioned, and melancholy looking young man, whom, till this moment, I had not remarked; for of the six benches swung across the wagon, I had sate upon the one nearest the front, and he on that nearest the rear. I had allowed my beard to grow upon my upper lip, and I believe looked as swarthy as any Jew ever did; but my scanty allowance of nose would have alone satisfied a more skilful physiognomist, that I could not be the guilty man. The other had somewhat the same cast in that feature, and he wore no mustachio, but his hair seemed to be of the genuine Israelitish jet-and the gens-d'armes were positive that one or other of us must be the murderer. I spoke German with fluency, and with a pretty just accent, and made a statement for myself, which seemed to remove something of the suspicion from me. The other delivered himself with more hesitation, and with an accent, which, whatever it might be, was evidently not Saxon, and therefore the Hussar seemed to take it for granted that it was Jewish, imperfectly concealed. At last, after a good deal of discussion, we were both taken to the Amt-house, where the magistrate of the village sat in readiness to decide on the merits of our case. The circumstances which had determined the chief suspicion of the officers, appeared to weigh in the same manner on the mind of the magistrate, and, at the end of the examination which ensued of our persons and our papers, it was announced, that I might proceed on my journey, but that the other must be contented to remain where he was, till his passport should be sent back to Dresden for the examination of the police. Upon this, my fellow-traveller lost temper, and began to complain most bitterly of the inconvenience to which such a delay would expose him. He was on his way, he said, to Freyberg, where he had already studied one year under the celebrated Werner, as his passport testified, and he had particular reasons for being anxious to reach his university before a certain day in the