for forty people rather than for sixteen, which last number sat down. Capital salmon, and trout almost as rich as salmon, from one of the lochs-prime mutton from Argyleshire, very small and sweet, and indeed ten times better than half the venison we see in London-veal not inferior-beef of the very first order-some excellent fowls in curry; every thing washed down by delicious old West India Madeira, which went like elixir vitæ into the recesses of my stomach, somewhat ruffled in consequence of my riotous living in Edinburgh. A single bottle of hock, and another of white hermitage, went round, but I saw plainly that the greater part of the company took them for perry or cider. After dinner we had two or three bottles of port, which the landlord recommended as being real stuff. Abundance of the same Madeira, but to my sorrow no claret-the only wine I ever care for more than half-a-dozen glasses of. While the ladies remained in the room, there was such a noise and racket of coarse mirth, ill restrained by a few airs of sickly sentiment on the part of the hostess, that I really could neither attend to the wine nor the dessert; but after a little time, a very broad hint from a fat Falstaff, near the foot of the table, apparently quite a privileged character, thank Heaven! set the ladies out of the room. The moment after which blessed consummation, the butler and footman entered, as if by instinct, the one with a huge punch bowl, and the other with, &c.

A considerable altercation occurred on the entrance of the bowl, the various members of the company civilly entreating each other to officiate, exactly like the "Elders," in Burns's poem of The Holy Fair, "bothering from side to side" about the saying of grace. A middle-aged gentleman was at length prevailed upon to draw "the china" before him, and the knowing manner in which he forthwith began to arrange all his materials, impressed me at once with the idea that he was completely master of the noble science of making a bowl. The bowl itself was really a beautiful old piece of porcelain. It was what is called a double bowl, that is, the coloured surface was cased in another of pure white net-work, through which the red and blue flowers and trees shone out most beautifully. The sugar being melted with a little cold water, the artist squeezed about a dozen lemons through a wooden strainer,

and then poured in water enough almost to fill the bowl. In this state the liquor goes by the name of Sherbet, and a few of the connoisseurs in his immediate neighbourhood were requested to give their opinion of it-for, in the mixing of the sherbet lies, according to the Glasgow creed, at least one half of the whole battle. This being approved by an audible smack from the lips of the umpires, the rum was added to the beverage, I suppose in something about the proportion of one to seven. Last of all, the maker cut a few limes, and running each section rapidly round the rim of his bowl, squeezed in enough of this more delicate acid to flavour the whole composition, In this consists the true tour-de-maitre of the punch-maker.

The punch being fairly made, the real business of the evening commenced, and giving its due weight to the balsamic influence of the fluid, I must say the behaviour of the company was such as to remove almost entirely the prejudices I had conceived, in consequence of their first appearance and external manners.

In the course of talk, I found that the coarseness which had most offended me, was nothing but a kind of waggish disguise, assumed as the covering of minds keenly alive to the ridiculous, and therefore studious to avoid all appearance of finery-an article which they are aware always seems absurd when exhibited by persons of their profession. In short, I was amongst a set of genuinely shrewd, clever, sarcastic fellows, all of them completely up to trap-all of them good-natured and friendly in their dispositions-and all of them inclined to take their full share in the laugh against their own peculiarities. Some subjects, besides, of political interest, were introduced and discussed in a tone of great good sense and moderation. As for wit, I must say there was no want of it, in particular from the "privileged character" I have already mentioned. There was a breadth and quaintness of humour about this gentleman, which gave me infinite delight; and, on the whole, I was really much disposed at the end of the evening, (for we never looked near the drawing-room,) to congratulate myself on having made a good exchange for the self-sufficient young Whig coxcombs of Edinburgh. Such is the danger of trusting too much to first impressions. The Glasgow people would, in general, do well to assume as their motto, "Fronti nulla fides;" and yet there are not a few of them whose faces I should be

So

P. M.

very sorry to see any thing different from what they are. much for my first day in Glasgow.

LETTER LXVIII.

TO THE SAME.

Buck's-Head, Glasgow.

NEXT morning I devoted to visiting the University here, and paying my respects to several of the Professors, to whom I had received letters of introduction from several of my friends in Edinburgh, as well as London. I found the buildings very respectable in appearance-and altogether much more academical in their style than those of Edinburgh. The reason of this is, that they are for the most part much more ancient—or rather, perhaps, that they resemble much more what my eyes had been accustomed to at Cambridge and Oxford.

The University consists, as in Edinburgh, of a single College, but it is a much more venerable and wealthy foundation, and the Professors, instead of occupying separate houses in different parts of the town, as in Edinburgh, are lodged all together in a very handsome oblong court, (like the close of some of our cathedrals,) immediately beside the quadrangles used for public purposes. These quadrangles are two in number, and their general effect is much like that of some of our English third-rate colleges. The first one enters is a very narrow one, surrounded with black buildings of a most sombre aspect, and adorned on one side with a fine antique stair,which leads to their Faculty-Hall, or Senate-House. The second, to which you approach by a vaulted passage under a steeple, is much larger, but the effect of it is quite spoiled by a large new building in the Grecian style, which has been clumsily thrust into the midst of the low towers and curtains of the old monastic architecture. Both courts are paved all over with smooth flag stones--for the Scottish academics are not of such orderly habits as to admit of their quadrangles being covered with fine bowling-greens as ours are. However, I was certainly much pleased with the appearance of the whole structure.

From the second court, another arched way leads into an open square behind, which is not built round, but which contains in separate edifices the University Library on one hand

and, on the other, the Hunterian Museum, which you know was left in the collector's will to this seminary, at which he had received the early part of his education. The Museum is certainly a beautiful and classical building-so much of it at least as meets the eye in looking at it from the College. As yet I have seen nothing in Scotland that can be compared with it. The front consists of a very magnificent portico, supported by fine Doric pillars, and rising behind into a very graceful dome of stone-work. The College gardens stretch away in the rear of this building, to apparently a very considerable extent, forming a rich back-ground of lawns and trees, and affording a delightful rest to the eye, after the dust and glare of the mob-covered streets of the city. It was in one of the walks of these gardens-(one can never help talking of the incidents of these novels, as if they were all matters of fact,)--that Rob Roy prevented the duel between Frank and Rashleigh Osbaldistone. It was in them that good worthy Dr. Reid (honest man) used to pace when he was meditating the foundations of his inquiry into the Human Mind. It was in them that the most absent of men, Adam Smith, used to wander and loiter when he was preparing for the world the more precious gift of his Wealth of Nations. It was here, no doubt, that Dr. Moore walked, his features twisted with the pangs parturient of his famous Essay on the Greek Particles. It was here that his successor, Mr. John Young, must have ruminated with far blander emotions over the yet unpromulgated wit of the exqui site "Criticism on the Elegy written in a country churchyard."

My principal object, however, was not so much to examine the minutiae of these, the externals of the University, as to pick up some accurate notions of the way in which its business is conducted. As the hour, therefore, did not admit of my paying visits of ceremony, I determined to go, before making myself known to any one, and hear some of the principal Professors deliver their prælections in their class-rooms. My guide, being an old Alumnus of this Alma Mater, knew quite well the particular hours set apart for each individual teacher, and gave me all the information I could have desired about the respective merits of those I might have it in my power to hear. The man of highest reputation for talent among the whole body, he told me, was the same Professor of Greek to whom I have just alluded-so my first

ambition was to hear him-indeed, that ambition had long before been kindled within me by the eulogies I had heard passed upon this eminent Grecian, not only by Mr. W, and the literati of Edinburgh-but by the much higher authorities of Porson, Burney, and Routh, with all of whom Mr, Young lived in habits of close and intimate friendship, during the frequent visits he paid to England. Nay, the Professor's fame had reached me in quarters still more remote, and at least as respectable, for I remember Old Wyttenbach asked me many questions about him in 1802, when I spent the spring under his roof at Leyden and used to testify much astonishment at my knowing so little about this personage, whom he commonly called "examius ille apud Scotos philologus."

Dismissing my cicerone, therefore, I walked about the courts of the College by myself, till the rush of lads began to flow toward Mr. Young's lecture-room, and then insinuated myself with the crowd into the interior of the place. I took my station at the extremity of a bench, in the darkest part of the room, which seemed to be occupied by a set of the more elderly students, among whom I imagined my own grave aspect would be less likely to attract attention from the Professor. By and by, in he came, and mounted his little pulpit, between two low windows at the opposite extremity-and I immediately hoisted my spectacles, in order that I might scrutinize the physiognomy of the Philologist before his lecture should begin. A considerable number of minutes elapsed, during which one of the students, perched above his fellows in a minor sort of rostrum, was em ployed in calling over the names of all who were or should have been present, pretty much after the fashion of a regimental muster-roll. The Professor was quite silent during this space, unless when some tall awkward Irishman, or young indigenous blunderer, happened to make his entree in a manner more noisy than suited the place-on which occasion a sharp-cutting voice from the chair was sure to thrill in their ears some brief but decisive query, or command or rebuke-" Quid agas tu, in isto angulo, pedibus strepitans et garriens ?"" Cave tu tibi, Dugalde M'Quhirter, et tuas res agas !"--" Notetur, Phelimius O'Shaughnesy, sero ingrediens, ut solvat duas asses sterlinenses !"-" Iterumne admonendus es, Nicolai Jarvie ?"--" Quid hoc rei, Francisce Warper ?" &c. &c. &c.