here and there people might be found who thought somewhat more judiciously; but the common opinion certainly was, that the idolatry of a Roman Catholic is quite as bad as that of a Cherokee or a South-seaislander. The Scotch now no longer consider it as a matter of perfect certainty, that the Pope is the Antichrist, and the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Revelations. They do full honour to those heroic and holy spirits who wrought the great work of the Reformation, but they do not doubt that even those who nominally adhere to the ancient faith, have derived great benefit from the establishment of the new. They refuse to consider the kingdom of Christ as composed only of the little vince which they themselves inhabit. They are thankful indeed for the mode in which their own district is ruled; they believe, perhaps, that their own municipal regulations are wiser than those to which most of their neighbours submit; but they never doubt, that throughout the whole of the empire the general principles of government are substantially the same, nor hesitate to consider themselves as linked by the firmest bonds of common loyalty and devotion, both to each other, and to that authority which all true Christians are equally proud to acknowledge and obey.

pro

"But, above every thing, what shews the absurdity of the Quarterly's notions up on these subjects, in a most striking point of view, is this simple fact, that, in spite of the cuts which it is perpetually giving them. selves, the Quarterly Review is a very great favourite among the Scotch. The Scotch have no such prejudice against English education, and the English forms of religion, as the Review attributes to them. On the contrary, they are delighted to hear these defended in the Quarterly from the malignant aspersions of their own Edinburgh reviewers so at least the enlightened and well-educated Scotchmen with whom I conversed uniformly represented themselves to be; and I believe them most sincerely. It is time that all this foolery should be at an end, and that people, who in fact are of the same way of thinking, should not be persuaded into supposing

themselves enemies to each other." p. 230.

Ibid,

This is really a fine passage. When we consider how difficult a thing it is to get rid of national prejudices of any kind, and more particularly, how deeprooted those prejudices are which men educated at Oxford commonly bear to wards the very name of Presbyterianism, we cannot refuse to Dr Morris the praise of having overcome his prejudices in a way that does equal honour to the perspicacity of his intellect, and the goodness of his heart. We trust the liberal and manly style in which he ex

presses these sentiments, may produce some effect on those for whose benefit he appears to have thrown them out. for example, this language of a man In regard to the Quarterly reviewers, who has shared the advantages of that system of education which they, properly no doubt, but too exclusively, prize and who shares, as is manifest from the whole tenor of his writing, all those principles, both political and religious, of which they are the powerful and energetic champions, ought not to be mere igra that leave no trace behind. In the very last number of their work, and in a pa per which is likely to produce, if indeed it have not already done so, a more decisive effect than any thing that has been written for many years, of British statesmen,-even in this adconcerning the parliamentary conduct mirable paper it is easy to perceive the marks of those very bigotries which this intelligent traveller has so eloquently condemned. What has Mr Brougham to do with Scotland? excepting that this gentleman received part of his education here, and figured for a few years among us, as he has since done among our neighbours, with his lean red bag, and acquired considerable notoriety in Edinburgh, by being one of the early supporters of the Edinburgh Review, we know of no connexion which subsists between Scotland and Mr Brougham. This

review calls him, is an Englishman, great statesman and lawyer," as the and we should be sorry to deprive England of the honour due to her soil for having produced him. We are persuaded, that the insolentignorance, and depraved coxcombry of Mr Brougham's behaviour in the matter of the education committee, has excited quite as universal, and quite as deep a feeling of disgust in Scotland as in England. He is now certainly in a low enough situation; but his Castigator might have placed him there without throwing any of the mud upon us, who are just as well pleased with the hu miliation of the Charlatan as the best Regius Professor among them all. But to proceed: The Doctor occupies the remainder of his first volume with a very animated description of various circles of private society into which he was introduced during his stay in Edinburgh. We might quote, from this part of the work, many passages

which could not fail to be highly interesting to our readers, such, for example, as his description of a blue stocking party, (tea and turn-out,) where he had the felicity to hear many very novel remarks on the poetry of Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Thomas Moore, and to meet with the Ettrick Shepherd in propriâ persona where he was favoured with a critical disquisition on things in general, by a fantastic Frenchman, who concluded his diatribe with these consolatory words, "I do very much approve Shakspeare"-where he was informed, by one old lady, that Buonaparte is a mere poltroon, and by another, that the march of intellect will infallibly render a reform in Parliament necessary within the next half-century, &c. &c. all very proper to be treasured up and remembered by any frequenter of Tabby at-homes, but dismissed with infinite scorn by Doctor Morris, who is a two-bottle man, and one of those, to use Madame Deffand's phrase, qui n'aiment pas la prose. There is also an excellent chapter on the bar of Scotland, wherein the Doctor has favoured us with most graphic and lively portraitures of Messrs Clerk, Cranstoun, Jeffrey, Cockburn, and several others of less note. There is also a very amusing account of a ball, which the Doctor seems to have been wonderfully delighted with, although he modestly declined participating in the more active part of its pleasures. The beauty of the Scotch young ladies has had few more fervent admirers than the Doctor; and although his delicacy has made him leave asterisks instead of names, the exquisite truth and feeling of some of his descriptions will easily enable those acquainted with our beau monde to discover what bright particular stars" they were, that most effectually dazzled his optics. All these passages, however, in spite of the in terest which we are aware they would give to our pages, we omit-for divers good and sufficient reasons, which the judicious will understand without any formal enunciation of them.

At Glasgow, the Doctor has his eyes about him quite as much as at Edinburgh; but although we well know there is nothing which could be more agreeable to our good friends of that city, than to hear at full length his opinion of them and all their out-go

ings and in-comings, the comparative small importance of these topics in the eyes of the rest of the world induces us to extract only a very few passages, and these perhaps not the most intensely characteristic or amusing. The following sketch, however, will be allowed, by all who have ever gone the western circuit, or had occasion in any other way to visit the capital of St Mungo, to be a picture from the life, and to the life.

"Mr

asked me to dine with him next day, and appointed me to meet him at the coffee-room or exchange, exactly at a quarter before 5 o'clock, from which place he said he would himself conduct me to his residence. My rendezvous is a very large, ill-shaped, low-roofed room, surrounded on all sides with green cane chairs, small tables, and newspapers, and opening by glass folding-doors, upon a paved piazza of some extent. This piazza is in fact the Exchange, but the business is done in the adjoining room, where all the merchants are to be seen at certain hours of the day, pacing up and down with more or less importance in their strut, according to the situation of their affairs, or the nature of the bargains of the day. I have seldom seen a more amusing medley. Although I had travelled only forty miles from Edinburgh, I could with difficulty persuade myself that I was still in the same kingdom. Such roaring! such cursing! such peals of discord! such laughter! such grotesque attitudes! such arrogance! such vulgar disregard of all courtesy to a stranger! Here was to be seen the counting-house blood, dressed in box-coat, belcher handkerchief, and top boots, or leather gaiters-discoursing (depol!) about brown sugar and genseng! Here was to be seen the counting-house dandy, with whalebone stays, stiff neckcloth, Surtout, Cossacks, a spur on his heel, a gold-headed cane on his wrist, and a Kent on his head

mincing primly to his brother dandy some Here was to be seen the counting-house question about Pullicat Handkerchiefs. bear, with a grin, and a voice like a glassblower. Here, above all, was to be seen the Glasgow literateur, striding in his corner, with a pale face and an air of exquisite abstraction, meditating, no doubt, some high paragraph for the chronicle, or perchance, some pamphlet against Dr Chalabundant varieties of folly and presumption mers! Here, in a word, were to be seen -abundant airs of plebeianism-I was now in the coffee-room of Glasgow.

will not introduce you to any of these cattle at dinner. No, sir, you must know that there are a few men of refinement and polite information in this city. I have warned two or three of these raræ aves, and, depend upon it, you shall have a very snug day's work. So saying, he took my arm, and observing that five was just on the chap, hurried me through several streets and lanes till we arrived in the where his house is situated. His wife was, I perceived, quite the fine lady, and withal a little of the blue-stocking. Hearing that I had just come from Edinburgh, she remarked that Glasgow would certainly be seen to much disadvantage after that elegant city. Indeed,' said she, ⚫ a person of taste must of course find many disagreeables connected with a residence in such a town as this; but Mr. -'s business renders the thing necessary for the present, and one cannot make a silk purse of a sow's ear-he, he, he !' Another lady of the company carried this affectation still further. She pretended to be quite ignorant of Glasgow and its inhabitants, although she had lived among them the greater part of her life-and, by the bye, she seemed to be no chicken. I was afterwards told by my friend, the major, that this damsel had in reality sojourned a winter or two at Edinburgh, in the capacity of lick-spittle, or toadeater, to a lady of quality, to whom she had rendered herself amusing by a malicious tongue; and that during this short absence she had embraced the opportunity of utterly forgetting every thing about the west country. But there would be no end of it were I to tell you all, &c.

"The dinner was excellent, although calculated apparently 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 superior-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 at 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 or 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 char

acter, thank Heaven! set the ladies out of the room. The moment after which blessed consummation, the butler and footman en-. tered 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 gentlemen 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 ar tist 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. Upon tasting it, I could not refuse the tribute of my warmest admiration to our accomplished artist-so cool, so balmy, so refreshing a compound of sweets and sours never before descended into my stomach. Had Mahomet, &c.

"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 -anarticle 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 trapall 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 intent, 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 noticed. 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 draw. ing-room) to congratulate myself as 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 very sorry to see any thing different from what they are. Among the most agreeable fellows I met with in the course of iny stay were the following," &c.-Vol. II. pp.

50-60.

We quote the following extraordinary passage respecting the university of Glasgow, in the confident expectation that the charge contained in it will be refuted by some one or other of the eloquent professors.

"The university of Glasgow consists, like that of Edinburgh, of one college, and contains, I am informed, almost as many students; but, in regard to the higher branches of education, it certainly bears, and deserves to bear, an inferior character. This is sin

gular, and must not be allowed to pass without remark. The college of Glasgow is a far older, more venerable, and infinitely richer institution than that of Edinburgh; it is situated in a rich town, and a most populous part of the country. It would, at first sight, seem to possess every advantage, but on inquiry I found that it makes very little use of those it does possess. I was much pleased with the first appearance of the college. It is a plain but respectable old building, not unlike some of our third rates at Cambridge and Oxford. The students are, in general, a miserable looking set of creatures, rough, ill-clad lads, with tattered red cloaks (like those of the Dames des Halles), having, in short, any air rather than that of studious ease and elegance. There are many clever fellows among them however, and indeed, during the first years of their attendance, I am informed they enjoy the best opportunities of cultivating their faculties-particularly under Professor John Young, who was an intimate friend of Porson and Burney, and probably would rank high, even among the scholars of England, were he removed thither,also, Dr Jardine, the professor of logic, who possesses, as I am told, a tact in directing the energies of young minds entirely peculiar to himself.

I have heard some other individual names among these professors mentioned with respect, but, as a body, I must say they were universally talked of, in my hearing, in terms of very little worship. Whether it be the air of the place, or the influence of example, this corporation has assumed, in all its ideas and conduct, the appearance of a petty mercantile house. The interests of science are very far, according to the report I heard, from being alone, or even uppermost, in the minds of Taylor and Co. (for so the Glasgow wags have christened the principal and professors). For example, the ground bequeathed as a garden to the university, has been lately appropria. ted to the personal use of the professors, where, instead of young men and boys enjoying innocent recreation or healthful exercise, no inhabitants are now to be seen, but ewes and wethers fattening for the tables of these epicurean philosophers. Nay, such is the spirit of encroachment that they have actually sold a considerable part of the soil, so that all around what used to be a kind of intellectual insula in the midst of this mercantile city, there are now springing up huge cotton-mills, soap-works, singeing-houses, &c.-so much for auri sacra fames !—I mention these things as I heard them." PP. 83-84.

Then follows a long history of the origin and characteristics of a species of wit peculiar to this mercantile city, and known in it by the name of gaggery; which we shall omit for the present, but hope soon to insert, with a running commentary, by some member of our fraternity better acquainted with the subject.-Next comes a very amusing and well written chapter on the state of religion in the west of Scotland, the original head-quarters of the Covenanters. Our author, as our readers are by this time prepared to expect, is pleased with the air of sincere but rational piety diffused over the countenances and manners of the peasantry, and describes the appearance of a country congregation in church, in a way that cannot fail to give delight to every reader whose heart is not corrupted and dead to the influences of all the finer parts of human nature. He spends a day or two in Clydesdale, at the house of an eminent clergyman, whom he met with at Glasgow; And accompanying his host to a meeting of the Presbytery, followed of course by an excellent dinner, and a moderate allowance of whisky-toddy, he breaks out into an eulogy of the clergy of our church, their simple manner of living, their unwearied exertions in doing good, and last, but not least in the

Doctor's estimation, their eminent qualifications as pleasant companions over the bowl-all in such a style of warm and affectionate eloquence, that we think the Presbytery of Hamilton ought really to present the Doctor with a ram'shorn snuff-mill, or some other suitable token of their gratitude. But, indeed, we doubt not this hint from us is entirely superfluous.

On his way back to Edinburgh, the Doctor visits many remarkable spots, alike interesting from the beauty with which they have been clothed by the hand of nature, and the memory of great deeds done there;

"Battle and siege, in the old time When Caledon was in her prime." Among these are, of course, Bothwell castle, which Aymer de Valence defended against Sir William WallaceBothwell-bridge, rendered immortal by the achievements of Dalyell and Burleigh-and Morningside, that sequestered romantic field, where the gratitude of posterity has consecrated a superb fountain to the never-sufficiently-to-be-applauded valour of the Gudeman of Allantoun. After driving his shandrydan, at a slow and reverential pace, three times around this great national monument, the Doctor alights, and having procured a stone bottle from a cottage in the neighbourhood, he fills this vessel with the water of Morningside well, in the view of presenting it, on the conclusion of his travels, to the museum of the college about to be founded in Wales by the excellent Bishop of St Davids. The HMA ΠΕΛΩΡΙΟΝ ΗΡΩΟΣ is then left in the distance, but the effect of the visit is such, that the enthusiastic mind of the Doctor does not quite recover its tone till he once more finds himself opposite the door of Mr Oman's Hotel, in Edinburgh. And here, for the present, we must bid adieu to this intelligent traveller. His book is a valuable present to the people of England and Wales, for it furnishes the only graphical and trust-worthy sketches of the present

manners and society of Scotland, which they have it in their power to peruse. To make any lengthened comments on Doctor Morris's style would be superfluous, after the jvery copious extracts which we have given. He is singularly free from that pas sion for fine writing which infects most modern tourists. He never goes about the bush for a phraze, but seems resolved to express his mean ing in the most brief," and direct, and precise manner. His compliments

have an air of sincerity about them which must additionally endear, the Doctor to those who had the pleasure of knowing him personally during his stay among us; although, indeed, from the way in which we hear him talked of at a club of which he became a member when in Edinburgh,_for this there is no occasion. The Doctor is a keen satirist too, but as, in general, he does not seem to bestow his cuts except where they are pretty well merited, we, for our parts, are very willing to pass over this little failing in a countryman of our old friend Matthew Bramble.

To show that our admiration of the Doctor is sincere, we shall now mention a small circumstance which, from feelings of delicacy, we omitted to speak of in its proper place. We ourselves occupied a great share of the Doctor's attention during his visit, and he has dedicated a whole chapter to the character of our miscellany. He pays us many fine compliments, no doubt; but we must be honest enough to confess, that he gives us now and then a pretty severe sarcasm into the bargain. The compliments and the sarcasms we take alike in good part, and can only say, that we hope he will dine with us at Ambrose's the next time he comes-when we have no doubt we shall easily convince him that there is much less difference between our way of thinking and his, upon most subjects, than he is at present aware of. M. M. Seafield Baths, Feb. 18th 1819.