absolute admirer of their physiognomies; at least, I am sensible, that the slight repugnance I felt for them at first, bas already very considerably given way.

What the Scottish physiognomists are used to talk of, with the highest satisfaction, is the air of superior intelligence stamped on the faces of their countrymen of the lower orders of society; and indeed there is no question, a Scottish peasant, with his long dry visage, his sharp prominent cheekbones, his grey twinkling eyes, and peaked chin, would seem a very Argus, if set up close beside the sleek and ponderous chubbiness of a Gloucestershire farmer-to say nothing of the smarter and ruddier oiliness of some of our own country folks. As to the matter of a mere acuteness, however, I think I have seen faces in Yorkshire, at least a match for any thing to be found farther to the north. But the mere shrewdness of the Scotch peasant's face, is only one part of its expression; it has other things, I should imagine, even more peculiarly characteristic.

The best place to study their faces in is the kirk; it is there that the sharpness of their discernment is most vehemently expressed in every line-for they are all critics of the sermon, and even of the prayers; but it is there also that this sharpness of feature is most frequently seen to melt away before emotions of a nobler order, which are no less peculiarly, though far less pertinently theirs. It is to me a very interesting thing to witness the struggle that seems to be perpetually going on between the sarcastic and reverential elements of their disposition---how bitterly they seem to rejoice in their own strength, when they espy, or think they espy, some chink in the armour of their preacher's reasoning; and then with what sudden humility they appear to bow themselves into the dust, before some single solitary gleam of warm affectionate eloquence the only weapon they have no power to resist. If I mistake not, it is in this mixture of sheer speculative and active hard-headedness, with the capacity of so much lofty enthusiasm concerning things intangible, that we must seek for the true differential quality of the Scottish peasants. I shall have abundant occasion to return to this hereafter.

The gentlemen of this part of the country have assuredly by no means the same advantages over those of the south, which the Scotch peasants have over the English. I know not altogether to what these advantages enjoyed by the lower orders may be owing ;-their better education is of course the

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first and most obvious source; their more sterile soil—and, consequently, their less luxurious life, may be others almost as efficient. Above all, the picturesque aspect of their ever various landscapes, cannot fail to exert a powerful influence on the opening mind of their youth. But in some of these things, at least, the peasantry of particular districts in England share abundantly, and I think there are some pretty extensive tracts on the continent where the whole of these circumstances, are very nearly so, are found acting together, without producing any such similarity of effect as might have been expected. I suspect that we must go farther back if we would arrive at any satisfactory solution. Of this too hereafter.

The gentry, however, have no pretensions to a more intelligent exterior than their neighbours of the south. The truth is, that certain indications of worldly quicksightedness, which please on the face, and the air of a peasant, produce quite a different effect when exhibited in the case of a person of superior rank. One rather wishes to see these things kept under in the appearance of a person of education, than suspects their non-existence in the totality of bis character. Without wanting their due proportion of the national enthusiasm, the Scottish gentry seem to show much fewer symptoms of it than those below them; and this is a sufficiently natural_result of their sense of their own comparative importance. It is a result, notwithstanding, which tends to make any thing but a favourable impression on the mind of a stranger.

High and low, they are, for the most part, a race of tall, well-formed people; active of limb, and powerful of muscle; leaner by far than the English :-(for here a very fat man is stared at, and one of such bulk as is met with at every corner in London, must, it would seem, lay his account with a little quizzing from all his friends on the subject of his obesity.) In their gait and gestures, they have neither the vivacity of the Frenchman, nor the noble gravity of the Spaniard, nor the stable heavy vigour of the Englishman; but a certain grotesque mixture of elasticity and sedateness, which is sufficient to prove their descent from a hardy and warlike set of marauders, the effects of whose subathric existence have not yet been washed out by any great influx of idleness or luxury; and, at the same time, under favour, to remind one with what zeal these progenitors exerted all their energies, in behalf of the most taciturn species of fanaticism that was ever made subservient to the pur

poses of ghostly ambition. When a man visits France, whether he be a believer or a despiser of the doctrine of the Spurzheims, he must look long around him before he can find any face which he could imagine to be the property of one lineally sprung from the loins of the Bayards and the Duguesclins, or, if you will, of the Harlays, and the Du Thous. But bere the deterioration of the species, if such there be, has scarcely begun to tell upon their physiognomies; and you meet, at every step, persons who have that about them which would prevent you from being at all astonished, if you should be told immediately afterwards, that they could trace themselves, without difficulty, to the Burleighs and the Claverhouses,---I had almost said, the Bell-the-Cats, and the Kirkpatricks.

I have not, as yet, seen a great deal of the women. Those, even of the peasantry, seem, when young, to be comely and well-complexioned; but it is a great mistake to suppose that they are fairer than with us. And yet the testimony of travellers cannot be entirely despised; and if their report is in any degree a correct one, light hair, and light eyes, were almost universal at no very remote period. This is a circumstance that has often appeared to me to be very inadequately accounted for; I mean the great and remarkable change that has taken place in the complexions not only of the Scotch, but of the English, and indeed of all the Gothic nations of Europe. When the Romans first became acquainted with the Germans and the Britons, there can be no question that both the gentlemen and the ladies of those nations had yellow locks and blue eyes; and you have heard, no doubt, that the Roman belles, stimulated, it is to be suspected, by the stories of their campaigning husbands and lovers, endeavoured, by a thousand tricks of the toilette, to muster charms as nearly as they could in the same taste. You well know, that the Messalinas and Poppaas used to cut off the finest black curls in the world, to make room for false tetes manufactured from the hair of the poor girls of the Sicambri and the Batavi, while others strove to produce the same sort of effect by means of hair-powder made of gold-dust, and washes, of more cunning chemistry than I would undertake to describe. Even in far later times, so late as Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Erasmus and Paul Henztner represent the ladies of England as being, with very few exceptions, blondes; and such, if voyagers of less illustrious reputation " may be in aught believed,"

not much above a hundred years ago, were the far greater portion of the beaux and belles of Scotland.

"Sandy-haired" is still one of the standing epithets applied to the ideal Scot, by all inexperienced persons, who introduce any description of him into novels or satires-witness Churchill, and a thousand of less note; and I confess, that I was myself prepared to find the case much more as they have represented it, than I really have done. By looking around me at home, and remembering what the old writers had said of ourselves, I might have learned to be more suspicious of their accuracy; but the truth is, I had never taken the pains to think much about the matter. In fact, they are now as far from being a light-haired people as we are. I amused myself (God forgive me) with counting the number of fair heads last Sunday in a very crowded church, and, I assure you, they did not amount to one in fifty. There are far more people here with locks of all but Israelitish blackness, than of any shade that could with propriety be called either white, yellow, or red; and the general hues are exactly the same variations of brown, between Bistre and burnt Sienna, which we are accustomed to in the south.

I was at a large party yesterday evening--the first sight I have had of the gay world here--and had an opportunity of viewing, at my leisure, all the fashionable belles of the town. You always accuse me of being too undistinguishing an admirer; but I am sure, even you would have allowed that there was no want of beauty. It is many years since I have been familiar with the beau monde of London, but I do not believe I ever in any one evening there, saw a greater number of fine women and of very different kinds too. I had heard before I went that I should see Miss *****, the same celebrated star of whom you have so often heard Sir Thomas speak, and who, indeed, cannot show herself any where, even in this unromantic age, without leaving an uneffaceable impression on all that behold her. I confess the description the knight used to give of her appeared to me to be a little high-flown; but "seeing is believing"-the world has assuredly only one *****. I looked round a room crowded with lovely women, but my eye was fixed in a moment; and I never thought of asking which was she. The first view I had was a profile. I had no suspicion that nature could still form countenances upon that heavenly model. The fore

head, high and clear, decends almost without a curve into the nose, and that again drops into the mouth with such bold defined elegance of lineament, as I should scarcely have believed to be copied from living beauty, had I met with it in some masterpiece of sculpture. The lips have such a delicate precision of form, and such an expression of divine simplicity in their smile, that one could almost believe they had never admitted any grosser diet than ambrosia; but the full oval sweep of the cheek and chin, and the mode in which these are carried down into the neck, are, perhaps, the most truly antique parts of the whole. And then such hair-such long luxurious tresses of radiant brown, braided with such serene grace upon that meek forehead! If you have seen Canova's testa d'Helena, you may form some notion of those most exquisite curls. The colour of her eyes I could not ascertain; I suspect they are dark grey, or hazel; but the redundant richness of her eye-lashes gives them all that glossy splendour which oriental beauties borrow from their Sirmé. But, indeed, colour is a small matter in eyes enchased so deeply beneath such majestic brows. I think Lucretius himself would have admitted, that the spirit must be immortal on which so glorious a tenement has been bestowed!

With this divine exception, I must do the men the justice to say, that the most beautiful women in the room were all matrons. Had she been absent, there were two or three of these on whom all my enthusiasm might well have been expended; and one, Mrs. ******, whose graceful majesty was such, that when I met her next evening in a smaller assembly, I almost began to suspect myself in having been too exclusive in my deification. But I have already said more than I should have ventured on to almost any other of your sex-a great deal more than I should have dared to write, far less speak, to my cousin to whom I beg you will present the humble duty of

Her slave, &c. &c.

P. M.

P. S. By way of pleasing Jane, you may tell her that I do not think the Scottish ladies are at all good dressers. They are very gorgeous-I never saw such a display of crimson velvet, and ostrich feathers, and diamond necklaces, except once at a birth-day. But the fashions have a long

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