Glencairn, to appease her gathering wrath and holy indignation, said
facetiously, "Na, na, Mrs. Glibbans, ye forget, there was nae

changing of money there. The man took the whole guineas. But not
to make a controversy on the subject, Mr. Snodgrass will now let us

hear what Andrew Pringle, 'my son,' has said to him":- And the
reverend gentleman read the following letter with due

circumspection, and in his best manner:-
LETTER X

Andrew Pringle, Esq., to the Reverend Charles Snodgrass
My Dear Friend--I have heard it alleged, as the observation of a

great traveller, that the manners of the higher classes of society
throughout Christendom are so much alike, that national

peculiarities among them are scarcely perceptible. This is not
correct; the differences between those of London and Edinburgh are

to me very striking. It is not that they talk and perform the
little etiquettes of social intercoursedifferently; for, in these

respects, they are apparently as similar as it is possible for
imitation to make them; but the difference to which I refer is an

indescribable something, which can only be compared to peculiarities
of accent. They both speak the same language; perhaps in classical

purity of phraseology the fashionable Scotchman is even superior to
the Englishman; but there is a flatness of tone in his accent--a

lack of what the musicians call expression, which gives a local and
provincial effect to his conversation, however, in other respects,

learned and intelligent. It is so with his manners; he conducts
himself with equal ease, self-possession, and discernment, but the

flavour of the metropolitan style is wanting.
I have been led to make these remarks by what I noticed in the

guests whom I met on Friday at young Argent's. It was a small
party, only five strangers; but they seemed to be all particular

friends of our host, and yet none of them appeared to be on any
terms of intimacy with each other. In Edinburgh, such a party would

have been at first a little cold; each of the guests would there
have paused to estimate the characters of the several strangers

before committing himself with any topic of conversation. But here,
the circumstance of being brought together by a mutual friend,

produced at once the purest gentlemanly confidence; each, as it
were, took it for granted, that the persons whom he had come among

were men of education and good-breeding, and, without deeming it at
all necessary that he should know something of their respective

political and philosophical principles, before venturing to speak on
such subjects, discussed frankly, and as things unconnected with

party feelings, incidental occurrences which, in Edinburgh, would
have been avoided as calculated to awaken animosities.

But the most remarkable feature of the company, small as it was,
consisted of the difference in the condition and character of the

guests. In Edinburgh the landlord, with the scrupulous care of a
herald or genealogist, would, for a party, previously unacquainted

with each other, have chosen his guests as nearly as possible from
the same rank of life; the London host had paid no respect to any

such consideration--all the strangers were as dissimilar in fortune,
profession, connections, and politics, as any four men in the class

of gentlemen could well be. I never spent a more delightful
evening.

The ablest, the most eloquent, and the most elegant man present,
without question, was the son of a saddler. No expense had been

spared on his education. His father, proud of his talents, had
intended him for a seat in Parliament; but Mr. T- himself prefers

the easy enjoyments of private life, and has kept himself aloof from
politics and parties. Were I to form an estimate of his

qualifications to excel in public speaking, by the clearness and
beautiful propriety of his colloquial language, I should conclude

that he was still destined to perform a distinguished part. But he
is content with the liberty of a private station, as a spectator

only, and, perhaps, in that he shows his wisdom; for undoubtedly
such men are not cordially received among hereditary statesmen,

unless they evince a certain suppleness of principle, such as we
have seen in the conduct of more than one political adventurer.

The next in point of effect was young C- G-. He evidently
languished under the influence of indisposition, which, while it

added to the natural gentleness of his manners, diminished the
impression his accomplishments would otherwise have made. I was

greatly struck with the modesty with which he offered his opinions,
and could scarcely credit that he was the same individual whose

eloquence in Parliament is by many compared even to Mr. Canning's,
and whose firmness of principle is so universally acknowledged, that

no one ever suspects him of being liable to change. You may have
heard of his poem "On the Restoration of Learning in the East," the

most magnificent prize essay that the English Universities have
produced for many years. The passage in which he describes the

talents, the researches, and learning of Sir William Jones, is
worthy of the imagination of Burke; and yet, with all this oriental

splendour of fancy, he has the reputation of being a patient and
methodical man of business. He looks, however, much more like a

poet or a student, than an orator and a statesman; and were
statesmen the sort of personages which the spirit of the age

attempts to represent them, I, for one, should lament that a young
man, possessed of so many amiable qualities, all so tinted with the

bright lights of a fine enthusiasm, should ever have been removed
from the moon-lighted groves and peaceful cloisters of Magdalen

College, to the lamp-smelling passages and factious debates of St.
Stephen's Chapel. Mr. G- certainly belongs to that high class of

gifted men who, to the honour of the age, have redeemed the literary
character from the charge of unfitness for the concerns of public

business; and he has shown that talents for affairs of state,
connected with literary predilections, are not limited to mere

reviewers, as some of your old class-fellows would have the world to
believe. When I contrast the quiet unobtrusive development of Mr.

G-'s character with that bustling and obstreperous elbowing into
notice of some of those to whom the Edinburgh Review owes half its

fame, and compare the pure and steady lustre of his elevation, to
the rocket-like aberrations and perturbed blaze of their still

uncertain course, I cannot but think that we have overrated, if not
their ability, at least their wisdom in the management of public

affairs.
The third of the party was a little Yorkshire baronet. He was

formerly in Parliament, but left it, as he says, on account of its
irregularities, and the bad hours it kept. He is a Whig, I

understand, in politics, and indeed one might guess as much by
looking at him; for I have always remarked, that your Whigs have

something odd and particular about them. On making the same sort of
remark to Argent, who, by the way, is a high ministerial man, he

observed, the thing was not to be wondered at, considering that the
Whigs are exceptions to the generality of mankind, which naturally

accounts for their being always in the minority. Mr. T-, the
saddler's son, who overheard us, said slyly, "That it might be so;

but if it be true that the wise are few compared to the multitude of
the foolish, things would be better managed by the minority than as

they are at present."
The fourth guest was a stock-broker, a shrewdcompound, with all

charity be it spoken, of knavery and humour. He is by profession an
epicure, but I suspect his accomplishments in that capacity are not

very well founded; I would almost say, judging by the evident traces
of craft and dissimulation in his physiognomy, that they have been

assumed as part of the means of getting into good company, to drive
the more earnest trade of money-making. Argent evidently understood

his true character, though he treated him with jocular familiarity.
I thought it a fine example of the intellectual tact and superiority

of T-, that he seemed to view him with dislike and contempt. But I
must not give you my reasons for so thinking, as you set no value on

my own particular philosophy; besides, my paper tells me, that I
have only room left to say, that it would be difficult in Edinburgh

to bring such a party together; and yet they affect there to have a
metropolitancharacter. In saying this, I mean only with reference

to manners; the methods of behaviour in each of the company were
precisely similar--there was no eccentricity, but only that distinct

and decidedindividuality which nature gives, and which no acquired
habits can change. Each, however, was the representative of a