surance to attempt a quadrille-a dance which seems to have made still less progress here than in Edinburgh, for it appeared to be hailed and applauded as a kind of wonder. The moment the set was formed, which took place in a smaller apartment communicating with the great dancing-room, the whole of the company crowded to see it, and soon formed a complete serried phalanx of gazers all about the performers. Nay, such was the enthusiastic curiosity of some of the ladies in particular, that they did not scruple to get upon their feet on the benches and sofas all around the wall-from which commanding situation there is no question they had a better opportunity both of seeing and being seen. At some of the pauses in the dance, the agility of the figurantes was rewarded, not with silent breathings of admiration-but with loud roars of hoarse delight, and furious clapping of hands and drumming of heels all about-nor did these violent raptures of approbation appear to give the slightest uneasiness to those in whose honour they were displayed. In short, my dear Potts the last glimmering twilight hour of the Lord Mayor's ball, when the dregs of civic finery gesticulate, as is their will and pleasure, beneath the dying chandeliers in the Egyptian Hall even that horrible hour is nothing to the central and most ambitious display of this "at home" of Mrs.

It is needless for me to give you any more particulars-You will comprehend at one glance what kind of scenes you would be introduced to, were you condescending enough to vouchsafe your presence for a week or two at the Buck's-Head. You will comprehend what a sensation you would create both among the males and the females-with what clear undisputed supremacy you would shine the only luminary in this their night of unknowingness. Should you not approve of my Edinburgh widow---you would only need to look around you, and drop the handkerchief to any one of the undisposed of, of the Glasgow ladies. Beauties they have some---heisesses they have many. The lower cushion of the tilbury would be pressed in a twinkling by any upon whom you might cast the glances of your approbation. I speak this the more boldly, because I observed that the Glasgow fair treated one or two young heavy dragoons from Hamilton Barracks, who happened to be present at this ball, with a kind of attention quite superior to any thing they bestowed on their own indigenous Dandies. The most audacious coxcombry of the cits had no chance beside the more modest

coxcombry of these Enniskillings. But, my dear fellow, what can the Enniskillings produce that could sustain a moment's comparison with the untainted, unprofessional, thorough-bred Bond-Street graces of a Potts? Those true -Cupidinis arma,"

66 quæ tuto fæmina nulla videt."

I pledge myself, that in the ball-rooms of Edinburgh, still more indisputedly and alone in those of Glasgow, your fascinations will be surfeited with excess of homage.

"Nulla est quæ lumina, tanta, tanta,

Posset luminibus suis tueri

Non statim trepidansque, palpitansque," &c,

If the old proverb hold true, veniunt a veste sagitta, I promise you there would not be many whole hearts the morning after you had danced your first pas seul on the floor of the Glasgow Assembly rooms.

爨

Ever very truly yours,

P.M.

LETTER LXXI.

TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS.

THE chief defect in the society of this place is, specifically, pretty much the same as in every provincial town I have ever visited; but I think it seems to be carried to a greater length here than any where else. This defect consists in nothing more than an extreme fondness for small jokes and nicknames -the wit of the place being almost entirely expended in these ingenious kinds of paltrinesses;-its object being, as it would appear, never to give pleasure to the present, otherwise than by throwing impertinent stigmas on the absent. Almost every person of the least importance is talked of, in familiar conversation, not by his proper name, but by some absurd designation, borrowed from some fantastical view of his real or imaginary peculiarities. It is really distressing to see how much countenance this vulgar kind of practice receives, even from the best of those one meets with here; but the most amusing part of the thing is, that each is aware of the existence of every nickname but his own, and rejoices in making use of it, little thinking that the moment his back is turned, he is himself subjected to the very same kind of treat ment from those who have been joining in his laugh.

Another favourite species of Glasgow wit, however, is exercised in the presence of the individuals against whom it is levelled; and it is not to be denied, that there is much more both of ingenuity and of honesty in this species. I believe I should rather say there are two such kinds of wit---at least I have heard familiar use of two separate designations for their quizzing. I do not pretend to have analyzed the matter very closely; but, so far as I have been able to comprehend it, the case stands thus :--

In every party at Glasgow, as soon as the punch has levelled the slight barriers of civil ceremony which operate while the cloth remains on the table, the principal amusement of the company consists in the wit of some practised punster, who has been invited chiefly with an eye to this sort of exhibition, (from which circumstances he derives his own nickname of a side-dish,) and who, as a fiddler begins to scrape his strings at the nod of his employer, opens his battery against some inoffensive butt on the opposite side of the table, on a signal, express or implied, from the master of the feast. I say some punster, for punning seems to be the absolute sine qua non of every Glasgow definition of wit; in whatever way, or on whatever subject, the wit is exerted, it is pretty sure to clothe itself in a garniture of more or less successful calembourgs; and some of the practitioners, I must admit, display very singular skill in their honourable vocation.

There are two ways, as I have hinted, in which the punning side-dish may perform the office in behalf of which he has been invited to partake of the less offensive good things that are going on the occasion; and for each of these ways there exists an appropriate and expressive term in the jocular vocabulary of the place. The first is Gagging; it signifies, as its name may lead you to suspect, nothing more than the thrusting of absurdities, wholesale and retail, down the throat of some too-credulous gaper. Whether the Gag come in the shape of a compliment to the Gagge, some egregious piece of butter, which would at once be rejected by any mouth more sensitive than that for whose well-known swallow it is intended,--or some wonderful story, gravely delivered with every circumstance of apparent seriousness, but evidently involving some sheer impossibility in the eyes of all but the obtuse individual who is made to suck it in with the eagerness of a starved weanling,--or, in whatever other way

the Gag may be disguised, the principle of the joke is the same in its essence; and the solemn triumph of the Gagger, and the grim applause of the silent witnesses of his dexterity, are alike visible in their sparkling eyes. A few individuals, particularly skilled in this elegant exercise, have erected themselves into a club, the sole object of which is its more sedulous and constant cultivation. This club takes the name of "the Gagg College," and I am sorry to tell you some of the very first men in the town (· I am told is one) have not disdained to be matriculated in its paltry Album. The seat of this enlighted University is in an obscure tavern or oyster-house; and bere its eminent professors may always be found at the appointed hours, engaged in communicating their precious lore to a set of willing disciples, or sharpening their wits in more secret conclave among themselves-sparring as it were in their gloves- giving blows to each other more innocent, no doubt, than those which are reserved for the uninitiated.

The second species is called Trotting-but I have not learned that any peculiar institution has been entirely set apart for its honour and advancement. It is cultivated, however, with eminent industry, at all the common clubs of the place, such as the Banditti, the Dirty-Shirt, the What-you-please, &c. &c. The idea to which its name points, (although somewhat obscurely perhaps you will think,) is that picturesque exhibition of the peculiar properties of a horse, which occurs when the unfortunate individual of that race about to be sold, is made to trot hard upon the rough stones of a Mews-lane, kicking up and showing his paces before the intending purchaser, in presence of a grinning circle of sagacious grooms, jockeys, and black-legs. You have seen such an exhibition. You have seen the agent of the proprietor seize the noble Houyhnmm by the white string fastened to his martingale, and urging him by hand and voice, to stretch bis nerves and muscles to the cracking point-capering and flinging along as if the devil or the ginger were in him, till smack he comes against the brick wall at the end of the lane, where he is drawn suddenly up-his four extremities with difficulty collecting themselves so as to keep him upright upon the smooth round glossy knobs of granite, over which they have been moving with so much agility. You have seen the poor creature turned right about after the first trot-and compelled, invita Minerva, to a second no less brisk and galling to a third-and to a fourth-while all the time the

eyes of those concerned are fixed with Argus-like pertinaeity on every quiver of his baunches. You have observed, above all, the air of pride and satisfaction, with which the generous animal sometimes goes through the trial-snuffing up the air with his nostrils-heaving his mane-and lashing the wind with bis tail---and throwing superfluous vigour into all the ligaments of his frame at every step he takes---little knowing for what mean purposes the exhibition is intended--rejoicing with an innocent glee in the very acmé and agony of his degradation.

Even such is the condition of the poor Glasgow Trottee, upon whom some glorious master of the whip fastens his eye of cruelty, and his hand of guidance. He begins, perhaps, with a slight and careless assent to some unimportant remark, or a moderate response of laughter to some faint feeble joke, uttered by the devoted victim of his art. By degrees the assent becomes warmer, and the laughter louder---till at length the good simple man begins to think himself full surely either a wise man or a wit, as the case may be. It is not easy to say in which case the diversion afforded may be the most exquisitely delightful---whether it is most pleasing to see a dull man plunging on from depth to depth of grave drivelling, and finding in the lowest depth a lower still-laying down the law at last with the very pomp of a Lycurgus, on subjects of which he knows not, nor is ever likely to know, anything-his stupid features, with every new dictum of his newly-discovered omniscience, assuming some new addition of imposing solemnity---his forehead gathering wrinkles, and bis eye widening in its lack-lustre glimmer as he goes on; it is not easy, I say, to decide whether this exhibition of gravity be more or less delightful, than that of the more frisky and frolicksome Trottee, who is, for the first time in his life, made to imagine himself a wit, and sets about astounding those who gaze upon him by a continually increasing nimbleness, and alacrity of inept levities-pointless puns-and edgeless sarcasms--bimself all the while dying with laughter at the conceptions of his own wonder-working fancy-first and loudest in the cachinnation which is at once the reward and punishment of his folly. I must own that the evil principle was strong enough within me to make me witness the first two or three exhibitions of this sort of festivity with not a little satisfaction---I smiled, instigante plane Diabolo, and not baving the fear of the like before my eyes. On an after occasion, however, one of the most formidable of the practi