GLASGOW GRAND DINNER.

The first thing that arrested them, especially the old gentleman, was the grcat blaze of lig w ht in the !ipartments. The next thing that riveted the attention was t. e finery, the prodigious finery of the ladies. The old gentleman thought that a whole warehouse must have been emptied to furnish it ; and Solomon was sure it would have stocked every haberdasher's shop in the town of Dullborough or Llangollen for a month.

The ladies all sat silent, winch upset the theories of the old gentleman on female loquacity ; and they appenred stiff, which he accounted for on the score of a prudential fear that too much motion might crumple their gauze dresses, or bring dn ow a knot of riband from its conspicuous position on a full-mooned muslin -tiara.

Their gowns were so deeoronsly long that he could only observe one or two rather large feet, and not very slender ankles, as supporters of the female form. The gentlemen were grouped in the middle of the room, all scrupulously dressed in shoes and silk stockings. They had inexpressildes tied at the knees, exhibiting brawny calves ; and their cravats made a considerable display of white muslin, tied an not a very precise fashion under their chins. But guess, if you can, the astonishment of both guests, (for there was a great sympathr between the 0111 gentleman and young Solomon,) when setting them- selves to'listen to the whispering hum of the conversation, they found that, with the simple substitution of Scotch accent for English dialect, they might as well have been in the midst of their "travelling" companions at the George.

"Rums is up, Muscovados is down ; yarns is a shade higher, and calicoes a bawbee lower ; gingham is rather lookin better, an' jacconots is a little fawn— taw frica' the Baillie's bandanas is a perfect drug."

These, and such remarks as these, in succession too quick to be copied even by a writer of short-hand, made up the conversation of the Glasgovr gentlemen. " Have you heard," said the Lord Provost, "o' the arrival o the Demerara frac Demerara wi' a cargo o' sugars ? "'Od, they say they're the bonniest sugars that's been in the market this monv a day. " i've gotten sonic real tine limes by her, and by our friend Douglas's first ship frac Jamaica I'm promised sonic ince mold rum. " By the way, Neebor Nome, our joint speck in yullicats has turned out but puir concern. They'll no pay cost and charges.'

MR. MACMUNNY ON

" Noo, what do I see in the wadi', in spite o' a' the books that's been written about it ?

" Why, that the great, ay the exclusive aim o' man is to get siller. " Some speak about fame ; but it's sitter they a' want.

" It's o' nee use to degrade this word by ea'in't mammon. " If mammon it be, we're a' worshippers o' him ; an' its nonsense to tell me, (begging your pardon,) that the merchant stoops lower at his shrine than Day ither body.

"Will your clever advocate undertale a cause without a fee ? Will he he sittin' up a' night in his dimmers for reputation's or for justice's sake ? "Will the doctor gang an' see a deem' body without expectation o' fee or reward ?

"What do men draw pictures for ?—It's a' for oilier.

"What do statesmen, ay, even your pawtrits, male' speeches for ?—Just for silk r.

"The fine author that writes a sentimental novel, what is he thinkin' o' 2— Biller.

" Would he write it for naething ? " Na, na ; he maim gang to his publisher wi' his goods just as I gang to lady wi' mine. "Oh! hut ye'll may be soy there's a class ahoon them. "There's your landed gentry and your aristocracy. " Wed l ; will they let a farm to a puir man for naething ? "If they will, ye shall Imo for nacthing my hale stock in trod."

Here is a curious remark in another way.

LANGUAGES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

It is worthy of remerk, that there is no civilized countrv in Europe in which not only so many different dialects prevail bat so many afferent languages as in Great Britain.

Yorkshire has its peculiar dialect, Lancashire, Northumberland, Cumberland, theirs. The peasant of Worcestershire understands not him of Westmore- land; and still less can he of the latter county hold any intelligible communi- cation with the Cockney.

In the vicinity of Cambridge, if you talk good English to a labouring man or small filmier, they touch their hats, beg your pardon, and passing on, in evident reluctance to continue the conversation, avow themselves to be " no scholars."

In Scotland the dialects, and especially the twangs, are as various as in Eng- land. Your native of' Aberdeen understands not him of Glasgow; and your Paisley " buddy," learned in politics and cunning at the loom, gapes, stares, and looks unutterable astonishment, when he is addressed by a num of Tweed- dale.

The Irish are more uniform in their dialect when they do speak English ; the thing chiefly remarkable in them being the accent.

All this is anomalous but not so much so as the fact that we have, in the two islands denominated Great Britain and Ireland, five distinct languages cut

Up into so many dialects that it would be endless to enumerate them. There is the English language properly so called; the Scotch language ; and there are the Cache, the NI efsla and the, Irish languages. We have hitherto omitted to notice one point which Mr. Ro- BERTSOX seems to have had in view in the composition of Solomon Seesaw ; and that is, he says, to portray national character. Upon all he does, or all he advances upon this subject, however, we sus- pect he is thoroughly wrong. He does not so much portray Scotch character, as copy dialect and provincial manners. It may be doubted whether strongly - marked national characteristics are essential to a good work—perhaps they rather detract from it, as giving it too local an air : but whetber this be so or not, the writer who thoroughly understands life, and properly imitates it, will give as much as he finds in his original. Neither is the exhibition of national characteristics so difficult as Mr. ROBERT- soN supposes, or the execution so rare. Mr. MORIER in his Ayesha portrayed the Turks with considerable success ; several Anglo-Indian writers have touched off the Hindoos ; WASHING.. TON IRVING'S nephew has truly, though slightly, limned the Red Indians; and, besides others, even Mr. CHORLEV has caught with considerable felicity the manner in which the nation and the play- house operate upon individual idiosyncracy. Equally do we differ With Mr. ROBERTSON when he says that SHAKSPERE'S leading cha- racters "are of no particular nation or time." On the contrary, we conceive that "jealousy as exhibited in Othello—revenge as portrayed in Iago," though no doubt "characteristics of our species," could not have existed in a similar mode under circum- stances different from what SHAESPERE has drawn. Ile has not indeed given to Othello the sentiments of a West Indian slave, or made him speak the broken patois of a " nigger ; " but he has paid the exactest attention to national peculiarities, both in the social position and character of the Moor. Othello is the generalissimo of a state, which always largely employed foreigners in its armies, and (except in its earlier periods) rarely intrusted the command to a native ; this state, too, being partly Oriental in its character and in close relations with Mauritania and the East. The traits of an African and an uncivilized man are as deeply ingrained in him as it is possible. His superstition, occasionally peeping out, and showing itself strongly in the value attached to the handkerchief, seems unnecessary to forward the story, but is highly characteristic of the N.!gro or the Moor. The credulity which induces him to believe all the tales he had beard of

"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders,"

and implicitly to credit logo's artful insinuations or bold asser- tions, is another striking mark of uncivilized nature. His igno- rance of Italian social usages, not only shows the foreigner, but the individual foreigner Othello, who had passed his whole life in the "tented field." His quick suspicion, his vehement jealousy, his constant recurrence to the matters which have roused him, brooding over them, but not searching into them, yet attaching to them a cumulative weight of evidence, are all characteristic of Southern, some of African blood : so is his deputing Iago to.mur- der Cassio, which a Frank or Northman would most probably have taken upon himself. The insinuating plausibility of Iago and his recklessly determined revenge seem to us purely Italian ; as his indifference to human life—indeed the general indifference of seve- ral of the persons throughout—strongly marks the Italian of the middle ages.