The Author has also been much gratified by receiving the following Note from JAS. SMITH, Esq. of Jordanhill, a gentleman who has long been esteemed the first literary character in this quarter—himself the author of two most valuable works-who resided with his family for some years in Spain, Italy, and other Mediterranean Districts; and who, from his talents, manners, and status, has been ever the associate of the most distinguished for rank and literary attainments of the land: BRANDON, 6th June. MY DEAR SIR, I have read your "Letters on Italy," etc., with much pleasure; in fact, I could not lay the book down till I finished it. No traveller has given so true a picture of the upper life of the Italians as you have done, because none have, like you, mixed in it. I met your friend, the Duchess of Lanti, in society; still a beauty, and leading in her chains Prince Borghese. I am always, MY DEAR MR. MACGILL, Yours most truly, (Signed) JAS. SMITH. LETTERS. LETTER FIRST. PISA, July, 18-. MY DEAR KNOWING the very kind interest you take in all my movements, particularly during a first absence, and when at so great a distance from home, and recollecting the pleasure you have ever testified on receiving letters from your friends when far away, with details of interesting circumstances and situations in which they may have been placed, I sit down with great pleasure to write you more fully than I formerly did from Lowestoff, Mevagazie, Gibraltar, Andalusia, Minorca, or Leghorn. calm repose of this extraordinary deserted and dilapidated old city forms a striking contrast to the scenes I have lately witnessed: a bustling sea voyage-a perpetual variety of striking, shifting scenery-the partial sight of a foreign country The people, and manners, terminating with a fearful storm, by way of a climax. Even the most intelligent persons are apt to believe, from reading so much about the unclouded azure sky of Italy, studded at night with a thousand resplendent stars, shining with a brilliancy never witnessed in our comparatively hazy northern atmosphere; and of its charming climate, so genial as almost to supersede the necessity of labour; that the Mediterranean sea is as unruffled as the Lagune of Venice, where the elegant gondola skims lightly along, bearing the lovely dark-eyed Signora and her gallant Cavaliere, while the light-hearted Gondoliere is sweetly chanting the beautiful barcarol, "O pescator del onda fedelin," or mayhap the alternate stanza of Tasso's Jerusalem. True it is, that a voyage in this region is often attended with a three day's calm, where the vessel lies dead on the surface of a sea as smooth as a horse-pond, the vertical sun melting her very ropes, and making her pitchy seams to exude the boiling resin, while the hapless passenger, nearly in a state of nudity, can find no respite from the insufferable heat, with plaguy musketos, and is even tired almost of existence, so sunk are his spirits by fretfulness and ennui, and, perhaps, that most horrible of all ailments, sea-sickness. Still, in the Mediterranean, as well as in the Atlantic, there is great |