As we had the mail on board, a boat was sent out to receive it, the oars of which were plied by six men, whose statures, limbs, and features declared them the lingering progeny of the once formidable race of Irish giants, Bare headed, they “bided the pelting of the pitiless storm,” with no other barrier to its fury, than what tattered check trousers, and shirts open at neck, and tucked above the elbows afforded; and which thus disposed, betrayed the sinewy contexture of forms, which might have individually afforded a model to sculpture, for the colossal statue of an Hercules, under all the different aspects of strength and exertion. * * This little marine sketch is by no means a fancy picture; it was actually copied from the life, in the summer of 1806. A few of the passengers proposing to venture in the boat, I listlessly followed, and found myself seated by one of these sea monsters, who, in an accent that made me startle, addressed me in English at least as pure and correct as a Thames’ boatman would use; and with so much courtesy, cheerfulness, and respect, that I was at a loss to reconcile such civilization of manner to such ferocity of appearance; while his companions as they stemmed the mountainous waves, or plied their heavy oars, displayed such a vein of low humour and quaint drollery, and in a language so curiously expressive and original, that no longer able to suppress my surprise, I betrayed it to a gentleman who sat near me, and by whom I was assured that this species of colloquial wit was peculiar to the lower class of the Irish, who borrowed much of their curious phraseology from the peculiar idiom of their own tongue, and the cheeriness of manner from the native exility of their temperament; “and as for their courteousness.” he continued, “you will find them on a further intercourse, civil even to _adulation_, as long as you treat them with apparent kindness, but an opposite conduct will prove their manner proportionably uncivilized.” “It is very excusable,” said I, “they are of a class in society to which the modification of the feelings are unknown, and to be sensibly alive to _kindness or to unkindness_, is, in my opinion, a noble trait in the national character of an unsophisticated people.” While we spoke, we landed, and for the something like pleasurable emotion, which the first on my list of Irish acquaintance produced in my mind, I distributed among these “sons of the waves,” more silver than I believe they expected Had I bestowed a principality on an Englishman of the same rank, he would have been less lavish of the _eloquence_ of gratitude on his benefactor, though he might equally have felt the _sentiment_.--So much for my voyage _across the Channel!_ This city is to London like a small temple of the Ionic order, whose proportions are delicate, whose character is elegance, compared to a vast palace, whose Corinthian pillars at once denote strength and magnificence.