emark, and again falls sturdily
to work. Again, the shoemaker may be deemed, in the merely mechanical
character of his profession, near of kin to the tailor. But such is not
the case. He has to work amid paste, wax, oil, and blacking, and
contracts a smell of leather. He cannot keep himself particularly clean;
and although a nicely-finished shoe be all well enough in its way, there
is not much about it on which conceit can build. No man can set up as a
beau on the strength of a prettily-shaped shoe; and so a beau the
shoemaker is not, but, on the contrary, a careless, manly fellow, who,
when not overmuch devoted to Saint Monday, gains usually, in his course
through life, a considerable amount of sense. Shoemakers are often in
large proportions intelligent men; and Bloomfield, the poet, Gifford the
critic and satirist, and Carey the missionary, must certainly be
regarded as thoroughly respectable contributions from the profession, to
the worlds of poetry, criticism, and religion.

The professional character of the mason varies a good deal in the
several provinces of Scotland, according to the various circumstances in
which he is placed. He is in general a blunt, manly, taciturn fellow,
who, without much of the Radical or Chartist about him, especially if
wages be good and employment abundant, rarely touches his hat to a
gentleman. His employment is less purely mechanical than many others: he
is not like a man ceaselessly engaged in pointing needles or fashioning
pin-heads. On the contrary, every stone he lays or hews demands the
exercise of a certain amount of judgment for itself; and so he cannot
wholly suffer his mind to fall asleep over his work. When engaged, too,
in erecting some fine building, he always experiences a degree of
interest in marking the effect of the design developing itself
piecemeal, and growing up under his hands; and so he rarely wearies of
what he is doing. Further, his profession has this advantage, that it
educates his sense of sight. Accustomed to ascertain the straightness of
lines at a glance, and to cast his eye along plane walls, or the
mouldings of entablatures or architraves, in order to determine the
rectitude of the masonry, he acquires a sort of mathematical precision
in determining the true bearings and position of objects, and is usually
found, when admitted into a rifle club, to equal, without previous
practice, its second-rate shots. He only falls short of its first-rate
ones, bec