expense, the same cheerful results are not equally secured. When, after a month's invitation, he meets a large party of twenty or thirty people, probably little known to him and to each other, who are entertained with French cookery, and a variety of expensive wines offered in succession, while circumstances often betray that the landlord is making an effort beyond his usual habits; when the company protract a dull effort at conversation, under the reserve imposed by their being strangers to each other, and reunite with the ladies, sober enough it is true, but dull enough also, to drink cold coffee, he expects at least to finish the evening with the dance and song, or the lively talk around the fire, or the comfortable old-fashioned rubber. But these are no part of modern manners. No sooner is the dinner party ended, than each guest sets forth on a nocturnal cruize from one crowded party to another; and ends by elbowing, it may be, in King Street, about three o'clock in the morning, the very same folk whom he elbowed at ten o'clock at night in Charlotte Square, and who, like himself, have spent the whole night in the streets, and in going in or out oflighted apartments. Our senior, too, will recollect with a sigh the Old Assembly Rooms, or Dun's Rooms, or the George's-Street Rooms, when first opened as a place of public amusement, where all persons, of rank and fashion entitling them to frequent such places, met upon easy and upon equal terms, and without any attempt at intrusion on the part of others; where the pretensions of every one were known and judged of by their birth and manners, and not by assumed airs of extravagance, or a lavish display of wealth; and he will conclude, upon the whole, that the society of the higher classes in Edinburgh was formerly more select, the members better known to each other, and, therefore, more easy in intercourse than at the present day.

Arguments are not, however, wanting to balance those which occur to the praiser of the past times. It signifies not very much how or in what manner society is carried on, providing the domestic virtues are not injured by the mode in which pleasure is pursued; and it may be safely said, that, in the present condition of Edinburgh, the men have gained much on the score of sobriety, while the women have, as yet, lost none of that high character for conjugal, filial, and maternal affection, for which they have been long distinguished. An 66 arrangement," so common in the London circles, is a word unknown; and since scandal is silent, we may safely conclude that little cause exists for calumny. The husband is, as yet, the companion of his wife upon all ordinary parties of pleasure, and the brother the usual attendant of the sisters. In short, the domestic relations are still maintained in the same purity; and there are few cities where fashion has introducted so many changes, yet so few vices.

It is a minor consideration, which it yet falls in our way particularly

to notice, that of the increased expenditure much is employed in the encouragement of the fine arts; that the purchase of books is a common expense with all classes, and that of pictures introduced amongst the opulent; while society is proportionally improved by the conversation to which so general a taste gives rise. The lawyer of former days was esteemed irrevocably lost to his profession, if he meddled with literature, or employed his spare time in any relaxation save that of cards or the bottle. But now the most successful professional men are both aspirants after, and dispensers of, literary fame; and there is spread through society at large a more general tinge of information and good conversation than is to be met with elsewhere. This circumstance may be perhaps traced to the general mixture of fashionable and literary persons in Edinburgh, where the society is not extensive enough to enable either to form a class by themselves, and where, of course, wit and learning become tempered and fashioned by their constant intercourse with polished manners, beauty and high rank. It is also a happy circumstance, and speaks the good sense of the country, that, unless when the mania of Whig and Tory chances to be peculiarly virulent, there does not exist in Edinburgh any of those party-feelings, which, for one cause or other, are found to split and divide the society elsewhere. The inhabitants, generally speaking, live in much harmony with each other; and though political opinions (as is usual when men are at a distance from the scene of action) are maintained with keenness, and even with acrimony, the harmony of the place is interrupted by no other causes of schism.

Upon the whole, those whose health can support a climate so variable and so trying as that of Edinburgh, will find few more eligible places of residence. The inhabitant of this ancient capital-" Scotland's dearest seat," as the city was termed by her best poet, * is surrounded by the noblest scenery, and ruins of antiquity; and may have, at every step, a companion capable of detailing the beauties of the one, and the history of the other. His mornings may be spent in study, for which there is every species of assistance within his reach; and his evenings with friendship or with beauty. If he has children, he has within his reach the first means of education. If he is gay, there are at his command all the usual varied sources of amusement. He may live, if he will, in a palace, with a handsome suite of apartments, for less than would rent a " dungeon in the Strand;" and fare sumptuously every day for half the rate which is exacted for a bad dinner in an English inn. To be more particular, L.3000 a-year is, in Edinburgh, opulence-L.2000, ease and wealth-L. 1000,

a handsome competence-and even L.500, well managed, will maintain a large family with all the necessaries and decencies of life, and enable them to support a very creditable rank in society.

HIGH STREET OF EDINBURGH.

THIS noble street was long considered as one of the finest in Europe. In its original state, indeed, it might rather be called a place than a street. The suburb of the Canongate, where the street is considerably narrowed, was excluded from the view by a gateway, called the Netherbow Port, above which arose a steeple.* The more western, or upper boundary, was the large building called the Luckenbooths, which seemed almost entirely to close the High Street at that extremity. On each side arose an uninterrupted line of very lofty houses. So that, regarded in every point of view, the High Street seemed to be enclosed, and divided from the rest of the town, as well as from the narrower streets which formed its communication with the castle on the westward, and the palace upon the east.

A. D.

1764.

The first considerable change which was made, was by the pulling down of the Netherbow Port, which corresponded to the Temple-Bar of London. However much this alteration might improve the access from the eastward to the High Street, there can be no doubt that its outward appearance was changed for the worse; since, instead of the architectural termination formed by the gateway and steeple, the eye is now presented with a view into the narrower and meaner street called the Canongate. Since that period, a large opening has been made in the High Street, forming the access from the North Bridge; and corresponding streets have been since opened from the South Bridge, and from Hunter's Square, thus insulating the Tron Church, which formerly made a continued part of the southern line of the street. The utility of these avenues from the north and south is indisputable; and perhaps many may be of opinion that they improve even the external appearance of the street, though this will hardly be granted by those who recollect the stately and almost sublime effect produced, when the lofty line of houses on each side was entire and unbroken. All at least will agree in censuring the destruction of the Cross of Edinburgh, a curious architectural object, whose site is now only marked by a cross inscribed on

[See an Engraving in Maitland's History of Edinburgh.]

†The Luckenbooths, i. e. close shops, an unsightly row of buildings, extending along the whole northern side of St Giles's Cathedral, were pulled down in 1803, and their extremities, a remnant commonly called "Creech's land," on the east, and the Tolbooth on the west, in 1817.1

the causeway." It also happened, that in order to bring the High Street to a level with the access from the South Bridge, it became necessary to deepen the street, as it were, and to lay the new causeway several feet lower. This was an unlucky circumstance; for the old causeway, executed, it is said, by one Merlin a Frenchman, was beautifully arched, and upon the whole a very fine piece of workmanship.†

An innovation has since taken place of much greater consequence than any that has been yet noticed. This has been created by the demolition of the large building called the Luckenbooths, and of the ancient Tolbooth, which made a part of that mass of buildings.‡ The removal of these interruptions gives to view the Cathedral Church of St Giles upon the left hand, and in front extends the prospect up the Lawnmarket, and nearly as far as the Castlehill.

There is not the same objection to this prolongation of the view, which occurred upon taking down the Netherbow Port; for the Lawnmarket, which is now rendered a part of the High Street, has the same breadth and general character with the street to which it is added. On the other hand, those who exclaimed against the Luckenbooths, on account of their hiding from the public eye the architecture of the cathedral, were not aware that the architect of this last structure had never designed this part of the work to be visible; and that very extensive alterations, or rather a totally new face to the northern side of the church, will be an indispensable and necessary consequence of laying it open to the public eye. Still, it cannot be denied, that under all its mutilations, the High Street of

and see note, Ibid., p. 275.—“As soon as the workmen began the act of demolition, which was in the morning of March 13 (1756), some gentlemen who had spent the night over a social bottle, caused wine and glasses be carried thither, mounted the ancient fabric, and solemnly drank its dirge. Scots Magazine, 1756. The middle pillar of the cross is still preserved in the pleasure grounds of Drum, and some ornamental parts of the structure at Abbotsford."]

Maitland mentions, that in 1532, the Common Council agreed with John Mayser and Bartilmew Foliot, French paviors, at the rate of thirty shillings Scotch per rood, the town furnishing carriage and sand. This, Maitland considers as irreconcilable with the common tradition, ascribing the paving of the street to one Merlin, who is said to have been interred at his own particular request in the High Street, near the top of Merlin's Wynd, to which he bequeathed his name. His grave is still marked by stones laid in the form of a coffin. It is possible that this Merlin may have been the immediate superintendent and executor of the work contracted for by Mayser and Foliot; for it is highly improbable, that the street of Edinburgh was paved before the year 1542.

[The old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, at the north-west corner of St. Giles's Church, "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," was pulled down in 1817. The stonework of the gateway is preserved at Abbotsford.]

Edinburgh is the most magnificent in Great Britain, excepting perhaps the High Street of Oxford. Unquestionably the principal street of Edinburgh is deficient in the rich magnificence occasioned by the succession of halls, colleges, churches, and public buildings displayed at the seat of the Southern Muses, and which seem to have jostled into retired nooks all that is mean and commonplace, or appropriated to the lower and ordinary business of life. But, on the other hand, this ancient boast of the Caledonian Metropolis has, from the extreme height of the houses, the forms of their projected battlements and gables, varied in detail, yet uniform in general effect, and the long sweep which it makes, interrupted by few transverse cuts or openings, a simple and majestic unity of appearance, which it is not easy to find elsewhere.

EDINBURGH, FROM BRAID HILLS.

THIS prospect, though not certainly the richest and most romantic in the vicinity of Edinburgh, is possessed of extreme beauty, and excels others in the magnificence with which the Frith of Forth, its islands, and its northern shores, lie displayed as the background of the Scottish metropolis.

The Hills of Braid, from which the view is taken, are rocky eminences, of considerable height, arising to the south of Edinburgh, and within about a mile and a half of the suburbs. They are divided by a small brook, called the Braid Burn; and the more northern side, on which the spectator is supposed to be stationed, is called Blackford Hill. It is the property of H. Trotter, Esq. of Mortonhall; Braid, properly so called, belonging to Charles Gordon, Esq. of Clunie.

In earlier times, the property belonged to a family called Fairly; and the Laird of Braid, during the Reformation, was one of the earliest who received its doctrines, as well as a personal friend and zealous defender of John Knox. He is often mentioned in the life and correspondence of that Apostle of Presbyterianism, and seems to have incurred personal danger more than once by his steadiness and zeal. Richard Bannatyne, Knox's faithful amanuensis, gives an account of an attack made upon this gentleman in his own house of Braid, which he seems to have repelled with much spirit and success. The great reformer, when on his death-bed, took leave of

* Bannatyne's account of the affair, divested of his uncouth spelling, is as follows:"Friday, 25th May [1571], a dozen of soldiers came to Braid at supper-time, and spoiled the miller's house, the miller being at supper with the Laird; and when they saw the miller coming in, and staying them from spoiling his house, they took him and brought him to the gate of Braid, and gave the Laird injurious words, bidding him come out to Captain