that language such local idioms as are incapable of translation. He never omits asking me—“ M. le docteur, have you seen the chevalier this morning ?” That chevalier is Sir Walter Scott. The younger Mr. Laing is a well-informed bookseller, modest, of prepossessing manners, and devoid of affectation.

Proceeding from Messrs. Laing to Messrs. Miller and Manners, established opposite Constable, is like going into a new world. The latter is the rendezvous of the blue stockings, and of all the literary beau monde in Edinburgh. I pass a delicious hour there daily, in listening to the chit chat of the pretty women, who visit the shop in order to put themselves au courant of all that is fashionable in literature. Mr. Manners, who is a little calm and reflective man, is better adapted to commune with the amateurs of his own sex. Mr. Miller, with his affected salutation and smile, does the honour of the back shop to the feminine amateurs. The shop itself, properly so called, is attended by the clerks; the apartment at the extremity, fitted up with cases replete with well bound books, and tables covered with all the chef-d'œuvres of calcography, is positively a bibliopolical boudoir. The gallantry with which Mr. Miller runs to the door on the entry of a lady; the complaisance with which he leads her to a chair; the soft speech with which he responds to her questions, and the zeal with which he exhibits to her an engraving or a morocco binding, are worth seeing. And then again, whether she has made a purchase or not,

the same gallantry, the same complaisance, the same soft speechifying, the same devotedness, are displayed in leading the charmed fair visitor back to her carriage. If no other beauty immediately claim the same attentions, he then turns towards those who have followed him with their eyes through all this process, and perfectly satisfied with himself, seeks for the approbation he has earned in their applauding looks. How often has he then approached me with the remark" Well, doctor, did you ever see a prettier woman?" To say the truth, I have remarked several very pretty women at his house.

Mr. Miller has a singular fund in reserve for daily conversation. During the time of the residence of the French princes at Holyrood, his partner gave some English lessons to the Duke D'Angouleme, and the Duke De Berri, who probably, on their departure, left him their portraits; atall events their portraits, carefully inclosed in their case, compose a portion of the furniture of the boudoir. The first day of my introduction to Messrs. Manners and Miller, the latter, after a short interval, drew the portraits from their case and shewed them to me, in order to attest their resemblance, before five or six beauties who were present. Every visit I paid him, he shewed them to me again, calling on me to say if they were not good likenesses; from my hands, the portraits passed into those of a lady, who for a moment quitted reading the Edinburgh Review in order to glance over them, and pass them to another, who in her turn

passed them to a third &c. &c. Let me in jus tice add that Messrs Manners and Miller are the most complaisant booksellers in the world, and deserve the eternal gratitude of strangers.

The coteries of Constable, Blackwood, Miller and Manners, are often associated by means of dinners and soirees, where every member brings his little role, which he enacts to the best of his power. But Edinburgh especially boasts a number of those ancient damsels, who being compelled for want of a fortune to renounce the conjugal state, delight in making themselves the centre of some free-thinking school. It is amusing to hear all the great questions of the day discussed in form at the residence of these Caledonian Du Deffants. By legitimate descent from father to son, the Scotch, have for a long time been the most obstinate disputers in religion, in science and in politics; there have always been two parties. The presbyterians of the present day are divided into two sects, the moderates and the ultras; the first under the conduct of Robertson, and now directed by Doctor Inglis; the last under that of Sir Henry Moncrief, successor to Dr. Erskine. The physicians at one time contended for Cullen and Brown, and now range themselves under the banners of Gregory or Hamilton. Under Hume there were the sceptics and anti-sceptics; under Adam Smith, three sects at least of economists; under Robertson, the partizans of Mary Stuart and her antagonists; under Macpherson, the Ossianists, and those who denied, and still

deny the antiquity of Ossian; the most recent dispute, according to the order of the day, has been that between the Plutonists and the Neptunians. The former, called also Huttonians, repeat with Hutton, Playfair, Hope, &c., that the formation of our globe is attributable to the action of central fire, which has consolidated the relics of a former world into rocks. One old dowager converted me the other day so completely to this view of the question, that it exacted last night from another a discussion of three-quarters of an hour in order to reconvert me to the theory of the Neptunians or Wernerians, who positively determine that the globe has been constructed by chemical precipitations or mechanical deposits from the chaotic fluid, which held all the mineral substances at once in solution! Thanks to Messrs. Thompson, Jameson, Brewster, and Macculloch, a man must be something of a chemist, physician, geologist or astronomer, in order to have his say in the greater part of the societies of Edinburgh. Still more fortunately, thanks to the imagination of Sir W. Scott, the capital of Scotland interests itself in its historical and poetical antiquities. It is even affirmed that music and dancing, during winter, frequently relieve the discussions on geology, philosophy, &c. The eccentric melody of a strathspey would put the most determined geologer and philosopher of Edinburgh into motion. The ladies of Edinburgh possess a more graceful deportment than those of London; they are at once slenderer, and less fragile. Up to the present time, I have

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found among them fewer laughing Hebes, than haughty Junos, and stately-walking Dianas. They possess this feature in common with the beautiful statues of antiquity, that their frame is supported by a broad sustaining basis. There cannot be a doubt, however, that a less clumsy shoe would contribute to do away this exaggeration of the feet. If there be indeed a country where the young folks might advantageously adopt the fashion of the neat shoes worn by our fair Parisians, it is in a city like Edinburgh, where there is scarcely an apartment without carpet, and where every street is embellished with the broad and even flags of a double pavement.

To grace of figure the young ladies of Edinburgh add, for the most part, the charm of some agreeable talents. There are few of them who are not musicians, and who are deficient in extraordinary skill in the labours of the needle; there are few of them also unacquainted with French; and a teacher of that language has been named to me, who gets an income by his profession of from twenty to thirty thousand francs. The most numerous class in Edinburgh is that of the barristers and solicitors; and they give the tone to society. A young barrister of any little practice easily makes a good match; it is to such a one that Sir Walter Scott has given his eldest daughter. The barristers and signet writers, are the natural directors of the balls, routs, assemblies, dinners and public meetings. They edit the public journals, they set the