which is a very ancient, and a tolerably productive one, W feels himself perfectly at liberty to pursue whatever mode of life is most agreeable to his fancy. He has travelled a good deal on the continent of Europe, and even penetrated into Asia Minor and Egypt, as far up as the Pyramids. These journies, however, could only have been undertaken for the purpose of gratifying some very ardent curiosity, in regard to a few particular points connected with his former devotedness to classical learning; and he now declares, that, unless he should be tempted to visit Spain for the sake of her cathedrals, he will never again leave the white cliffs behind him. He makes an annual or biennial trip to London; but, with this exception, he is always to be found either at his old castle in Berwickshire, or here in Edinburgh, where he has a very snug house, although by no means in a fashionable part of the town. From a feeling of respect for his ancestors, he refuses to quit the old familyresidence, which is no other than a lodging up five pair of stairs, in one of those huge aerial edifices of the Old Town edifices which sometimes contain beneath a single roof a population, layer above layer, household above household, more numerous than that of many a street in

many a city south of the "ideal line." Here W still sits in the same enormously stuffed and prodigiously backed elbow-chair, and still reposes beneath the same antediluvian testers which served his grandfather, his great grandfather, and all his generations back, for aught I know, to the days of Queen Mary; it being on many occasions his most chosen boast, that the degradation which affects, in other houses, the blood of the race, has touched in his house nothing but their furniture, and has not totally destroyed even that..

W. ushered me into this remarkable habitation of his, not only without the least symptom of shame for its apparent obscurity, and the equally apparent filth of its approach, but with a certain air of proud and haughty satisfaction, as if he would have been ashamed to have conducted me to one of the newer, more commodious, and more elegant houses we had seen in the New Town. "The times are changed," says he," since my grandfather, the Lord of Session, used to see all the ladies of quality in Edinburgh in this old-fashioned habitaculum. desire to see none of them here now. I have a tailor for my neighbour immediately below me a cobler a tallow-chandler a dancing-master

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a grocer and a cowfeeder, are all between me and the street; and above, God knows what store of washerwomen-French teachers-auctioneers-midwives-seamstresses-and students of divinity, are between me and the chimneytop. But no matter. I have some claret, which is not too old to be tasteable; and I shall make an endeavour to give you, at least, as good commons as you were used to at the Bachelor's table of Trinity."

I had no reason to complain of his fare, although I confess, when the covers were first removed, I was not without some apprehensions, that it might prove as Methuselamitish as his dwelling. Whether that might, or might not be, the provender was excellent. It consisted, primo, of broth made from a sheep's head, with a copious infusion of parsley, and other condi ments, which I found more than palatable, especially after, at my host's request, I added a spoonful or two of Burgess to it.

Secundo, came the aforementioned sheep's head in propria persona-the hair having been taken off, not by the knife, but by the hot-iron, and the skin retaining from this operation, not only an inky hue, which would astound an Exmoorian, but a delicious, oily, fragrant gusto, worthy of

being transferred, me judice, to the memorandum-book of Beauvilliers himself. These being removed, then came a leg of roasted mutton, five years old at the least, from the Castlemains of W. A dish of pancakes, very finely powdered with sugar, brought up the rear of the dinner, every five minutes of which we washed down with a glass of rare sherry, as ancient as Falstaff, or Johannisberg, which my friend had imported himself from the very cellars of Metternich. A ewe-milk cheese, which I found as good as any thing that ever came from the Pays de Vaud, and a glass of ale, such as I could not beat even in Cardigan, formed a sort of appendage to the feast; and just before the cloth was drawn, I tasted, for the first time, a liqueur, which I prefer vastly to all the Marasquin-ay, to all the Curaçoa in existence-the genuine Usquebaugh of Lochaber. Our Chateau-la-fitte and olives went down after this repast like very nectar and ambrosia. But will say, I am a gour

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mand even upon paper. To conclude with a portrait of my entertainer. -William W is a pale-faced, grave-looking, thin gentleman, of forty years old, or thereby. He has a stoop in his gait, and walks with his toes in; but his limbs seem full of sinew, and he

is of a seemly breadth across the back. He uses to wear a hat of singular broad brims, like a Quaker, for the convenience of shadow to his eyes, which are weak, though piercing. These he farther comforts and assists by means of a pair of spectacles, of the pure crystalline in winter,

but throughout the sunny portion of the year," green. His nose is turned up somewhat at the point, as it were disdainfully. His lips would be altogether indiscernible, but for the line of their division; and can call up in no mind (unless, perchance, on the principle of contrast) any phantasy either of cherry or rose-bud, to say nothing about bees. This yellow visage of his, with his close firm lips, and his grey eyes shining through his spectacles, as through a burning-glass, more brightly-the black beard not over diligently shorn-all lurking under the projecting shadow of that strange brim, compose such a physiognomy, as one would less wonder to meet with in Valladolid, than in Edinburgh. It is plain, yet not ugly. It is monastic, yet it is not anchoretic. It is bitter, and yet it wants not gleams of sheer good humour. In short, it belongs, and only could belong, to the nervous, irritable, enthusiastic, sarcastic William W-—. The years which had passed since our parting,