to keep up the race of English gentlemen, imbued with those thoughts and feelings, with that illumination and that belief, which, as exemplified both in the words and in the actions of preceding years, have rendered the name which they bear second to none, perhaps superior to any, which the world has ever witnessed.

Instead then of joining in with that senseless spirit of railing, wherewith Scotchmen are too often accustomed to talk of the English, and Englishmen of the Scottish Universities, I please myself in thinking that the two institutions have different objects, and that they are both excellent in their different ways. That each system might borrow something with advantage from the other, is very possible, but I respect both of them too much to be fond of hasty and rash experiments. In our great empire we have need of many kinds of men; it is necessary that we should possess within our own bounds, the means of giving to each kind that sort of preparation which may best fit them for the life to which they are destined. So there be no want of unity in the general character and feeling of the whole nation, considered as acting together, the more ways the intellect of the nation has, in which to shoot itself out and display its energies, the better will

it be the greater the variety of walks of exertion and species of success, the greater the variety of stimulus applied; and the greater that spirit of universal activity, without which minds become stagnant like fish-pools, the greater is our hope of long and proudly preserving our high place in the estimation of the world.

I shall return to the Universities in my next.
P. M.

VOL. I.

206

LETTER XVIII.

TO LADY JOHNES.

DEAR AUNT,

IF you meet with Mr David Williams of Yris, he will tell you that I send him a long letter every other day, filled with histories of dinner-parties, and sketches of the Edinburgh literati; and yet, such is my diligence in my vocation of tourist, I am laying up stores of anecdotes about the northern beau-monde, and making drawings in crayon of the northern beauties, which, I flatter myself, will be enough to amuse your ladyship half the autumn, after I return to you. There is a very old rule, to do like the Romans when you are in Rome; and the only merit I lay claim to on the present occasion, resolves itself into a rigid observance of this sage precept. It is the fashion here for every man to lead two or three different kinds

of lives all at once, and I have made shift to do somewhat like my neighbours. In London, a lawyer is a lawyer, and he is nothing more; for going to the play or the House of Commons, now and then, can scarcely be considered as any serious interruption of his professional habits and existence. In London, in like manner, a gay man is nothing but a gay man; for, however he may attempt to disguise the matter, whatever he does out of the world of gaiety is intended only to increase his consequence in it. But here I am living in a city, which thrives both by law and by gaieties, and would you believe it? a very great share of the practice of both of these mysteries lies in the very same hands. It is this, so far as I can judge, which constitutes what the logicians would call the differential quality of the society of Edinburgh, It is, at this time of the year at least, a kind of melange of London, Bath, and Cheltenham; and I am inclined to think, that, upon due examination, you would find it to be in several particulars a more agreeable place than any of these. In many other particulars, I think any rational person would pronounce it, without difficulty, to be more absurd than any of them.

The removal of the residence of the sovereign

has had the effect of rendering the great nobility of Scotland very indifferent about the capital. There is scarcely one of the Premiere Noblesse, I am told, that retains even the appearance of supporting a house in Edinburgh; and by far the greater part of them are quite as ignorant of it, as of any other provincial town in the island. The Scotch courts of law, however, are all established in this place, and this has been sufficient to enable Edinburgh to keep the first rank among the cities of Scotland, which, but for them, it seems extremely unlikely she should have been able to accomplish. For the more the commercial towns thrive, the more business is created for this legal one; and the lawyers of Edinburgh may be said to levy a kind of custom upon every bail of goods that is manufactured in this part of the island, and a no less regular excise upon every article of merchandize that is brought into it from abroad. In this way, (to such wonderful exactness has the matter been brought,) it may be said, that every great merchant in Glasgow pays large salaries to some two or three members of the law in Edinburgh, who conduct the numerous litigations, that arise out of a flourishing business, with great civility; and, with greater civility still, the more numerous li