Dublin, with her vice-regal court, has something like the appearance of a capital; and I sincerely trust that it may be long before any government, yielding to the clamours of the parsimonious Joseph Hume, shall attempt to rob her of that privilege. Edinburgh has not a shadow of royalty left her, save the Commissioner to the General Assembly! The dreary halls of Holyrood, I fear, will never again be rendered gay by the presence even of a delegate of sovereignty; and were it not for the existence of the courts of law, now miserably contracted in their functions, Edinburgh would inevitably become a retrograding city. Notwithstanding the habitual jealousy with which we of the balmy west are wont to contemplate our beautiful rival, I really am, from the bottom of my soul, sincerely sorry for the capital of Scotland. Last year, after our parliamentary campaign, I treated myself to a run on the Continent, and I never was more struck in my life than with the remarkable similarity which exists between Edinburgh and Darmstadt. There are the same spacious streets, the same wide squares, the same imposing and substantial buildings; but, alas! there is also the same dearth of inhabitants, and the same remarkable absence of that traffic and bustle which is the surest index of the wealth and prosperity of a town. Huge plate-glass windows in the shops are not, I apprehend, unerring tokens of the thriving business of the tradesman; and it is quite possible that a city of palaces may be inhabited by those who rank in the monetary scale very far indeed below the point which their external appearance indicates.