richest materials for his _at homes_ and _monopolylogues_. But, indeed, whatever actor or singer of eminence visited Edinburgh, of the evenings when he did not perform several were sure to be reserved for Trinity. Here Braham quavered, and here Liston drolled his best--here Johnstone, and Murray, and Yates mixed jest and stave--here Kean revelled and rioted--and here the Roman Kemble often played the Greek from sunset to dawn. Nor did the popular _cantatrice_ or _danseuse_ of the time disdain to freshen her roses, after a laborious week, amidst these Paphian arbors of Harmony Hall. Johnny had other tastes that were equally expensive. He had a well-furnished stable, and followed the foxhounds whenever the cover was within an easy distance. His horses were all called after heroes in Scott's poems or novels; and at this time he usually rode up to his auction on a tall milk-white hunter, yclept _Old Mortality_, attended by a leash or two of greyhounds,--Die Vernon, Jenny Dennison, and so forth, by name. The featherweight himself appeared uniformly, hammer-in-hand, in the half-dress of some sporting club--a light gray frock, with emblems of the chase on its silver buttons, white cord breeches, and jockey-boots in Meltonian order. Yet he affected in the pulpit rather a grave address; and was really one of the most plausible and imposing of the Puff tribe. Probably Scott's presence overawed his ludicrous propensities; for the poet was, when sales were going on, almost a daily attendant in Hanover Street, and himself not the least energetic of the numerous competitors for Johnny's uncut _fifteeners_, Venetian lamps, Milanese cuirasses, and old Dutch cabinets. Maida, by the way, was so well aware of his master's {p.261} habits, that about the time when the Court of Session was likely to break up for the day, he might usually be seen couched in expectation among Johnny's own _tail_ of greyhounds at the threshold of the mart.