I was as entirely unacquainted with great towns at this time as the shepherd in Virgil; and, excited by what I saw, I sadly tasked my friend's peripatetic abilities, and, I fear, his patience also, in taking an admiring survey of all the more characteristic streets, and then in setting out for the top of Arthur's Seat--from which, this evening, I watched the sun set behind the distant Lomonds--that I might acquaint myself with the features of the surrounding country, and the effect of the city as a whole. And amid much confused and imperfect recollection of picturesque groups of ancient buildings, and magnificent assemblages of elegant modern ones, I carried away with me two vividly distinct ideas--first results, as a painter might perhaps say, of a "fresh eye," which no after survey has served to freshen or intensify. I felt that I had seen, not one, but two cities--a city of the past and a city of the present--set down side by side, as if for purposes of comparison, with a picturesque valley drawn like a deep score between them, to mark off the line of division. And such in reality seems to be the grand peculiarity of the Scottish capital--its distinguishing trait among the cities of the empire; though, of course, during the twenty-nine years that have elapsed since I first saw it, the more ancient of its two cities--greatly modernized in many parts--has become less uniformly and consistently antique in its aspect. Regarded simply as matters of taste, I have found little to admire in the improvements that have so materially changed its aspect. Of its older portions I used never to tire: I found I could walk among them as purely for the pleasure which accrued, as among the wild and picturesque of nature itself; whereas one visit to the elegant streets and ample squares of the new city always proved sufficient to satisfy; and I certainly never felt the desire to return to any of them to saunter in quest of pleasure along the smooth, well-kept pavements. I of course except Princes Street. There the two cities stand ranged side by side, as if for comparison; and the eye falls on the features of a natural scenery that would of itself be singularly pleasing even were both the cities away. Next day I waited on the town-clerk, Mr. Veitch, to see whether he could not suggest to me some way in which I might shake myself loose from my unfortunate property on the Coal-hill. He received me civilly--told me that the property was not quite so desperate an investment as I seemed to think it, as at least the site, in which I had an interest with the other proprietors, was worth something, and as the little courtyard was exclusively my own; and that he thought he could get the whole disposed of for me, if I was prepared to accept of a small price. And I was of course, as I told him, prepared to accept of a very small one. Further, on learning that I was a stone-cutter, and unemployed, he kindly