IF, in her metropolitan status as the seat of Caledonian law, the Athens be fixed as the dog-star, as the seat of Caledonian learning, she has been and must be, changeful as the moon. If the wealth of her lawyers “swells like the Solway,” the renown of her philosophers “ebbs like its tide.” The very same cause which raises the one,--which makes all hearts envy, all eyes admire, all knees worship, and all tongues speak the Babylonish dialect of special pleaders, comes cold and curdling as December’s ice over every thing else; and though there may be an occasional spring of the living water of the mind, which has its source too deep, or its current too thoroughly imbued with the immortal fire, for submitting to the cold congelation; yet such glorious instances must be few and far between. Even in the law itself, there may be green branches, just as there are green branches on the Upas; but, like the Upas, the law, or indeed any thing else which is so overpowering in its influence as the law is in the Athens, must in itself monopolize all the greenness, and etiolate and wither every thing that attempts to grow under its broad and gloomy shade. Whatever promises the chief reward will, under any circumstances, always attract the chief talent; and the state of the whole British dominions, and of the Athens not less than any other portion of them, is at present such as not to be exceedingly favourable to the pursuits of abstract and recondite philosophy. Luxury has found out for all those who have money to spend without working for it,--whether they have it as a legitimate heritage from their natural parents, or as the adopted children of that great nursery-mother of idlers, the state, abundant employment,--full occupation from every hour that they can snatch from the pangs of intemperance and the pillow of sleep, not only without profound philosophy, but without thought of any description that reaches beyond the enjoyment of the moment; and the number of these persons, especially the latter division of them, is so very considerable, that, of the remaining independent portion of the British people, none can afford to be philosophic or learned upon any other terms than those of being paid for it,--taking it up, and following it as a trade, as much as other men do the boring of cannon, or the building of bridges. That this is unquestionably true of the whole country, may be established from the philosophical publications, whether regular or periodical, which make their appearance at the present day. Of the regular class, there has not, so far as I know, been published, within the last thirty years, in any part of the British dominions, a single original work, that will transmit the name of its author to posterity. There have indeed been books, and books in which there have been the details of new experiments, and occasionally scraps of theories; but, like successive days in the kalendar, the one has usurped the place