As the sums of money which can be afforded to be spent or squandered away in the Athens are not great, there is not much deep playing or costly dissipation in the city. But though the immorality of the Athens costs less than that of a wealthier place, there is not proportionally the less of it upon this account; and though the number of what may be termed gentleman-like indiscretions be very limited, yet there is perhaps no place of equal proportion which rivals the Athens in low vice. Indeed, the vices of her people are almost all equally low, or if there be any who strive to outdo their fellows, it is by a deeper plunge in downright beastliness. Among the dashing bloods of the Athens, the squalor of a house is no objection whatever. Scotch economy prompts them to get everything cheap, and hence there are in the Athens sinks of vice, supported and frequented by those who call themselves gentlemen, that would hardly be tolerated, or even supposed, in the very lowest neighbourhood of any other place. I have been told that nothing can be more shocking either to morality or taste, than the midnight orgies of certain clubs of the Athenian _esprits forts_; and among all ranks of the Athenians--I mean among all the ranks of those who wear the dress and assume the name of gentlemen,--the practice of drinking is both habitual and deep. The real state of taste and civilization in any place is perhaps better known from the vices of the inhabitants, than from their virtues; and if the Athens is to be judged by this standard, she has not much of which she can boast, as the broad and vulgar debaucheries of her people, not only occupy much more of their time, but engross much more of their conversation, than is the case in the British metropolis. There is a cause for every thing, and perhaps a reasonable part of the cause of this may be found in that peculiarity of the Athenian education which I noticed in a former chapter. The purity, the ignorance, and the simplicity of the number of young men and boys who are annually added to the mass of the Athens, the novelty of their having all restraint taken off, and the example and encouragement with which they naturally meet, dispose them to proceed to greater lengths in dissipation than if their introduction were more gradual. The limited nature of their finances, too, and the operation of those lessons of thrift and parsimony, which no parents are fonder of inculcating than the Scotch, lead them to cheapness rather than elegance in their pleasures; and the debased and vulgar taste which they thus acquire in their boyhood, clings to them after they are men, and not only gives the tone to their vices, but in some measure also to their whole character. Accordingly, in no place that I have visited is there more license of conversation, more general freedom from all manner of restraint, and a more total absence of scruples of any kind, than among the scribes of the Athens. Still, to a certain extent, they