The whole sports and amusements that are peculiar and congenial to the Athenians seem to be regulated by a kind of Salique Law. They being such as females can neither join in nor, in most instances, witness. They are of two kinds: the amusements of the tavern, and the amusements of the turf. In the former, “high jinks,” and the other harmless fooleries of the olden time, have given place to the orgies of hell-fire clubs, and others that are better undescribed; but in the latter, “golf” and “curling” continue to divide the year, and the wisdom of the Athens may be seen during the summer exercising itself daily in urging the ball upon Bruntsfield-Links, and during the winter in hurling large stones along the ice upon the Loch of Duddingstone. Although there be many good places for walking in the vicinity of the Athens, no such thing is known as a public promenade--that is forbidden on Sunday, and, except a trot along Princes Street, and a moon-light turn around the Calton, the gentlemen of the Athens are too busy, either in doing something, or in doing nothing, for promenading during the week. Drive there is none, and it is not much to be regretted, for there is absolutely nothing to be driven. Another small feature in the character of the Athenians is the high and supercilious disdain with which they affect to look down, not merely upon their fellow-Scotchmen, but upon all the world. How they originally came by this quality, it would not be easy to determine, and therefore it is, perhaps, needless to inquire; but, as it is permanent and general, it must have something upon which it permanently feeds. It is by no means peculiar to those who are born in the Athens; for no sooner does a Lowland clown take up his locality there as a writer’s clerk, than he begins to toss up his head at the land which produced and fed him, and “writes himself _armigero_; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, _armigero_.” And no sooner does a tattered and trowserless _Rorie_ escape from the wilds of Sutherland, or the woods of Rannoch, to lug half an Athenian fair one from tea-party to tea-party, than “she is a shentlemans, and teuks her whisky wi’ a ‘Cot tam’ like a loört;” and, in fact, it seems a contest between those two sets of worthies, which shall take the lead in Athenian dandyism. Indeed, in personal grace at least, the “shentlemans” must be allowed to have much the better of the “armigero.” Light food and long journeys give to the former great buoyancy of spirits, and elasticity of muscle; and it is wonderful to notice, with what a dignified and chieftain-like air, they thumb a pitch-black pack of cards, or “teuk oot the linin’” of a quart pot of small beer, or quartern of the dew of the mountains, as they hold their morning levee at a corner in Queen Street or Abercrombie Place. The “armigero,” on the other hand, is as gawky-looking an article as it is possible to meet with, or even to conceive.