It was with some difficulty, and at a late hour, that I was able to return to the Athens; and when I arose on the following morning, and sallied out to begin my survey, the contrast was too strong for my feelings. The whole line of George Street was unbroken, except by the hoary form of a beggar crawling along in front of those assembly-rooms which had lately been so gay; and the trim and active figure of the editor of the Edinburgh Review, who, with a great bundle of law-papers under one arm, and a new book under the other, shot along with as much rapidity, as though the most strong and skilful of the archer-band had discharged him from his bow. Queen Street was desolate; and in King Street, the only thing that I could notice was one or two of the personages who had lately flaunted their tails as highland chiefs, taking leave of their law-agents, with downcast and sorrowful looks. The regalia of Scotland were again consigned to their dull and greasy apartment in the castle; the High Street, which so recently had rung with the acclamations of serried multitudes, now echoed to the grating croak of the itinerant crockery-merchant, and the ear-piercing screams of the Newhaven fish-wife. The gewgaws, which for the last two weeks had glittered in the windows of the shop-keepers, had again given place to sober bombazines and webs of duffle; and the shop-keepers themselves were either leaning against the posts of their doors, and yawning to an extent which would have thrown any but Athenian jaws off the hinges, or sitting perked upon three-footed stools within, casting looks, in which hope formed no substantial ingredient, upon the long pages which their country friends had enabled them to write in their day-books; and of which, to judge from appearances, it was pretty plain that the term of payment would be to the full as long as the amount. Every where, in short, that I came, there was an air of desolation; not by any means that the Athens was mourning for the departure of the King, for among the few persons who were visible, his name was not so much as mentioned, but in her own appearance she was mournful indeed, and though she retained the same form as during the display and rejoicing, her spirit seemed to be clean gone; and it was quite evident that, in order to catch the average and peculiar likeness of this boasted city, I must tarry till the present appearance had passed off, or remove to a distance, till the natural one should return. I preferred the latter alternative, and resolved, after resting for that day, to forget both the glory and the gloom in a month or two among the Scottish mountains; and then return to the Athens, when the return of business, of people, and of prate, should have been brought back to their ordinary channels. CHAPTER IV. THE ATHENS AND THE ATHENIANS IN GENERAL. “A city set on an hill, which cannot be hid.”