the Lawn Market, barbers from the Parliament Stairs, and booksellers from the Cross; and, as the immense weight of tall stone-houses renders the alteration of the ground-floor dangerous, without taking down and rebuilding the whole, the expense of which would be very great, Princes Street is perhaps the most tasteless and clumsy line of shops in the island of Great Britain; while, so anxious are the people to huddle upon the top of each other, that it is not uncommon to find four or five shops for very opposite kinds of wares, in a pile up and down the same stair-case. George Street is the most gloomy and melancholy that can well be imagined; and a walk along its deserted pavements is sufficient to give any one the blue devils for a week. Queen Street is longer, but not a whit more lively; and, though the view from it be both extensive and varied, it seems no great favourite with the Athenians. Farther to the north the buildings are newer, and there is occasionally an attempt at the recurrence of architectural ornaments at the end of certain lengths of the buildings; but these ornaments want taste in their form, and force in their projections, and thus increase the poverty of the effect. Throughout the whole private dwellings of the Athens, you are impressed with the cold eternity of stone and lime, and you look in vain for that airy elegance, that rich variety of taste, and that repose of comfort, which you find in other places. Villas, self-contained houses, and snug or even decent gardens, seem to be held in the greatest abhorrence. You meet not with one of the delightful little boxes which are scattered round London by thousands, and of which there are always a few in the vicinity of even third-rate towns in England. The ambition of the Athenians appears to be, to make every four stone walls a joint stock company, as dull, as tasteless, and as heavy, as a stack of warehouses in Thames Street.