Salisbury Crags, again, are a natural object which the people of a less classical city would not only adore, but adorn by every means in their power. The Athenians act differently; their rulers hew down the picturesque masses of basalt, sell them at so much a cart-load, for paving the streets and Mac-Adamizing the highways, and put the proceeds into that bottomless box called the “common gude.” About midway up that bold front of these cliffs which looks towards the city, there is what may be termed an accidental public walk. It has been formed by the cutting away of the rock above for the purposes of gain, and the tumbling down of the smaller fragments which were not saleable. When the Athenian authorities were alarmed at the Radicals, and bestirred themselves in getting a general subscription for the relief of those whom the changes consequent upon the late war had thrown out of employment, a few labourers were set to work on the middle of this walk; but they had no plan and no superintendant, and the funds were exhausted before it could be made accessible at either end; while the whole face of the Crags, instead of being tufted with brushwood and festooned with creeping plants, as might have been done at very little expense, is as naked as--the shame of those who let it remain in its present condition. The meadows southward of the city, and the adjoining common called “Bruntsfield-links,” are not in much better condition. At some period, indeed, a walk or two had been formed in the meadows, and some hedges and trees planted, but neither the one nor the other have been attended to; while the grass is in so marshy a state that the cows, to which it is almost exclusively assigned, can with difficulty make their way across it. The whole extent of the North Loch, too, was till very lately, and great part of it is still, a putrid and pestilent marsh, at once offensive to the eye, and injurious to the health; and indeed, throughout the whole compass of the Athens, there is scarcely a tree or any thing green, except grass in the melancholy streets towards the meadows, and moss upon the dank walls of several of the more low and squalid dwelling-houses.