Thus the Athens, taking her nominal and her real situation into the account, is both metropolitan and provincial: with regard to Scotland, she has the name, and assumes the pride, of being metropolitan in every thing; and in as far as concerns the administration of the laws as peculiar to Scotland, and in some degree, also, as concerning the internal discipline of the Scottish Kirk, she is really metropolitan; but in respect of Britain generally, she is nothing more than a provincial city, and the matters in which she is provincial have, to the full, as powerful an influence upon her rival character, as those in which she is, or flatters herself to be, metropolitan, have upon the character which she is anxious to assume. It is not, for instance, in the nature of things, that she can ever take the lead in matters of taste and fashion. Wherever the executive and legislative powers of the state are allocated, it is there that the gay and the rich will throng; and notwithstanding all the boasted elegance and taste of the Athens, no Scottish nobleman, or even squire, spends his winter there, if he can afford to spend it in London. Hence, the Athens is not only destitute of the source whence fashion flows, but she is also left without the means by which it could be supported: she is second-rate in her very nature, and also in those who form her leading society. But it follows of necessary consequence, that a place which is second-rate in fashion and in wealth, must be second-rate also in every thing which fashion can encourage and wealth reward. A solitary student who prosecutes a science, or a solitary artist who practises an art, for its own sake, and with an inferior degree of regard to present honour and emolument, might perchance succeed better in the Athens than in the British metropolis. But, as British society is at present constituted, there are few who have the means, and apparently not many who have the desire, of proceeding in this way; and therefore, the place which attracts the fashion and the wealth, will also attract the superior talent, in consequence of the superior means of rewarding which it possesses; and upon this principle, it would be just as vain for the Athens to hope to rival London in any of the liberal arts, or elegant amusements, as it would be for the Scotch lords of Session, to rival the upper House of the British Parliament, the George Street Assembly Rooms to rival Almack’s, or the speeches of the Scotch advocates to be read with as much attention as those of the leading orators in the House of Commons.