arch, for it lacks the refreshing verdure. The eye wearies of
the everlasting buff color.

Not to overstep the subject, we will say just one word about the street
plans of our cities. It is really shameful that these are not more
studied. No one seems to think of adapting them to the surface of the
ground, but everything must needs be graded flat, and rectangular blocks
laid out thereon. Our Western cities, particularly, appear to
crystallize in cubes--their monotony is painful. An occasional
introduction of the curved street, so common in Britain, would be a
delightful relief. The London 'Quadrant' is a superb example--the way in
which the houses come into view, one by one, as you follow the curve, is
not to be surpassed. But the chief secret of success in plotting a town
is to seize upon the natural irregularities of the ground, and make them
part and parcel of the design. The beauty of Edinburgh--the 'Scottish
Athens,' as Dugald Stewart called it--is entirely owing to this. The new
town is a 'wilderness of granite, magnificently dull,' and the old has
barely enough of the picturesque to save it from being hideous. But
there is a broad, natural ravine, dividing the two, which has been
retained in its original shape, and being tastefully arranged with
shrubbery and terraced walks, forms a fine park. Near one end of this
the Castle Hill rises abruptly against the old town, while at the other
end the view is closed by Calton Hill, with its classic monuments, and
Arthur's Seat rising grandly beyond. Two or three bridges afford a level
communication between the old town and the new, and Prince's street, the
thoroughfare of the latter, forms a fine terrace along the northern edge
of the ravine, passing midway the Scott monument, a superb spire of
Gothic. This latter is perhaps the only commendable feature _per se_ in
the city--for the details of Edinburgh are notably poor, its pictorial
effect arising solely from the very happy manner in which they are
grouped, amphitheatre-like, around the 'Gardens.'

Did such a vale lie in the track of one of our cities, we would consider
it an unlucky blemish, to be filled up at once to the general level. It
would be named in the contract as such-and-such 'sunken lots,' and as
the Castle Rock was digged down and dumped in, tax-payers would rejoice
over the saved cartage. Having thus killed off Nature, we would put up
squares of houses upon the dead level, while the local papers would
c