f his affairs, to
overlook the country. It should be a genial and ameliorating influence
in life; it should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature's
unconcern: that he can watch from day to day, as he trots officeward,
how the Spring green brightens in the wood or the field grows black
under a moving ploughshare. I have been tempted, in this connection, to
deplore the slender faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle
of a voice, its dull ears, and its narrow range of sight. If you could
see as people are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can
fancy for a superior race, if you could take clear note of the objects
of vision, not only a few yards, but a few miles from where you
stand:--think how agreeably your sight would be entertained, how
pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you walked the
Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in some business perplexity, in
the midst of the city traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd
as he sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of the Pentlands; or
perhaps some urchin, clambering in a country elm, would put aside the
leaves and show you his flushed and rustic visage; or a fisher racing
seawards, with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in the
wind, would fling you a salutation from between Anst'er and the May.

To be old is not the same thing as to be picturesque; nor because the
Old Town bears a strange physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New
Town shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique houses, it is
curious how much description would apply commonly to either. The same
sudden accidents of ground, a similar dominating site above the plain,
and the same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to
be observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach to Princes
Street from the east, lined with hotels and public offices, makes a leap
over the gorge of the Low Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet,
you look direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of Leith
Street; and the same tall houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is
only the New Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to
speak, over its own children, as is the way of cities and the human
race. But at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a spectacle of a more novel
order. The river runs at the bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and
between gardens; the crest of either bank is occupied by some