the cream of straw-berries, and went down as cool as the nectar of Olympus. David and W entertained us with an infinite variety of stories about George Buchanan, the Admirable Crichtonius, and all the more forgotten heroes of the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum. What precise share of the pleasure might be due to the claret, and what to their stories, I shall not venture to enquire; but I have rarely spent an evening more pleasantly.

P. S. They are also very curious in sherry.

186

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR DAVID,

THE only great lounging book-shop in the New Town of Edinburgh is Mr Blackwood's. The prejudice in favour of sticking by the Old Town was so strong among the gentlemen of the trade, that when this bookseller intimated a

few years ago his purpose of removing to the

New, his ruin was immediately prophesied by not a few of his sagacious brethren. He persisted, however, in his intentions, and speedily took possession of a large and airy suite of rooms in Prince's Street, which had formerly been occupied by a notable confectioner, and whose threshhold was therefore familiar enough to all the frequenters of that superb promenade. There it was that this enterprizing bibliopole hoisted his standard, and prepared at once for action. Stimulated, I suppose, by the example and success of John Murray, whose agent he is, he determined to make, if possible, Prince's Street to the High-Street, what the other has made Albemarle Street to the Row.

This shop is situated very near my hotel; so carried me into it almost immediate

Mr W ly after my arrival in Edinburgh; indeed, I asked him to do so, for the noise made even in London about the Chaldee MS., and some other things in the Magazine, had given me some curiosity to see the intrepid publisher of these things, and the probable scene of their concoction. W has contributed a variety of poems, chiefly ludicrous, to the pages of the New Miscellany; so that he is of course a mighty favourite with the proprietor, and I could not have made my introduction under better auspices than his.

The length of vista presented to one on entering the shop, has a very imposing effect; for it is carried back, room after room, through various gradations of light and shadow, till the eye cannot trace distinctly the outline of any object in the furthest distance. First, there is as usual a spacious place set apart for retail-business, and a numerous detachment of young clerks and apprentices, to whose management that important department of the concern is intrusted. Then you have an elegant oval saloon, lighted from the roof, where various groupes of loungers and literary dilettanti are engaged in looking at, or criticizing among themselves, the publi

cations just arrived by that day's coach from town. In such critical colloquies, the voice of the bookseller himself may ever and anon be heard mingling the broad and unadulterated notes of its Auld Reekie music; for, unless occupied in the recesses of the premises with some other business, it is here that he has his usual station. He is a nimble active-looking man of middle age, and moves about from one corner to another with great alacrity, and apparently under the influence of high animal spirits. His complexion is very sanguineous, but nothing can be more intelligent, keen, and sagacious, than the expression of the whole physiognomy; above all, the grey eyes and eye-brows as full of loco-motion as those of Catalani. The remarks he makes are, in general, extremely acute-much more so, indeed, than those of any member's of the trade I ever heard speak upon such topics. The shrewdness and decision of the man can, however, stand in need of no testimony beyond what his own conduct has afforded-above all, in the establishment of his Magazine, (the conception of which, I am assured, was entirely his own,) and the subsequent energy with which he has supported it through every variety of good and evil fortune. It would be very unfair to lay upon his shoulders any portion of the blame

which particular parts of his book may have deserved; but it is impossible to deny that he is well entitled to a large share in whatever merit may be supposed to be due to the erection of a work, founded, in the main, upon good principles both political and religious, in a city where a work upon such principles must have been more wanted, and, at the same time, more difficult, than in any other with which I am acquainted.

After I had been introduced in due form, and we had stood for about a couple of minutes in this place, the bookseller drew Mr W aside, and a whispering conversation commenced between them, in the course of which, although I had no intention of being a listener, I could not avoid noticing that my own name was frequently mentioned. On the conclusion of it, Mr Blackwood approached me with a look of tenfold kindness, and requested me to walk with him into the interior of his premises-all of which, he was pleased to add, he was desirous of shewing to me. I of course agreed, and followed him through various turnings and windings into a very small closet, furnished with nothing but a pair of chairs and a writingtable. We had no sooner arrived in this place, which, by the way, had certainly something