In countrymen, but I discovered not a name which occurred to me as one that I had ever met with before. There are few who do not derive a species of satisfaction from holding communication with the silent occupants of a churchyard; but there exists not, I am persuaded, a place of the same description so capable of furnishing an instructive lesson to such as are disposed to moralize, as the cemetery of which I have been attempting to give a faint description. There the grave is divested of much of the loathsomeness which usually attaches to it, by the means taken to give a sort of posthumous existence to the dead by the affection of kindred and friends In the neighbourhood of the various cemeteries around Paris, a considerable trade is carried on in the manufacture of festoons and wreaths of durable yellow flowers, to be laid upon, or hung over the graves as testimonies of the pious remembrance of the living to their deceased relatives. Having finished our hasty survey of Père la Chaise, Mr. Brown and I returned to town by a similar conveyance to that which carried us out, an omnibus-a species of vehicle of which Paris may be regarded as the parent city-and superior, in cost and convenience at least, to those we meet with in London and Edinburgh London, the shortest ride costs sixpence; in Paris, the charge is exactly the half of that sum, or six sous; and in the latter city, if you happen to be bound for some quarter not exactly in the range of the vehicle you are travelling by, the conductor presents you with a printed ticket, which secures you admittance, without farther charge, into another omnibus going your way belonging to the same correspondence. These vehicles. are made to contain fifteen inside passengers, seven along each side, sitting face to face, and the fifteenth perched upon a seat at the upper end fronting the door, and humorously designated the place of Monsieur le President. I arrived at the Place de la Bourse at a most favourable moment. Dr. Edwards had just called, and left a ticket of admission to the annual meeting, or séance, as they term it, of the French Academy, which was to be held that afternoon, (Thursday, the 27th). I hurried off with all expedition to the Palace of the Institute, and arrived just as the séance had commenced. The meeting took place in the public hall, the members occupying benches, in the form of a semicircle, on each side of the centre of the hall. At the centre of the base or chord of the semicircle, are the seat and desk of the president, at which three were seated, who read to the audience, each in his turn, the papers submitted to their decision. A prize was conferred, but in a very slovenly manner, being unaccompanied by any observation on the part of him who delivered, or of him who received it. The sitting occupied about an hour and a half. In the hall I observed, among other statues of marble, one in honour of the amiable Fenelon, and another of the able Premier, Sully. Most of the members were in the uniform of the Institute, which is a costume of black, embroidered with green silk. Next day, being Friday, and Mr. T.'s hebdomadal holiday, we drove in company to the village of Vincennes, about four miles east of Paris, with an ancient royal chateau, now discontinued as a residence of royalty, but still employed as a state-prison. In one of the ditches of the castle, the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien was shot, after a partial trial before a military commission, by the side of a grave which had been, in anticipation of his condemnation, prepared for him. Vincennes is famous for its forest; through which we drove to Charenton, to see the confluence of the Seine and the Marne-names associated together with our earliest classical recollections. We crossed both streams a little way above their junction-the Marne first, as being a northern affluent of the other-and returned to the city by the south side of the united rivers. Near Vincennes, on the north, we saw the village of Montreuil, famous for its peaches, which are reared upon walls running parallel to each other, and covering a great extent of surface. On the evening of this day, I completed my preparations for departing, and next day bade adieu to the kind and hospitable friends with whom I had passed so agreeable a sojourn of eleven days. I took my seat on the Rotonde of the Diligence at mid-day, pursuing the same route to Boulogne, where I arrived next afternoon about two o'clock. Before concluding, 1 ought not to omit bearing testimony to the general comfort, and above all, to the cheapness of travelling in France by the Diligence. For a distance of about 140 miles, the fare, including five francs for the conducteur and postillion, was only twenty-one francs and a-half, a sum scarcely amounting to 18s. of our British money. From Boulogne, I travelled, by the steam-boat, direct to London, and reached the custom-house quay at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, after a sail of exactly twelve hours from Boulogne. The charge, by this conveyance, was 20s. The remainder of the week I spent with my friends at Turnham Green, and returned to Leith, by Smack, in company with an agreeable party, but encountering rather rough weather, and a tedious passage of seven days. Mrs. C. and I reached Warriston Crescent on the morning of the 13th September, after an absence of nearly six weeks. Yours very faithfully, A. N. CARMICHAEL. OLD HOUSES IN EDINBURGH, AND WHAT CAN Old Houses in Edinburgh, and their Inhabitants. By ROBERT THE problem of elevating the labouring class of the population, is attended by many difficulties. A host of prejudices on the part of individuals personally interested, and the temper of unenquiring indifference which stands in the way of practical improvement, must be overcome by the philanthropist. But we can discern at least the beginnings of a better state of things. Interest has been excited, and experiments are tried, which afford promise that this subject will be kept before the public mind; while what has been accomplished already, gives an indica tion of the results that may be expected to follow from a more combined movement and more widely diffused enquiry. Dr. Foulis has shewn what may be effected by judicious management and wise expenditure in one of not the most promising localities; and as his views have been embodied in a pamphlet, we propose to give our readers soine account of his operations, which have been attended with a gratifying measure of success. Few but those whose avocations lead them to explore the crowded tenements in the ancient part of our city, have any conception of the state of matters which prevails; while, as if to aggravate and foster existing evils, the cupidity of proprietors on the one hand, and the indifference of those who might exercise much influence in the way of repressing vice on the other, seem to be united for the purpose of allowing both physical and moral contagion to do their work uncontrolled and unchecked. The educationist may endeavour to imbue the young with knowledge and right principle; but the lessons of the school are contradicted by the constant companionship at other times of the vicious and the depraved. The missionary may toil, and the clergyman may visit, spending their strength and consuming their time to little purpose. The spiritshop and its attractions preach far more powerfully; and until we lessen the amount of temptation, and secure the prevalence of a less tainted atmosphere, the plants of promise will be rare, and the evil will go on augmenting, as it has hitherto done. The state of society, we repeat, needs all the efforts and appliances which can be brought to bear upon it. If the poor are huddled together in squalid and loathsome tenements, prolific of disease; if, from the scarcity of dwellings, they are to pay exorbitant rents for ruinous and miserable apartments; if no encouragement is to be held out to the high-principled and virtuous of their number; if the great Gospel-maxim is to be forgotten by those more favourably situated, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," then is the profession of interest in heathenism at a distance little else than a mere apology or pretence. It is right to desire the propagation of godliness and divine truth abroad; but let us not, at the same time, forget nearer claims. We have heathens at home, in thousands, who need to have the first elements of religious truth recalled to their minds and impressed on their consciences; profligates who have not the idolator's excuse to plead, for they more knowingly commit the grossest abominations. Something more than church-building is required. Such must be met on their own ground, and dealt with in their own haunts; but to do this with a prospect of encouraging success, the right physical condition must be attended to, if we would raise the moral. It will not do to administer a tract, without the presence of one who shews that he takes an unprofessional interest in the inmates of the dwelling. The cause of poverty must be met, or the wound is but skinned over: the professedly Christian community must know and act upon the knowledge, that not clergymen merely are bound to recommend religion; but that every true member of the Church has a commission given him, a work to do, a ministry to discharge; inasmuch as it is an awful but a forgotten truth, that no man liveth to himself," that no one can remain, without guilt, as a cumberer of the ground, that every being who knows and loves the truth is responsible to God for the talents committed to his or her stewardship. We desiderate outward improvement,-better houses, and the removal of many existing evils from our Grassmarkets, Cowgates, and Canongates; but, as preliminary to, and the accompaniment of, a still more important moral change, in which an outcast population is to be induced to give attendance on the well-nigh forgotten observances of public worship; and the taunt is to be no more heard (urged, as it is often, by parties bearing a full share of the responsibility, and doing nothing with a view of mitigating the evil,) that our sanctuaries are emptiest where the aspect of the neighbourhood emphatically shews that they are most required. In this state of matters, the amount of existing evil may seem to be so great that no effort appears adequate to a remedy. We are contented to look at the masses of dwellings which so picturesquely stud the line from the Castle that crowns the rocky summit with its battlements and batteries, to the Royal Edifice which occupies its ancient position at the termination of the line. We observe the motley and discordant popula tion; we hear the cries of childhood, and listen to the foul speech and the precocious oath. Elaborate calculations are mean while brought for ward as to "seats let and unlet." It is supposed that the individuals in question should, of their own accord, throng the places of worship which stand next in proximity; but, just as "Satan was too strong for young Melancthon," will it be found that, so long as nothing is done to elevate the temporal condition of the working-classes, and they are suffered to be preyed upon by evil and corrupting influences, little abiding good will be effected. In reference to hundreds and even thousands of our fellow-citizens, it may be said, that their case is such as to call for the zealous, persevering endeavours of the Christian Philanthropist. Customs have gained ground which are hostile to individual happiness and well-being; and in proportion to the poverty of many a neighbourhood, we observe the facilities of vicious indulgence multiplied, and the temptations to mischief abounding. The young may be seen in troops on the day of rest, spending the Sabbath in a merriment not unsuitable at other times, but evidently shewing that they have not been taught to fear God or to regard man; not a few of whom are precocious in vice, and too faithfully imitate the example of their elders. The evil is in the fair way of spreading from one generation to the next, and if attempts at Christian ising the masses are not to be of the most imperfect and superficial kind, it is evident that some more systematic and ampler means than have hitherto been employed, need to be put into operation. It would require a great part of the living and well-informed Christian spirit in this city, to unite in operations, sinking all minor jealousies-with this grand and important end in view-to parcel out the whole extent of the territory into manageable districts, to take the families of such neighbourhoods under affectionate and persevering surveillance, and by dint of varied good offices, to shew that a real and lively interest is taken in both their temporal advancement and their moral improvement. We must not, however, diverge at present into a continuation of the above remarks, further than to state that such a plan of operations appears to be quite practicable. We proceed to give our readers some * Were twenty agents weekly to visit ten families in a locality, a district including 2000 souls might be adequately overtaken. idea of the contents of Dr. Foulis's pamphlet. His prescriptions, we may premise, are eminently practical; instead of theorising on the subject, he informs us of what has actually been effected. We shall quote the writer's description of the scene of operations which he chose, and which was certainly by no means the most auspicious and inviting description. The Old Town of Edinburgh is full of closes, and on the simplest principle of reasoning, what has been effected in one case, may be also accomplished in hundreds of other instances, with the certainty, as matters at present stand, of not only being guarded against loss, but of making a profitable investment. "When one walks down the West Bow, looking right across the Grassmarket, he may see, overtopping the surrounding buildings by two storeys, a lofty tenement. That house is the celebrated Hatters' Land,'-celebrated, at least, in the medical profession, more fever and cholera having been taken to the Infirmary from that one building than from any other of an equal size in Edinburgh; celebrated also as a den of thieves and robbers. Many a one can look at that house and say, That is the house where I was robbed. This tenement stands at the end of Burt's Close, and, some twelve months ago, was approached from the Grassmarket by a low entrance under the front house. After passing through the covered way, which few had the inclination or boldness to attempt, when they saw the savage-looking Amazons who usually guarded the entrance, and after gaining the erect posture, which the lowness of the roof rendered for the time impossible, the visitor witnessed a scene the like of which had probably never before entered his imagination. Winter or summer, it was all the same; from the top of the close to the bottom one continuous pool of wet, filth, and pollution; on one side a ruinous wall, on the other a building apparently in the last stage of decomposition, the windows almost utterly destitute of glass; and clouds of smoke issuing from them indicated a total obliteration of the chimneys. On the right, were two or three wretched cellars, which, but for the half-naked children standing at the door, might have been passed unnoticed, and into which the light of heaven never entered beyond a few feet from the door. These cellars, we need hardly say, were inhabited by the lowest Irish, by profession stickbreakers or stick-hawkers, which, in many cases, is a charitable name for young thieves. Farther up the close, were three out-shot rickety wooden stairs, which served as a means of access to the upper storeys, at least for those to whom practice had rendered them passable. The interior of this house (which in the sequel will appear under very different circumstances) was in keeping with the exterior. The floors were in the same style of architecture as the roofs formerly alluded to,-broken-backed, a curve of three to four inches being no uncommon thing in a room ten feet by twelve; yet, strange to say, and showing the tenacity of these old buildings, we were told that a few nights before our first visit, a ball had been held with impunity in one of these very rooms, the musician plying his vocation on a threelegged stool, the only piece of furniture in which the room rejoiced. Passing up the close, large heaps of filth were seen underneath the wooden stairs. But it is needless to particularise these, as the whole close was one midden, the places under the stairs differing from the rest only in the depth of the accumulation. After passing another ruinous building, used as a byre, the visitor carefully picking his steps from stone to stone, reached, at the top of the close, the large tenement formerly alluded to, the Hatters' Land.' This building rises to the height of six storeys, and, judging from the living stream which poured down the stair, the population must have been enormous. In one room alone at the top of the house, between sixty and seventy |