tive, Glenevis, or Glenco. There is not, however, so much danger of
being lost in it as in the Moor of Rannoch--for streets and squares,
though then utterly tenantless, are useful as landmarks to the pilgrim
passing through what seems to be

"A still forsaken City of the Dead!"

But, like a frost-bound river suddenly dissolved by a strong thaw, and
coming down in spate from the mountains to the low lands, about the
beginning of November life annually re-overflows our metropolis, with a
noise like "the rushing of many chariots." The streets, that for months
had been like the stony channels of dried-up streams--only not quite so
well paved--are again all a-murmur, and people addicted to the study of
political economy begin to hold

"Each strange tale devoutly true"

in the Malthusian theory of population. What swarms keep hovering round
the great Northern Hive! Add eke after eke to the skep, and still seems
it too small to contain all the insects. Edinburgh is almost as large as
London. Nay, don't stare! We speak comparatively; and as England is
somewhere about six times more populous than Scotland, you may, by
brushing up your arithmetic, and applying to the Census, discover that
we are not so far wrong in our apparent paradox.

Were November in himself a far more wearifu' month than he is, Edinburgh
would nevertheless be gladsome in the midst of all his gloom, even as a
wood in May with the Gathering of the Clans. The country flows into the
town--all its life seems to do so--and to leave nothing behind but the
bare trees and hedges. Equipages again go glittering along all the
streets, squares, circuses, and crescents; and one might think that the
entire "nation of ladies and gentlemen"--for King George the Fourth, we
presume, meant to include the sex in his compliment--were moving through
their metropolis. Amusement and business walk hand-in-hand--you hardly
know, from their cheerful countenances, which is which; for the Scots,
though a high-cheeked, are not an ill-favoured folk in their
features--and though their mouths are somewhat of the widest, their
teeth are white as well as sharp, and on the opening of their ruddy
lips, their ivory-cases are still further brightened by hearty smiles.
'Twould be false to say that their figures are distinguished by an air
of fashion--for we have no court, and our nobles are almost all
absentees. But though, in one sense, the men are ugly customers, as they
will find