and which, indeed, as Mr Play mentioned, has of late been much abridged in its dimensions, by the improvements that have taken place in this quarter of the city. He proposed that we should enter the burying-ground, in order to see the place where David Hume is laid. There are few things in which I take a more true delight, than in visiting the graves of the truly illustrious dead, and I therefore embraced the proposal with eagerness. The philosopher reposes on the very margin of the rock, and above him his friends have erected a round tower, which, although in itself not very large, derives, like the Observatory on the other side, an infinite advantage from the nature of the ground on which it is placed, and is, in fact, one of the chief landmarks in every view of the city. In its form it is quite simple, and the flat roof and single urn in front give it a very classical effect. Already lichens and ferns and wall-flowers begin to creep over the surface, and a solitary willow-bush drops its long slender leaves over the edge of the roof, and breaks the outline in the air with a desolate softness.

There is no inscription, except the words DAVID HUME; and this is just as it ought to be. One cannot turn from them, and the

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thoughts to which they of necessity give birth, to the more humble names that cover the more humble tombs below and around, without experiencing a strange revulsion of ideas. The simple citizen, that went through the world in a course of plain and quiet existence, getting children, and accumulating money to provide for them, occupies a near section of the same sod which covers the dust of Him, who left no progeny behind him, except that of his intellect, and whose name must survive, in that progeny, so long as Man retains any portion of the infirmity, or of the nobility of his nature. The poor man, the peasant, or the mechanic, whose laborious days provided him scantily with meat and raiment, and abundantly with sound sleep-he also has mingled his ashes with Him, whose body had very little share either in his wants or his wishes-whose spirit alone was restless and sleepless, the Prince of Doubters. The poor homely partner of some such lowly liver, the wife and the mother and the widow, whose existence was devoted to soothing and sharing the asperities of adversity—who lived, and thought, and breathed in the affections alone, and, perhaps, yet lives somewhere in the affections of her children, or her children's children-she too, whose only hope

and confidence were derived from the expectation of another life-she sleeps close beside one who walked upon the earth, not to feel, but to speculate, and was content to descend into her bosom, with scarcely one ray of hope beyond the dark and enduring sleep of nothingness.

"These grassy heaps lie amicably close,
Said I, like surges heaving in the wind,
Upon the surface of a mountain's pool."--

Death, like misery," makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows." But surely never was a scene of strange juxta-position more pregnant with lessons of thoughtfulness than this.

Adieu,
P. M.

LETTER XVI.

TO THE SAME.

A PERSON whose eyes had been accustomed only to such places as the schools of Oxford, or Sir Christopher Pegge's lecture-room, would certainly be very much struck with the prima facie mean condition of the majority of the students assembled at the prælections of these Edinburgh professors, Here and there one sees some small scattered remnant of the great flock of Dandies, trying to keep each other's high collars and stays in countenance, in a corner of the class-room; but these only heighten, by the contrast of their presence, the general effect of the slovenly and dirty mass which on every side surrounds them with its contaminating atmosphere; and upon the whole, nothing can be more distinct and visible, than that the greater part of the company are persons whose situation in life, had they

been born in England, must have left them no chance of being able to share the advantages of our academical education.

I could not help taking notice of this circumstance the other day to my friend W; who not only admitted the justice of my observation, but went on to utter his comments on the fact I had observed, in a tone of opinion and sentiment, for which, I must confess, my own private reflections had by no means prepared me. So far from proceeding, as I had supposed every Scotchman in like circumstances would do, to point out the advantages which might be expected to arise, and which, in Scotland itself, had already, in fact, arisen, out of a so liberal and extensive diffusion of the higher species of education, my friend seemed to have no hesitation in condemning the whole system as being not friendly, but eminently hostile, to the true interests both of Science in general, and of his country.

Without at all understanding him in the literal sense of his words, I think it is possible that the result of his reflections may have really led him to doubt, whether the system which takes in so much may not be somewhat weakened and debased through the very extension of