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flagrante delicto, and narrowly escaped from the vengeance of the populace. Several squibs have been let off on the subject; a bookseller of my acquaintance desired me to write some thing pro or con, no matter which. But I had resolved never to meddle with resurrectionizing again, after the lesson I got in Baltimore!

The dissection rooms which I have visited in this place are kept in very bad order. The horrid stench from the mangled and putrified bodies in these rooms, is enough to produce the most dangerous consequences. Bodies are imported from London, when there is a scarcity of the article in Edinburgh, and six guineas are often paid for a subject, which is so tender that it is nearly rotten!

A regulation in the University of Edin burgh, obliges every one who attends the classes, to furnish himself with a matriculation ticket, (price half a guinea,) before he can receive the ticket of any of the professors. In order to become a candidate for graduation, it is necessary to matriculate for three winters. The candidate's thesis must be given to the dean, (Dr. Monro) early in spring. There are three examinations, all in Latin: the first takes place in April, at one of the professors' houses -the second in June, which consists in commenting on one of Hippocrates' Aphorismsthe third is coram populo, and is a short examination of the candidate on the subject of his thesis.

The custom of grinding deserves the seve

rest reprobation. The grinders render the acquisition of Latin perfectly useless to the candidate; as they write theses, at so much a sheet, on any proposed subject, and give private lessons, in which the most unclassical student will acquire dog Latin enough to get through his examinations!

The Medical Society of Edinburgh is said to be in a very flourishing condition, although I did not think it worth while to pay six guineas to join it! If I can judge from a few of their meetings which I attended, there is more froth than substance in their debates. Every youthful Alumnus of the University, who has tortured a few living dogs and guinea-pigs, and drawn hasty conclusions from his barbarous experiments, appears sure to be held out by the committees of that body, as a rising medical luminary; provided he has been cunning enough to submit his memoirs to their sagacious criticism.

The private lectures are generally more valuable than those delivered at the University. Dr. Murray's chemical course is the most interesting that I ever attended on that subject. The lectures of the late Dr. Gordon were very popular. Never did a young professor open his career with more brilliant prospects, and never were the hopes of friends more cruelly disappointed than by the premature death of this promising young man, who bid fair to be the Bichat of Scotland. Some years ago, the celebrated John Bell delivered private lectures

in Edinburgh; he quarrelled with all the facul ty of the place, whose characters he did not spare, in attacking their opinions. He accumulated debt on debt, till he was obliged to escape from the storm which was gathering over him. He afterwards resided in Paris, where he contracted more debts, and was forced to decamp. He then retired to Italy, where he soon died, a melancholy example of misapplied talents and of the effects of debau chery.

LETTER XIII.

Others believe no voice t' an organ
So sweet as lawyer's in his bar-gown;
Until with subtle cobweb-cheats,

Th' are catch'd in knotted law, like nets;
In which, when once they are imbrangled,
The more they stir, the more they're tangled;

And while their purses can dispute,

There's no end of th' immortal suit. HUDIBRAS.

TO JOHN D

Edinburgh, April 5th, 1819.

I occasionally pay a visit to the courts of justice, to acquaint myself with the forms of the Scotish law. I cannot help laughing at the capacious wigs and ridiculous trappings worn by the lawyers, who parade the courts with the most ludicrous solemnity, looking, as the French say, as grave as a pot-de-chambre!

Nothing is more laughable than to see one of hese orators at the bar, holding up his head with the most insipid serenity, and now and then smoothing down the curls of his enormous wig that reaches down to his middle, whilst his brows are knitted into an assumed frown of profound reflection. I lately was present at a trial, in which I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Jeffrey, the celebrated editor of the Edinburgh Review, who is certainly more agreeable as a writer than as an orator; for, not to mention his intolerable Scotch accent, he has none of the suaviter in modo, which gives eloquence half its fascination. As I got heartily tired of his long-winded speech, I pulled out a volume of Junius from my pocket, and after taking a survey of the rapacious pettifoggers in the room, I deemed it a singular coincidence, that I opened the book exactly at this passage: "If there be any instances upon record of genius and morality united in a lawyer, they are distinguished by their singularity, and operate as exceptions!"

The Scotch lawyers of the highest class are the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Edinburgh, which, as it monopolizes most of that precious commodity, the law business, has a great legislative preponderance over the rest of Scotland. The commercial towns have their litigious matters transacted by the lawyers of Auld Reekie, who doubtlessly are fully as honest in their dealings as other members of this laudable profession! It is the fashion in Edin

burgh for every lawyer to be a perfect Proteus in his "way of life." In London, an attorney is a plain man of business, and knows nothing of the gayeties of fashion, whilst the "man of wit and pleasure about the town," labours in his vocation, and does not trouble his head about the drudgery of business: every man is, more or less, what he gives himself out to be, and nothing more. Here a lawyer is at the same time an attorney, a reviewer, a fashionable beau and a virtuoso! In the morning, he deals out his jargon, under his wig with two hundred curls; when he gets his feet on his andirons at home, he scribbles quires full of criticism, or reads over the "last sweet novel," or involves himself in the mazes of the Lake poetry; in the evening, he appears in the ball room or in the saloon of fashion, " neat, trimly dressed, fresh as a bridesgroom."

One

would be apt to imagine that such a fellow was a finished Aristippus; but, if you pursue him with a critic's eye, you will find him a clumsy speaker at court, a dry writer at home, and an awkward beau in the modish circles!

In front of the main entrance to the courts of law, is seen a statue of Charles II., one of the most profligate and worthless monarchs that ever sat on the English throne. It is hard to imagine why this pensioned libertine-should be selected from the whole precious line of kings, to receive such an honourable distinction as this. Charles II., (says Burke,) was a man without any sense of his duty as a prince,

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