VISIT TO EUROPE: RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH. 193 



sociability and colloquial powers of the company. How- 

 ever gratifying at the moment, the tendency was no doubt 

 bad, and we presume that the jovial beginnings had some- 

 times a melancholy end. Entertainments were not always, 

 however, so frugal. I dined on one occasion with a Scotch 

 bachelor, who for a few guests spread a sumptuous table, 

 which he told me of his own accord cost twelve pounds, or 

 sixty dollars. It was less agreeable than the frugal sup- 

 pers, and was not recommended by the free habits and 

 sentiments of our host as developed by himself. In family 

 parties in Edinburgh, music, both vocal and instrumental, 

 was a favorite entertainment. Native airs and native songs 

 or poems exerted a fascinating power, and it often hap- 

 pened that the music of the piano was the signal for 

 Scotch reels on the parlor carpet, ending at the usual hour 

 of family retirement. To these few notices of social man- 

 ners in Edinburgh, I add a paragraph from my published 

 travels. " The Scotch are a noble people ; and, poor and 

 narrow as is the tract of earth allotted to them, cut up by 

 friths, enfiladed by mountains, and girded by a belt of stormy 

 islands, Scotland may still proudly challenge the nations 

 whom the Creator has placed in more favored climes, to 

 produce higher examples of all that adorns and ennobles 

 the human character." 



RESULT OF MT RESIDENCE IN EUROPE IN RELATION 

 TO THE OBJECTS OF MY MISSION. I. In Relation to 

 Business. I was fortunate in my engagements in London 

 for the purchase of books and apparatus. I met with faith- 

 ful men in all the departments, who executed the orders 

 with zeal, punctuality, and fidelity. All the books, and 

 every article of apparatus, except a few unimportant pieces 

 of glass, arrived in safety, and met the full approbation of 

 my patrons. After examining all my accounts, and those 

 of the artists and booksellers, with the vouchers, and my 

 own account of personal expenditures, I received a full 



VOL. I. 13 



