St. Paul's have been covered with the dirt and smoke of upwards of a
century: and the fillagree-like embellishments which distinguish the recent
restorations of Henry the VIIth's chapel, in Westminster Abbey, are already
beginning to lose their delicacy of appearance from a similar cause. But I
check myself. I am at Paris--and not in the metropolis of our own country.

A word now for STREET SCENERY. Paris is perhaps here unrivalled: still I
speak under correction--having never seen Edinburgh. But, although
_portions_ of that northern capital, from its undulating or hilly site,
must necessarily present more picturesque appearances, yet, upon the whole,
from the superior size of Paris, there must be more numerous examples of
the kind of scenery of which I am speaking. The specimens are endless. I
select only a few--the more familiar to me. In turning to the left, from
the _Boulevard Montmartre_ or _Poissonière_, and going towards the _Rue St.
Marc_, or _Rue des Filles St. Thomas_ (as I have been in the habit of
doing, almost every morning, for the last ten days--in my way to the Royal
Library) you leave the _Rue Montmartre_ obliquely to the left. The houses
here seem to run up to the sky; and appear to have been constructed with
the same ease and facility as children build houses of cards. In every
direction about this spot, the houses, built of stone, as they generally
are, assume the most imposing and picturesque forms; and if a Canaletti
resided here, who would condescend to paint without water and wherries,
some really magnificent specimens of this species of composition might be
executed--equally to the credit of the artist and the place.

If you want old fashioned houses, you must lounge in the long and parallel
streets of _St. Denis_ and _St. Martin_; but be sure that you choose dry
weather for the excursion. Two hours of heavy rain (as I once witnessed)
would cause a little rushing rivulet in the centre of these streets--and
you could only pass from one side to the other by means of a plank. The