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 Poissoniere, 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 absence of trottoirs—–­ or foot-pavement—­is indeed here found to be a most grievous defect.  With the exception of the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix, where something like this sort of pavement prevails, Paris presents you with hardly any thing of the kind; so that, methinks, I hear you say, “what though your Paris be gayer and more grand, our London is larger and more commodious.”  Doubtless this is a fair criticism.  But from the Marche des Innocens—­a considerable space, where they sell chiefly fruit and vegetables,[6]—­(and which reminded me something of the market-places of Rouen) towards the Hotel de Ville and the Hotel de Soubise, you will meet with many extremely curious and interesting specimens of house and street scenery:  while, as I before observed to you, the view of the houses and streets in the Isle St. Louis, from the Pont des Ars, the Quai de Conti, the Pont Neuf, or the Quai des Augustins—­or, still better, the Pont Royal—­is absolutely one of the grandest and completest specimens of metropolitan scenery which can be contemplated.  Once more:  go as far as the Pont Louis XVI., cast your eye down to the left; and observe how magnificently the Seine is flanked by the Thuileries and the Louvre.  Surely, it is but a sense of justice and a love of truth which compel an impartial observer to say, that this is a view of regal and public splendor—­without a parallel in our own country!