DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE importance of the Whigs in Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh Review, added to the great enterprize and extensive general business of Mr Constable, have, as might have been expected, rendered the shop of this bookseller by far the most busy scene in the Bibliopolic world of the North. It is situated in the High-street, in the midst of the Old Town, where, indeed, the greater part of the Edinburgh Booksellers are still to be found lingering (as the majority of their London brethren also do,) in the neighbourhood of the same old haunts to which long custom has attached their predilections. On entering, one sees a place by no means answering, either in point of dimensions, or in point of ornament, to the notion one might have been apt to form of the shop from which so many mighty works are every day issuing—a low dusky chamber, inhabited by a few clerks, and lined with an assortment of unbound books and stationery—entirely devoid of all those luxurious attractions of sofas and sofa-tables, and books of prints, &c. &c., which one meets with in the superb nursery of the Quarterly Review in Albemarle-Street. The Bookseller himself is seldom to be seen in this part of his premises; he prefers to sit in a chamber immediately above, where he can proceed in his own work without being disturbed by the incessant cackle of the young Whigs who lounge below; and where few casual visitors are admitted to enter his presence, except the more important members of the great Whig corporation—Reviewers either in esse, or, at least, supposed to be so in posse—contributors to the Supplement of the Encyclopædia Britannica—and the more obscure editors and supporters of the innumerable and more obscure periodical works, of which Mr Constable is the publisher. The bookseller is himself a good-looking man, apparently about forty—very fat in his person, but with a face with good lines, and a fine healthy complexion. He is one of the most jollylooking members of the trade I ever saw; and moreover, one of the most pleasing and courtly in his address.