ANOTHER of the great morning lounges has its seat in a shop, the character of which would not at first sight lead one to expect any such thing—a clothier's shop, namely, occupied by a father and son, both of the name of David Bridges. The cause and centre of the attraction, however, is entirely lodged in the person of the junior member of the firm, an active, intelligent, and warm-hearted fellow, who has a prodigious love for the Fine Arts, and lives on familiar terms with all the artists of Edinburgh; and around whom, in consequence of these circumstances, the whole connoisseurs and connoisseurship of the North have by degrees become clustered and concentrated, like the meeting of the red and yellow stripes in the back of a tartan jacket.

This shop is situated in the High-Street, not above a couple of hundred yards from the house of my friend Wastle, who, as might be supposed, is one of its most frequent visitors. I had not been long in Edinburgh before I began to make some enquiries concerning the state of art in Scotland, and Wastle immediately conducted me to this dilettanti lounge, saying, that here was the only place where I might be furnished with every means of satisfying all my curiosity. On entering, one finds a very neat and tasteful-looking shop, well stocked with all the tempting diversities of broad-cloth and bombazeens, silk stockings, and spotted handkerchiefs. A few sedate-looking old-fashioned cits are probably engaged in conning over the Edinburgh papers of the day, and perhaps discussing mordicus the great question of Burgh Reform; but there is nothing either in the place or the company that at all harmonizes with one's notions of a great Φροντιστήριον of Gusto. After waiting for a few minutes, however, the younger partner tips a sly wink across his counter, and beckons you to follow him through a narrow cut in its mahogany surface, into the unseen recesses of the establishment. A few steps downwards, and in the dark, land you in a sort of cellar below the shop proper, and here by the dim and religious light which enters through one or two well-grated peeping-holes, your eyes soon discover enough of the furniture of the place, to satisfy you that you have at last reached the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Fine Arts.