Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/50

 *ally the practical effect of securing an exclusive privilege for the whole work. Some of Lord Byron's latest productions, the Memoirs of {20} the Fudge Family,[10] and the Brownie of Bodsbeck,[11] are exhibited in the windows of the principal book-sellers. When I left Edinburgh the last mentioned book was not published.

The Kaleidoscope of Dr. Brewster is here fabricated in a rude style, and in quantities so great, that it is given as a plaything to children.[12] An artist informed me that a journeyman of his proposes to take a patent for an improvement he had made on it.

The public museum in this city is a recent collection. An Indian mummy from the great saltpetre cave in Kentucky, a bear from Warwick mountains, about sixty miles north of this place, which weighed 700 pounds, and an immensely large turtle, are as yet the most interesting objects.

The town hall is a splendid building. Lightness, and an apparent want of solidity in its parts, deprive it in some measure of the august effect essential to sublime grandeur. The front and columns are made of white marble of a foliated texture. The interior staircase is both large and magnificent. It is circular, and furnished with two elegant flights of steps that wind in contrary directions, so that the one crosses the other alternately. Upon the whole, it displays that elegance which becomes an edifice devoted to the administration of justice.