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166 Such an inscription put upon a house of worship at the present day would be laughed at. I have given it to you, punctuation and all, just as it stands.

The general architecture of Edinburgh is very imposing, whether we regard the picturesque disorder of the buildings in the Old Town, or the symmetrical proportions of the streets and squares in the New. But on viewing this city, which has the reputation of being the finest in Europe, I was surprised to find that it had none of those sumptuous structures which, like St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey, York Minster, and some other of the English provincial cathedrals, astonish the beholder alike by their magnitude and their architectural splendor. But in no city which I have visited in the kingdom is the general standard of excellence better maintained than in Edinburgh.