collection of casts belonging to the academy being retained in their present obscurity, they will be brought before the public eye, and thus form an additional and most interesting object of curiosity to strangers who may visit our capital.

We come now, in conclusion, to a distinct notice of the publication, of which we have availed ourselves to lay this sketch before our readers.

Mr. Allan is already known to the public by his admirable representations of the manners of the Tartars of the Crimea, and the other inhabitants of the coast of the Black Sea, as well as by the scenes of Scottish rural life, which he has depicted with so much truth and force of character as to mark a new era in this species of

art.

The plates of which this volume is composed are necessarily of too small a scale to display to the greatest advantage the talents of the artist, particularly where the inward workings of the mind are to be manifested by the expression of the countenance; and although, even in this point, we must acknowledge ourselves to be highly gratified, we do not think that the engravers have, in every instance, done justice to the originals. As the comic expressions are more tangible and obvious, and depend less on those delicate movements and changes of countenance which in general characterize the higher passions in personages of an elevated rank, they are much fitter subjects of representation on a small scale; and for this reason, the humorous scenes of this work are, in our apprehension, decidedly the best.

The Laird of Monkbarns, arming himself on the alarm of invasion, is admirable for its strong character, as well as for its composition and appropriate costume. The countenance of the Laird' is full of nature, and is a most happy personification of our old friend the Antiquary. His piercing eye and sharp features indicate the acuteness and habitual causticity of his character; and the firmness and vigour of his attitude and action, mark" the high resolve" with which he is animated. The energy of this figure is finely contrasted with the sedateness of the old matron, who, with great deliberation, assists in accoutring him; and the group of “womankind” in the background, while it contributes essentially to the development of the story, is of great importance to the composition, by giving an agreeable form to the principal mass. The old chair, too, on the foreground, in itself so characteristic and appropriate, by the light and shadow which it sustains, as well as by its individuality, forms an interesting episode to this part of the picture.

The scene with Mrs. Mucklebackit is also impressed with a

strong character of nature; the fish, and other details on the foreground, are finely introduced; but in the engraving, the spirit and verisimilitude of the original have not been so well preserved.

The combat between the Baron of Bradwardine and the Laird of Balmawhapple, is highly ludicrous. The character of the former is finely conceived; the other personages are well sustained, and the still life is introduced with much judgment and propriety.

The fight between Baillie Jarvie and Major Galbraith's party in the Clachan of Aberfoil is equally admirable with the last mentioned; but much of the expression of countenance, which was so just in the original, is lost in the engraving.

The scene from Waverley of the conclusion of Flora's song in the glen at Glennaquoich, displays a great degree of elegant feeling, and is most tastefully conceived and scientifically grouped.

Lucy Aston and the Master of Ravenswood pledging their love at the Mermaiden's Fountain, claims our attention, chiefly from the very grand style of the back-ground, by which the painter has given an interest to the scene, which two figures engaged in a subject of so little interest to an unconcerned spectator, could not of themselves have excited.

The scene at the alehouse in Cumberland, between Meg Merrilies, Brown, and Dinmont, is very beautifully described, as is also Old Mortality, (which forms the frontispiece to the work ;) but as our limits will not admit us to enter on farther details, we can only express our approbation generally of the taste with which the subjects are selected, and the genuine national feeling with which they are composed. Mr. Allan has evidently taken the greatest pains in adjusting all the details of the costame in the most characteristic manner; and, on this account, the publication possesses a degree of authenticity which we seldom find in illustrations of Scottish manners produced on the other side of the Tweed.

In a work so completely national as the present, we confess it would have given us much pleasure to have seen the plates executed by Scottish engravers; and we have no small pride in reflecting on the talents which several of our countrymen have displayed in this department of art. The frontispiece, by Lizars, is the only case in which we have been gratified as to this point in the publication; but we think that it and his beautiful plate of Crichton Castle, engraved for the Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, afford ample security that he would not have discredited our recommendation.

ART. V. The Percy Anecdotes. Part II. Anecdotes of Eloquence. Pp. 180.

HAVING in our last Number introduced this work to the notice of our readers, it is quite unnecessary for us to occupy room with any prefatory remarks on its general nature and design; and we proceed, instanter, therefore, to speak specially of the part now before us. Eloquence is not so meritorious as humanity; but it is certainly a more claimant excellence; and these anecdotal illustrations of it are likely to be more universally attractive than the preceding.. We really think them better chosen and more appropriate; though to us they seem, as do the contents of all of the portions of this work which have fallen into our hands, to be materially injured by want of arrangement and a discernible bearing on acknowledged objects. We desiderate, also, something like definitions or descriptions of the thing or quality which it is intended thus to illustrate; and, moreover, we must say, that, in the absence of any other method than the allotment of anecdotes, supposed or asserted to be of the same generic kind, to separate volumes or parts, we feel offended by the frequent mixture of ages and countries, when it is absolutely impossible to assign any reason for it, beyond the convenience of the compiler, or the paltry consideration of relieving the eye by the alternation of long and short articles. Still there is great merit in the collection; and the occasional reflections, which accompany some of the anecdotes, afford fair indications of good sense and good principle. Our extracts must be very miscellaneous, for we confess we have no time, though a strong inclination, to improve on the plan, by suggesting what we are vain enough to denominate a scientific method, and some philosophical deductions. This part is dedicated to Lord Erskine, whose portrait, very neatly executed after a picture by Sir T. Lawrence, forms the frontispiece.

CRILLON. KING CLOVIS.

"The brave Crillon, attending on a Good-Friday the public offices of devotion, was so affected by an eminent preacher's delineation of our Saviour's death and sufferings, that, laying his hand upon his sword, he cried out in a transport of generous resentment, Where wert thou Crillon?"" "It would be idle to suspect Crillon of plagiarism in his honest anger, and mode of venting it. Yet his behaviour was merely a copy of that of King Clovis, on a similar occasion, Had I been present at the head of my valiant Franks,' exclaimed that monarch indignantly, I would have redressed his wrongs.'

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM.

"James the First, soon after his accession to the English throne, was present in a court of justice, to observe the pleadings in a cause of some consequence. The counsel for the plaintiff having finished, the king was so perfectly satisfied, that he exclaimed, 'Tis a plain case!" and was about to

leave the court. Being persuaded, however, to stay and hear the other side of the question, the pleaders for the defendant made the case no less plain on their side. On this the monarch rose and departed in a great passion, exclaiming, They are all rogues alike!'"

SIR NICHOLAS THROCKMORTON.

"One of the earliest and most pleasing triumphs of the trial by jury, in this country, was displayed in the case of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, accused of high-treason in 1554. He was indicted for being concerned in Wyatt's rebellion, and was brought to trial before Lord Chief-Justice Bromley, and a special commission of privy-counsellors, judges, and crown-lawyers. He had been in close confinement for fifty-eight days, without any of his friends being allowed access to him, or any assistance of counsel, which was never then permitted. Sir Nicholas was no lawyer by profession; yet under all these disadvantages, he made a defence, not only distinguished for its plain good sense and strong reasoning, but incomparably more learned, as a legal argument, than any thing that was urged against him by the united knowledge of the bench and bar. In every question of law that occurred, he baffled the whole of the lawyers opposed to him; and the judges got at last so irritated, that they made an attempt to put him to silence, by refusing to order certain statutes which he called for to be read. To their astonishment, however, he repeated them with perfect accuracy, after complaining indignantly, that instead of law, they gave him only the form and image of law.' When he had finished, the Chief Justice exclaimed, with surprise, Why do not you of the queen's learned counsel answer him? Methinks, Throckmorton, you need not have the statutes, for you have them perfectly.' When the judges quoted cases against him, he retorted others, in which these had been condemned as erroneous; till Serjeant Stanford, on the part of the crown, peevishly remarked, that if he had known the prisoner was so well furnished with cases, he would have come better prepared. Throckmorton coolly replied, that he had no law, but what he had learned from Mr. Serjeant Stanford himself, when attending in Parliament. At length Griffin, the attorney-general, fairly lost all patience at the dexterity and acuteness displayed by the prisoner, and called out, I pray you, my lords, that be the queen's commissioners, suffer not the prisoner to use the queen's counsel thus; I was never interrupted thus in my life, nor I never knew any thus suffered to talk, as this prisoner is suffered; some of us will come no more at the bar, an we be thus handled.'

"The jury acquitted the prisoner; for which (such was the degree of freedom then in England,) they were immediately imprisoned; and those who did not make due acknowledgment of their fault in deciding according to their consciences, were afterwards heavily fined by the Star-Chamber, even to the ruin of some of them, particularly the foreman and another, who lay in jail eight months."

EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.

"The author of the Characteristics, when Lord Ashley, and soon after he had taken his seat in the House of Commons, rose to speak in support of the act for granting counsel to prisoners in cases of high treason,' but found himself so embarrassed that he was unable to express his sentiments. The house cheered him; and, recovering from his confusion, he very happily converted the difficulty and embarrassment of his own situation in favour of the bill. If I, Sir,' said he, addressing the Speaker, if I, who rise only to offer my opinion on the bill now depending, am so confounded that I am unable to express the least of what I intended to say, what must the condition of that man be, who, without any assistance, is pleading for his life?""

REPORTERS.

"When the tax on newspapers, proposed by Mr. Pitt in 1789, was under discussion in the House of Commons, Mr. Drake said that he disliked the tax, and would oppose it from a motive of gratitude. The gentlemen concerned in writing for them, had been particularly kind to him. They had made him deliver many well-shapen speeches, though he was convinced he had never spoken so well in his whole life.''

PATRICK HENRY.

"When Patrick Henry, who gave the first impulse to the ball of the American revolution, introduced his celebrated resolution on the stamp-act into the House of Burgesses of Virginia, (May, 1765,) he exclaimed, when descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, Cæsar had his Brutus ; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third' -(Treason! cried the Speaker; treason! treason!' echoed from every part of the house.) It was one of those trying moments which are decisive of character. Henry faultered not for an instant; but, rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye flashing with fire, continued, may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.'

EFFECT.

Mr. Lee, the barrister, was famous for studying effect when he pleaded. On the circuit at Norwich, a brief was brought to him by the relation of a woman who had been deceived into a breach of promise of marriage. Lee inquired, among other particulars, whether the woman was handsome? A most beautiful face,' was the answer. Satisfied with this, he desired she should be placed at the bar, immediatèly in front of the jury. When he rose, he began a most pathetic and eloquent address, directing the attention of the jury to the charms which were placed in their view, and painting, in glowing colours, the guilt of the wretch who could injure so much beauty. When he perceived their feelings worked up to a proper pitch, he sat down, under the perfect conviction that he should obtain a verdict. What then must have been his surprise, when the counsel retained by the opposite party rose, and observed, that it was impossible not to assent to the encomiums which his learned friend had lavished on the face of the plaintiff; but he had forgot to say that she had a wooden leg! This fact, of which Lee was by no means aware, was established to his utter confusion. His eloquence was thrown away; and the jury, who felt ashamed of the effects it had produced upon them, instantly gave a verdict against him."

PHYSIOGNOMY.

A witness was one day called to the bar of the House of Commons, when some one took notice, and pointedly remarked upon his ill looks. Mr. Fox (afterwards Lord Holland,) whose gloomy countenance strongly marked his character, observed, that it was unjust, ungenerous, and unmanly, to censure a man for that signature which God had impressed upon his countenance, and which therefore he could not by any means remedy or avoid.' Mr. Pitt hastily rose, and said, 'I agree from my heart with the observation of my fellow member; it is forcible, it is judicious, and true. But there are some (throwing his eyes full on Fox,) upon whose face the hand of Heaven has so stamped the mark of wickedness, that it were IMPIETY not to give it credit.'

PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

66 During the disputes of the Parliament of Paris about the middle of the 17th century, there appeared many symptoms of ancient eloquence. The Avocat-General, Talon, in an oration, invoked, on his knees, the spirit of St. Louis to look down with compassion on his divided and unhappy people, and to inspire them from heaven with the love of concord and unanimity.