most mean and unworthy of them.

School-houses resembling manufactories; monuments, like dovecots or light-houses; churches, no better than ugly barns such has been the character of architecture in Scotland; and although many men of learning and accomplishment have both taught and been produced, and the eminent dead have been truly reverenced, and the Deity devoutly worshipped, in the midst of all this architectural barbarism, it must now be a pleasing spectacle to every lover of his country, and of its improvement, to see the incongruity between its sterling worth, and the wretched aspect of its exterior, in so fair a way of being abolished. The fury of the Scottish Reformation left unfortunately few remnants of those sacred edifices, which, amidst all its corruptions, were among the redeeming points of the Church of Rome. It is, however, a very gratifying circumstance, that what remains is now carefully preserved, and, if possible, restored. An instance is within my own observation. The singular old church of Corstorphine, with its short stubby spire, and uncommonly massive ribbed stone roof, was on the point of being overthrown, and some strange piece of modern Gothic erected in its room, when the taste of Mr Burn interposed, and he has been enabled, by some additions quite in keeping with the original building, and with as little destruction as possible of any of its peculiar features, to preserve, and render serviceable as a church, this venerable monument of the olden times.

The application of the genius of the architect to sacred purposes is the highest and most impressive use of his

art.

The same may be said of painting; and I hope this application of that admirable art will not be overlooked by our Scottish artists. To be sure, the National Church gives no encouragement to this use of it. And it is a very delicate thing to interfere with the tastes and peculiar habits of churches, in any of their defects or redundancies. The sacred character of the institution itself is apt to be communicated to their forms, or to their want of forms; and one feels it to be something like sacrilege to make a change in the slightest particular connected with them. I do not feel assured that the Church of Scotland would not lose more than it would gain by the introduction of the organ into its music, or of altar-pieces into the decoration of its sacred buildings. There is a character of peculiar sanctity in the present simplicity of its services. In like manner, the very same additions to the harmony and the ornament of worship, are blended with the most holy services of the sister Church, and are in unison with all the sentiments of her children. There are improvements occasionally, too, suggested in her forms, which may be substantially right, but which have an air of sacrilege to one who is inured to them. Repetitions of the same prayer, in different parts of the same service, have been objected to; yet even the slight change of an omission of this kind would be felt with an unpleasing flutter of the pulse, and beating of the heart, throughout the frame of English piety, and be predicted as an overthrow of the Church, almost as much as Catholic Emancipation itself. I am afraid, then, our Scottish artists must not look to the churches for the reception of sacred pieces; but notwithstanding, the taste of the people may encourage these efforts perhaps the more that they are of the character of forbidden fruit in the interior of the sanctuary. I do not think there is now a Presbyterian family who would have any objection to an organ or sacred music in their drawing-room; nor do I apprehend that they would conceive themselves in danger of falling into the sin of idolatry, although a Madonna of Raphael himself were to look down upon them from its walls. On the contrary, they are not insensible to the inspiration of religion, both from sounds and expressive forms, and would encourage, I doubt not, their native artists, in this the noblest and most important branch of their art.

I can easily conceive, that the great painters of Italy have aided the idolatrous tendencies of their church, be

cause they have given to mute material shape and colour-
ing the wonderful impress of divinity. In this astonish-
ing power, painting, indeed, has a superiority over poetry.
Our divine Milton, for instance, is not peculiarly happy
in his delineation of heavenly beings, especially where he
soars the highest. His effects are usually produced more
by an accumulation of impressions, than by any one vivid
touch, such as must be looked to for the effects of the pen-
cil. This does wonderfully well when he describes be-
ings distinguished chiefly by power and force of character,
and of whom we require to have no very distinct visible
representation, but rather have a deeper conception of
them when they are surrounded by "darkness visible."
His Satan, and all his conclave of fiends, are the most
astonishing conceptions, perhaps, that poetry ever ima-
gined, and the most successfully brought out; yet there
is not one of them of whom we can form a distinct de-
lineation to our minds and all attempts of the painter
to pourtray Milton's devils have universally failed, and
ended in the hideous, or the ludicrous. His angels are
not so successful representations, because we are not sa-
tisfied with an indistinct angel as we are with an indis-
tinct devil. The glimpse which we have of them may
be as short as you will, but it must be quite definite and
precise. An angel is a being, no doubt, of great power,
but it is of limited and regulated power, and every thing
about them must be orderly and within rule. Milton's
finest angel is that angelic form assumed by Satan to de-
ceive Uriel, the Regent of the Sun :
"In his face

Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feign'd!
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore Of many a colour'd plume, sprinkled with gold; His habit fit for speed, succinct, and held Before his decent steps a silver wand." This might be painted; but, in general, Milton does not In this respect Dante inpossess the eye of a painter. finitely excels him, all whose representations are distinct pictures; and there is no poet who has given images of somewhat disposed to think that the painters of Italy angels with such nice and appropriate touches. I am have learned their skill in the delineation of sacred figures from this their oldest and greatest poet, who, before the art of painting had made any progress, was the first of painters, and had in his mind's eye visions as distinct as have ever been thrown upon canvass. Surely, however, it must have an impressive religious effect, and may almost be a commentary on Sacred Scripture, to have the personages and events introduced there brought before the view in the actual vision of the pencil,

"where God, or angel guest,

With man, as with his friend, familiar used
To sit indulgent."

Painters may have encouraged idolatry, but they have always supported the highest conceptions of the Divinity of sacred personages. In Him who is most commonly the subject of their delineation, we behold the God, whether he is in the manger or on the cross. A lower conception of his character is derived from the refinings of the metaphysician-not the feelings of the artist. There never was any heterodox representation upon canvass.

It may seem extraordinary to speak of the expression of a divine nature in mere lineament and colouring. Yet this is what the art of Painting has reached, and Poetry has completely failed in; at least if our great Milton be here brought into contrast with a painter, whose name is scarcely of a lower order than his own. Nearly thirty years ago, in a summer's ramble, I found myself accidentally in the neighbourhood of a magnificent but délabré chateau in Northamptonshire. There was no appearance of modern improvement-fine avenues, in long straight lines, with scarcely a tree over the whole

Lord Eglintoune, on the contrary, was not liked, on account of the inconvenience which he occasioned to many of his tenants by newfangled improvements, and his introduction into the country of a generally abhorred article, denominated rye-grass, which, for some reason we are not farmer enough to explain, was fully as unpopular a measure as the bringing in of Prelacy had been a century before. Lord Eglintoune was in the habit of taking strange crotchets about his farms crotchets quite at variance with the old-established prejudices of his tenantry. He sometimes tried to rouse the old stupid farmers of Kyle from their negligence and supineness, by removing them to other farms, or causing two to exchange their possessions, in order, as he jocularly alleged, to prevent their furniture from getting mouldy, by long standing in particular damp corners. Though his lordship's projects were all undertaken in the spirit of improvement, and though these emigrations were doubtless salutary in a place where the people were then involved in much sloth and nastiness, still they were premature, and carried on with rather a harsh spirit. They therefore excited feelings in the country people not at all favourable to his character. These, joined to the natural eagerness of the common people to exult over the fall of tyranny, and the puritanical spirit of the district, which disposed them to regard his lordship's peccadilloes as downright libertinism, altogether conspired against him, and tended to throw the glory and the pity of the occasion upon his lordship's slayer. Even Mungo's poaching was excused, as a more amiable failing than the excessive love of preserving game, which had always been the unpopular mania of the Eglintoune family. Mungo Campbell was a man respectably connected, the son of a provost of Ayr, had been a dragoon in his youth, was eccentric in his manners, a bachelor, and was considered, at Newmills, where he resided, as an austere and unsocial, but honourable, and not immoral man. There can be no doubt that he rose on his elbows and fired at his lordship, who had additionally provoked him by bursting into a laugh at his awkward fall. The Old Tolbooth was supposed by many, at the time, to have had her usual failing in Mungo's case. The Argyll interest was said to have been employed in his favour, and the body, which was found suspended over the door, instead of being his, was thought to be that of a dead soldier from the castle substituted in his place. His relations, however, who are very respectable people in Ayrshire, all acknowledge that he died by his own hand; and this was the general idea of the mob of Edinburgh, who, getting the body into their hands, trailed it down the street to the King's Park, and, inspired by different sentiments from those of the Ayrshire people, were not satisfied till they got it up to the top of Salisbury Crags, from which they precipi. tated it down the Cat Nick. Aged people in Ayrshire still remember the unwonted brilliancy of the aurora borealis on the midnight of Lord Eglintoune's death. Strange and awful whispers then went through the country, in correspondence, as it were, with the streamers in the sky, which were considered by the superstitious as expressions on the face of heaven of satisfied wrath in the

event.

One of the most remarkable criminals ever confined in the Old Tolbooth was the celebrated William Brodie. As may be generally known, this was a man of respect able connexions, and who had moved in good society all his life, unsuspected of any criminal pursuits. It is said that a habit of frequenting cock-pits was the first symptom he exhibited of a defalcation from virtue. His ingenuity as a joiner gave him a fatal facility in the burglarious pursuits to which he afterwards addicted himself. It was then customary for the shopkeepers of Edinburgh to hang their keys upon a nail at the back of their doors, or at least to take no pains in concealing them during the day. Brodie used to take impressions of them in putty or clay, a piece of which he could carry in the palm of

his hand. He kept a blacksmith in his pay, of the name of Smith, who forged exact copies of the keys he wanted. and with these it was his custom to open the shops of his fellow-tradesmen during the night. He thus found opportunities of securely stealing whatsoever he wished to possess. He carried on his malpractices for many years. Upon one shop in particular he made many severe exactions. This was the shop of a company of jewellers, in the North Bridge Street, namely, that at the south-east corner, where it joins the High Street. The unfortunate tradesmen from time to time missed many articles, and paid off one or two faithful shopmen, under the impression of their being guilty of the theft. They were at length ruined. Brodie remained unsuspected, till having committed a daring robbery upon the Excise-office in Chessel's Court, Canongate, some circumstances transpired, which induced him to disappear from Edinburgh. Suspicion then becoming strong, he was pursued to Holland, and taken at Amsterdam, standing upright in a press or cupboard. At his trial, Henry Erskine, his counsel, spoke very eloquently in his behalf, representing in particular, to the jury, how strange and improbable a circumstance it was, that a man whom they had themselves known from infancy as a person of good repute, should have been guilty of such practices as those with which he was charged. He was, however, found guilty, and sentenced to death, along with his accomplice Smith. At the trial he had appeared in a fine full-dress suit of black clothes, the greater part of which was of silk, and his deportment throughout the whole affair was completely that of a gentleman. He continued during the period which intervened between his sentence and execution, to dress himself well and to keep up his spirits. A gentleman of our acquaintance, calling upon him in the condemned room, was astonished to find him singing the song from the Beggar's Opera, "'Tis woman seduces all mankind." Having contrived to cut out the figure of a draught-board on the stone floor of his dungeon, he amused himself by playing with any one who would join him, and, in default of such, with his right hand against his left. This diagram remained in the room where it was so strangely out of place, till the destruction of the jail. His dress and deportment at the gallows were equally gay with those which he assumed at his trial. As the Earl of Morton was the first man executed by the Maiden, so was Brodie the first who proved the excellence of an improvement he had formerly made on the apparatus of the gibbet. This was the substitution of what is called the drop, for the ancient practice of the double ladder. He inspected the thing with a professional air, and seemed to view the result of his ingenuity with a smile of satisfaction. When placed on that terrible and insecure pedestal, and while the rope was adjusted round his neck by the executioner, his courage did not forsake him. On the contrary, even there, he exhibited a sort of joyful levity, which, though not exactly composure, seemed to the spectators as more indicative of indifference; he shuffled about, looked gaily around, and finally went out of the world with his hand stuck carelessly into the open front of his vest.

The Tolbooth, in its old days, as its infirmities increased, showed itself now and then incapable of retaining prisoners of very ordinary rank. Within the recollection of many people yet alive, a youth named Reid, the son of an innkeeper in the Grassmarket, while under sentence of death for some felonious act, had the address to make his escape. Every means was resorted to for recovering him, by search throughout the town, vigilance at all the ports, and the offer of a reward for his apprehension. Yet he contrived fairly to cheat the gallows. The whole story of his escape is exceedingly curious. He took refuge in the great cylindrical mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie, in the Greyfriars' churchyard of Edinburgh. This place, besides its discomfort, was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the persecutor-a circumstance

of which Reid, an Edinburgh boy, must have been well aware. But he braved all these horrors for the sake of his life. He had been brought up in the Hospital of George Heriot, in the immediate neighbourhood of the churchyard, and had many boyish acquaintances still residing in that munificent establishment. Some of these he contrived to inform of his situation, enjoining them to be secret, and beseeching them to assist him in his distress. The Herioters of those days had a very clannish spirit-insomuch, that to have neglected the interests or safety of any individual of the community, however unworthy he might be of their friendship, would have been looked upon by them as a sin of the deepest dye. Reid's confidents, therefore, considered themselves bound to assist him by all means in their power against that general foe -the public. They kept his secret most faithfully, spared from their own meals as much food as supported him, and ran the risk of severe punishment, as well as of seeing ghosts, by visiting him every night in his horrible abode. They were his only confidents-his very parents, who lived not far off, being ignorant of the place of his concealment. About six weeks after his escape from jail, when the hue and cry had in a great measure subsided, he ventured to leave the tomb, and it was afterwards known that he escaped abroad.

The subsequent history of the Old Tolbooth contains little that is very remarkable. It has passed away, with many other venerable relics of the olden time, and we now look in vain for the many antique associations which crowded round the spot it once occupied.

LETTERS FROM THE WEST. No. III.

NOTES OF A TOUR.

I

LIKE every body else, I never set out on an excursion, but I resolved to write down the observations which occurred to me, when what was either new or striking in character or scenery presented itself. Like every body else, I never fully fulfilled these laudable intentions. have beside me as many half-filled and wholly soiled memorandum-books, as I have taken journeys in my lifetime. The first page is always very completely crammed, and carefully written. It comprises the date and hour of my departure, and a resolution to employ all its successors to equal advantage. The second is more sparse, and only one-half of the third is obscured with pencilling. Neither the fourth nor fifth usually have a word upon them, but about the tenth I scribble some verses, resolving to fill up the preceding blanks with sober prose detail at the very first leisure moment—a period of time which, rapidly as time proceeds, has never yet arrived. I have just been looking over the disjecta membra of my latest journal, and they are at your service.

July, 1829.-A good horse beneath me, a cloak buckled before, and a valise behind, a pleasant companion at my side, and ominous appearances of rain above me— off I set. In an hour I am very comfortably wet through. My route lies through Dumbarton. From the inn at Bowling to that at Dumbarton is the longest space, called two miles, on this side of the Equator. Literature is at Death's door in Dumbarton. The public library is cheek-by-jowl with the churchyard. The bridge is a fine example of building in the style of the first letter of the alphabet. The nephew of the King of France, who crossed it the other day, thought of the famous exploit of his ancestor, who was known to

"March up a hill and then march down again." Found a tollman whose faith was great; for, failing his copper currency, he had not brass to ask credit for the balance but gave it! Smollett is a name delighted in everywhere but at Renton. The pillar that was reared to his memory, is no longer a monument to him-but of his descendants. Their taste for ruins surpasses Lord

Cham

Elgin's. But they are not friends to Letters. pollion, or Dr Browne, must visit and decipher the inscription. The air of Bonhill is injurious to marble everywhere, but in the hearts of landholders. However, a monument, which, like the present county member, stands up, but says nothing, is, like him, likely soon to be shelved. It will make capital gate-posts. Rain again. At Bellevue no prospect. At Belleretiro no shelter. Luss in the dark, but lightened by a kind welcome. Memorandum-Marry and get children, and send them hither to climb the braes, and get the first branches of education and mountain ash. Luss water is perilously strong. Headach. Inveruglas a pattern glen. The roads here become less ambitious, and more convenient. Surveyors have discovered that hills, like fat landladies, are "as broad as they are long." The name of the pint of Firkin might suggest ideas of herring-barrels to a Scotch Cockney. The road goes round it like a hoop ;we went with a halloo! Stockgown-a spot for a poet! May its possessor live as long as he likes, and leave it to me afterwards! Many a sheep's eye I've thrown at it— coincident taste with the Dean of Faculty, who longs for it too. Pleasing, but provoking. Fifty to one on him against me! Meanwhile, let me express myself thus:

SONNET.

"Tis ever thus !-Let me but dream a hope,

And sleep flies frighten'd ere the glimpse of day;
Whate'er I dare to wish for fades away
Like snow-flakes on the mountain's lofty slope,
But tinged, while melting, with a roseate ray,
As is the cloudlet sunn'd into decay;
Or but survives the rapture of its birth,

To live an alien-gladdening not its home!
There is a sunny spot upon the earth,

Where I had hoped in manhood's prime to come, And lay my brow upon the lap of Peace

'Twill be another's, ere that noontide hour! But let all sorrow for his fortune cease

'Tis pride to love like him-lord of his soul's high power!

Tarbet-English grooms unrivalled in rubbing down and swearing up. and astonish honest Donald, by taking as much care of a Work as fast as they talk though, horse as a baby, and washing it more than ever was done to wee Duncay." Off Arrochar-Its inn now a residence for an English party, who have made it their

66

home.

from its site.
ful now. A shoe and two hours lost. Highland road-
menders exhibit the march of mind in the waggon they
now pig snugly in, in place of sleeping on the heather.
Sixteen go into very small space. Cairndow-Drunk-
en blacksmith, choleric little landlord, with glimpses of
pretty nieces through a window, and of a dinner two hours
off. Job. Farther draughts on patience dishonoured.
"No effects" in the stomach. Short landlord and long
like Sterne's Slawkenbergius, with arms akimbo, and noses
complaints. Good dinner after all.-Enter Inverary
fiery points, as seen through the gloom, ominous of an
lengthened out by our cigars.

Glencroe" Rest and be thankful" removed
There we can neither rest nor be thank-

The natives deem the

Second

additional consumpt of herrings next morning. Walker's inn worthy of all comsight right for once. forts of a city. Dalmally.-A strive between the rain the plenty of the Highlands, with the com

mendation;

and our horses which should pelt fastest. Every body at church-even the ostler.-The houses left behind, though; and, as Philpotts once said at Durham, "Not a stall to be had."-" Every man his own groom." A torrent of eloquence and rain. Highlanders' hearts more easily penetrated than their plaids. Service over, but spiritual consolation still in great request. The dinner such only as Dalmally could furnish. Salmon firm as a rock, and flaky as snow; and mutton melting in the mouth, like-Heaven knows what! Tacksman of the