pressiveness-were scarcely less speaking witnesses of the life of roaming and romantic adventure, which, I was told, this fine artist had led. In spite of his bad health, which was indeed but too evident, his manners seemed to be full of a light and playful sportiveness, which is by no means common among the people of our nation, still less among the people of Scotland; and this again was, every now and then, exchanged for a depth of enthusiastic earnestness, still more evidently derived from a sojourn among men, whose blood flows through their veins with a heat and a rapidity to which the North is a stranger. The painter, being extremely busy, could not afford us much of his time upon this visit, but showed us, after a few minutes, into an adjoining apartment, the walls of which were covered with his works, and left us there to examine them by ourselves. For many years I have received no such feast as was now afforded me; it was a feast of pure delight,— above all, it was a feast of perfect novelty, for the scenes in which Mr. Allan has lived has rendered the subjects of his paintings totally different, for the most part, from those of any other artist, dead or alive; and the manner in which he treats his subjects is scarcely less original and peculiar. The most striking of his pieces are all representations of human beings, living and moving under the influence of manners whereof we know little, but which the little we do know of them has tended to render eminently interesting to our imaginations. His pencil transports us at once into the heart of the East-the Land of the myrtle, the rose, and the vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the skies ever shine, On one side we see beautiful creatures-radiant in a style of beauty with which poetry alone has ever attempted to make us familiar; on another, dark and savage men, their faces stamped with the full and fervid impress of passions which the manners and the faith of Christendom teach men, if not to subdue within them, at least to conceal in their ex terior. The skies, too, are burning every where in the brightness of their hot, unclouded, blue-and the trees that lift their heads among them, wear wild fantastic forms, no less true to nature than they are strange to us. The buildings also have all a new character of barbarian pomp about them -cities of flat-roofed houses, mingling ever and anon with intervening gardens-fountains sparkling up with their freshening spray among every shade of foliage-mosques breaking the sky here and there with their huge white domes and gilded cupolas-turrets and minarets shooting from among the gorgeous mass of edifices-pale and slender forms, that "Far and near, Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere." The whole room might be considered as forming of itself one picture-for, wherever I looked, I found that my eyes were penetrating into a scene, of which the novelty was so universal, as to give it at first sight something of the effect of uniformity. The most celebrated of the pictures still in his possession, is the Sale of Circassian Captives to a Turkish Bashaw.* I think it is probable you must have read some account of this picture in the newspapers more than a year ago; for it was one season in the London Exhibition, and attracted great admiration, as I hear, from all the critics who saw it there. You will find a pretty full description, however, in one of the Numbers of Blackwood's Magazine, which I have lately sent you—although I cannot say that I think this description quite so accurate as it might have been. The picture does not stand in need of the aid of fancy, in order to make it be admired; and I cannot help thinking there has been a good deal of mere fancy gratuitously mixed up with the statement there given, both of its composition and its expression. The essential interest of the piece, however the groupe, name This picture has since been purchased by the Earl of Wemyss and March. ly, of the lover parted from its mistress, and the fine contrast afforded to this groupe, by the cold, determined, brutal indifference in the countenance and attitude of the Bashaw, are given quite as they ought to be; and the adjuncts, which have been somewhat misrepresented, are of comparatively trivial importance. I can scarcely conceive of a finer subject for this kind of painting; nor can I easily suppose, that it could have been treated in a more masterly manner. The great number of the figures does not in the least mar the harmony of the general expression; nay, in order to make us enter fully into the nature of the barbarian scene represented, it was absolutely necessary to show us, that it was a scene of common occurrence, and every day gazed on by a thousand hard eyes, without the slightest touch of compassion or sympathy. It was not necessary to represent the broken-heart sufferers before us as bending under the weight of any calamity peculiar to themselves alone. They are bowed down, not with the touch of individual sorrow alone, but with the despair, the familiar despair of a devoted and abandoned race a race, among whose brightest gleams of felicity there must ever mingle the shadows of despondence-whose bridegrooms can never go forth "rejoicing in their strength❞— whose brides can never be "brought out of their palaces," without some darkening clouds of melancholy remembrances, and still more melancholy fears, to cast a gloom over the gay procession. Solitary sorrows are the privilege of freemen; it is the darker lot of slaves to suffer in crowds, and before crowds. Their misery has no sanctuary; they are not left alone even to die. They are cattle, not men; they must be counted by the head before being led forth to the slaughter. The colouring of this picture is as charming as its conception is profound. The fault found with it by some of the critics-I mean the greyness and uniform sobriety of its hues -strikes me as being one of its greatest beauties. Without this, it was impossible that the artist could have given so fine an idea of the studious coolness and shadiness of an oriental palace-so different, so necessarily different, from any thing that luxury can ever demand in our northern climates. It harmonizes, too, in the happiest manner with the melancholy character of the scene represented. It seems as if even the eastern sun had been willing to withdraw his beams from such a spectacle of misery. Where the light does stream through the narrow window at the back of the lordly Turk, nothing can be richer than the tones of the drapery-the curtains that shelter-above all, the embroidered cushions and carpets that support the luxurious Merchant of Blood. The cold, blue dampness of the marble-floor, on which the victims of his brutality are kneeling, or staggering before him, contrasts, as it should do, with the golden pomp amidst which the oppressor is seated. It is so, that they who drink the waters of bitterness, and are covered with sackcloth and ashes, should be contrasted with him, who "is clothed in fine linen, and fareth sumptuously every day." There are, however, many other pictures of the artist against which the same charge might have been brought with greater justice. There are several beautiful little pictures, the scene of which is laid in the same region; and I think they have an admirable effect as viewed in juxta-position with this splendid master-piece. They afford little glimpses, as it were, into the week-day employments and amusements of the beings, who are represented in the larger picture as undergoing the last severity of their hard destiny. They prepare the eye to shudder at the terrors of the captivity, by making it familiar with the scenes of mirth, and gayety, and innocence, which these terrors are fated so often to disturb. Such, above all, was the effect of a sweet little picture, which represents a Circassian family seated at the door of their own cottage, beneath the shadow of their sycamore, while the golden sun is going down calmly behind them, amidst the rich quiet azure of their own paternal mountains. The old father and mother, with their children sporting about their knees, while the travelling musician is dancing before them in his wild grotesque attitudes, to the sound of his rebeckand the daughter just blushing into womanhood, that peeps, with that face of innocent delight, over the shoulder of her mother-how little do they think for the moment of any thing beyond the simple mirth of their sequestered home! And yet such are the solitudes to which the foot of the spoiler may so easily find a path. Surely there is a fine feeling of poetry in the mind of this painter. He knows well, that there are two sides to the great picture of Human Life; and he has imagination to feel how they reflect, mutually, interest, and passion, and tenderness upon each other. Another picture, delightfully characteristic of his genius, is that of a Jewish Family in Poland making merry before a Wedding. The piece is small, and the colouring, as usual with this artist, the reverse of glaring; but the whole is suffused over with the quiet richness of twilight, and the effect is at once so powerful and so true, that we cannot sufficiently admire it, when we consider how studiously all the common quackery of the art has been avoided in its production. The left of the canvass is covered with a cluster of happy faces, grouped above, below, and around their rustic musician, and gazing on the evolutions of a dance, wild, yet graceful and stately in its wildness, like the melody which accompanies it. The bride has scarcely passed the years of infancy; for among the Jews of Poland, and we believe we might add among the Jews of England too, the old oriental fashion of very early marriages is still religiously adhered to. Her hair is braided with jewels-another beautiful orientalism; and she surveys the scene from her post of eminence with a truly eastern mixture of childish delight, womanly vanity, and virgin bashfulness. Apart from the young people, near a window, the light of which comes mellowed through tangled tresses of ivy and rose-leaves, is seen a grave small group of the Elders of Israel. These patriarchal figures pay no respect either to the music or the dance; but they seem to make some atonement for this neglect by their close and assiduous attention to a certain tall picturesque flask, "Which leaves a glow like amethyst |