of Michael Angelo and Raphael, whence he returned to this country in the year 1779, since which period he has annually contributed to the exhibition of the Royal Academy. For twenty years Mr Fuseli has held the situation of Keeper of the Royal Academy, and filled the chair of Professor of Painting. As keeper, and therefore master in the school of drawing, some of the present members of the Royal Academy, who were his pupils, can testify to the extent of his knowledge, and the accuracy of his eye. As a critic, the public are well acquainted with his merits, from the notes in the last edition of Pilkingten's Dictionary of Painters, and a volume of lectures which he delivered at the Academy; and as an artist, his merits will ever be appreciated for the boldness of conception that appears in every subject which he treated, the grandeur of his line, and the versatility of his powers, from serious to gay." "9 These remarks the series of pictures. in the Shakespeare and Milton galleries, and those which have adorned the walls of the Royal Academy, fully justify. April 16. Mr Alexander Johnston, ironmonger, Edinburgh, in the 66th year of his age. -At London, Lieut.-Colonel John Fraser, of the 50th regiment. 17. At 25, Abercromby Place, Edinburgh, Major-General Thomas William Kerr. -- At his house, 29, Gayfield Square, Edinburgh, Horatius Cannan, Esq. W. S. 18. At Balcurvie, Miss Beatson, of Balbairdie. -At Glasgow, Mrs Margaret Livingstone, spouse of John Livingstone, Esq. merchant, Glasgow, and daughter of the late Robert Bell, Esq. advocate. den. At Glasgow, Herbert Buchanan, Esq. of Ar 19. At Edinburgh, the Hon. Mary Abercromby, second daughter of General Sir Ralph Abercromby, of Tullibody, K.B. and of Mary Anne, Baroness Abercromby. 20. At Montrose, Mrs David Whyte, aged 71 years, 21. At St Andrew's, Mrs Margaret Tod, wife of Mr David Balfour, writer there. At Edinburgh, Mr William Wilson, late brewer, Portsburgh. 22. At Sornberg, Marion, second daughter of the late Bruce Campbell, Esq. of Gayfield. Mr David Christie, merchant, Montrose, aged 73 years. -At Brechin, Jane Burnett, in the 95d year of her age. 23. Miss Margaret Scott, 45, Prince's-Street, in the 90th year of her age. At London, William P. Williamson, Esq. wine-merchant, Leith. 24. At his house, Warriston Crescent, Robert Durie, Esq. of Craigluscar. -At St. Andrew's, Mr John Gunn. -At the manse of Monivaird, Mrs Jacobina Macduff, wife of the Rev. Colin Baxter. 25. At Kirkaldy, Margery, eldest daughter of George Beveridge, wood-merchant there. 26. At his house in Hill-Street, Berkeley Square, London, the Right Hon. Janies Lord Glastonbury, in the 83d year of his age. 27. At Glasgow, Mr Alex. Wylie, cotton-yarnmerchant. 30. Helen Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir William Arbuthnot, Bart. May 1. At 131, George Street, Edinburgh, Neil Macvícar, youngest son of William Burn, Esq. architect. May 3. In the 32d year of his age, and 2d of his incumbency, the Rev. Robert Knox, minister of Ordequhill; deeply lamented by his parishioners. The circumstances attending his death must add poignancy to the feelings of his sorrowing friends, and deeply enhance their regret for his premature loss. On the 2d current, along with a gentleman recently presented to a church in the same, presbytery, he had been paying a visit to a neighbouring clergyman; and they were returning on horseback, Mr Knox riding a small vicious pony, which had often thrown him, and which many of his friends had intreated him to give up using. When they had proceeded a few miles homeward, the pony, in its customary way, made a start and threw its rider on the road, but by which he said he received no hurt, and again got on its back. They continued to ride at a pretty smart trot, until they had passed the toll-bar near the 6th mile-stone, on the road from Banff to Keith; when Mr Knox, after directing his friend to the proper road, bade him good-night, and rode off. It was about a quarter to ten o'clock P. M., when they passed the bar; and a gig, with two gentlemen, followed them soon after in the same direction. About half a mile past the bar, these gentlemen were alarmed by finding a person lying on the road, and their first impression was that he had been robbed and murdered; but on seeing his hat firm on his head, that he wore spurs, and had a whip in his hand, or close beside him, they concluded that he had been thrown from his horse. The gentlemen immediately called the nearest assistance; and on the people at the bar coming up, they recognised the person then supposed dead to be Mr Knox. He was placed in the gentlemen's gig, and carried to the toll-bar, and a medical gentleman instantly sent for; notice was, at the same time, sent to Colonel Gordon, who arrived in a few minutes, and immediately dispatched an express to Banff for another medical gentleman, and both were very soon on the spot. The left eye appeared considerably bruised and discoloured; on examination, the me dical gentlemen could not discover any fracture; but they were afraid that a serious concussion of the brain had taken place; and by the morning they intimated that the case was hopeless. Mr Knox continued quite insensible to every thing around him, and expired about eight o'clock the following evening. Lately. In Essex, Charles Williamson, Esq. student of medicine at the University of Edinburgh. On board the ship Simpson, on his passage from Bombay to London, Captain James Macallum, of the 4th regiment native infentry, Bombay establishment, in the 32d year of his age. -At Kirkpatrick Fleming, Mary Scott, better known by the name of "Old Mally," at the very advanced age of 99. Mally kept a small public house, and by her attention to those frequenting it to spend a cheerful hour, and civil and obliging manners, she gained the respect and esteem of the whole neighbourhood. It is somewhat singular that Mally sold a dram, and resided in the same house in which she died, for the long period of 81 years. -In St. Cuthbert's Charity Workhouse, John Birrell, aged 75. This individual sailed round the world with Captain Cook, and fought under General Wolfe in America. It is understood that his mother is still alive, being upwards of 100 years old, and resides in the parish of Falkland. At Cairnbrock, Wigtonshire, John Ross, Esq. of Cairnbrock. Ruthven & Son, Printers, Edinburgh. "Greece," the "South American Seaman," " Marginal Notes," and perhaps" Parisian Madman," in our next. We purpose, in July, to give a few hints to the venerable Young Elders of the last General Assembly. The Latin Ode, we are sorry to say, will not exactly suit us. In this country, to our shame, we know so little of Latin quantity, that we cannot even make nonsense verses that will bear scanning. How foolish, then, to attempt making sense verses in a language of which Scotchmen are in general so lamentably ignorant! As we consider Phrenology to be the purest and most contemptible hoax and humbug of the day, we can scarcely insert any thing in reference to it, either pro or con.. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. JUNE 1825. REMARKS ON TALES OF THE CRUSADERS." LONG before the era of the Crusades, the barbarians, who overturned the Empire of the West, had succeeded in establishing, on the ruins of ancient institutions, the system of feudalism, which they brought with them from their woods and fastnesses. This system, essentially warlike in its character, and equally adapted to the largest and the smallest states, soon spread over the greater part of Europe, and firmly established the dominion of ignorance, barbarism, and force, over the lingering, but degenerate remnants of ancient civilization. Such of the useful or liberal arts as had survived the wreck of Roman greatness, were lost in the Cimmerian darkness that succeeded that catastrophe; the works of genius, which had escaped the ravages of time and the destructive fury of revolution, were buried in monasteries and religious houses, where they were no longer understood or valued ; science was swept away in the general ruin, the debasing absurdities of judicial astrology being all that remained of the astronomy of the Greeks; and Christianity, which, in a purer form, might have mollified the natural ferocity of barbarism, and exerted a benign and humanizing influence over the wild tribes that had embraced it, accommodated itself to the savage passions and prejudices which it ought to have corrected and restrained, and thus, instead of enlightening, contributed to brutalize the minds of its votaries. The spirit of liberty, in which genius lives, inoves, and has its being, was utterly extinguished; the deadly nightshade VOL. XVI. of superstition had instilled its pestiferous venom into the whole frame of society; and the utmost debasement and prostration of mind was strangely blended with that rage for war, adventure, violence, and disorder, which characterize imperfect civilization. But the Franks, and other nations, who now acknowledged Rome as the spiritual mistress of the world, had preserved themselves uncontaminated by that effeminacy, sensuality, and voluptuousness, which equally degraded the character of the Latins and Greeks of the Lower Empire. Remarkable for an impetuous enthusiastic valour, the nature of feudal tenures and knight-service tended to foster the warlike spirit in which they delighted; while their leisure, occupied in martial exercises or the labours of the chase, rendered their bodies robust and vigorous, nurtured the habits which it was the object of their rude institutions to form, and prepared them, not only to endure the fatigues of war, but to display those qualities of high daring and enterprize, which, in the opinion of the world, atone for all its miseries, and shed a halo of glory around the darkest of its crimes. Religion, too, mingling with those tendencies which it ought to have repressed, and engrafting the wildest fanaticism on the martial character of theage, gave birth to the institutions of chivalry, which, in its turn, produced the age of romance, and effected a change in the manners and habits of men, remarkable in itself, and particularly deserving of attention from the in 4 M fluence it has exerted on the characters of modern nations. Hence, between the age of Charlemagne and that of the Crusades, a revolution took place among the Spaniards, Normans, and French, which gradually extended to the rest of Europe. The infantry service was abandoned to the serfs, or villeins; the strength of armies consisted of cavalry; and the name of soldier was confined to the gentlemen, who served on horseback, (equites,) and were invested with the honour of knighthood. The Dukes and Counts, usurping the rights of sovereignty, divided their respective provinces among inferior barons; the barons distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices of their jurisdiction; and these military tenants, being pares curiae, composed the noble or equestrian order, which scornfully: repudiated the peasant or burgher, as of a different and lower species. The dignity and purity of their blood was anxiously preserved by equal alliances; and those only of their sons who could produce four quarters, or lines of ancestry, without a bar sinister on their shield, might legally lay claim to the honour of knight hood; though a valiant plebeian was sometimes ennobled by the sword, and became the father of a new race. It was competent to an individual knight, however, to impart the character he had received; and the warlike potentates of Europe took greater pride in, and derived more glory from, this personal distinction, than from the greatness of their kingdoms, or the splendour of their diadems. The ceremony of the investiture of knighthood, of which some traces may be found in the woods of Germany, (see TACITUS De Mor. Germ.,) was, in its origin, simple and profane. The candidate, after some preliminary trial, was invested with the sword and spurs; and his face or shoulder was struck a slight blow, emblematic of the last affront which it was lawful for him to endure. But superstition mingled in every action of public and private life: in the Holy Wars it sanctioned, and in some measure hallowed the profession of arms; in the order of chivalry it effected an assimilation of rights, and privileges to those of the sacred orders of the priesthood. The bath and white garment of the novice were no very decorous copy of the regeneration of baptism; his sword, offered on the altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion; his reception was peculiarly solemn, being preceded by fasts and vigils; and he was dubbed a knight in the name of God, St. George, and St. Michael. He swore to perform the duties of his profession; an oath which education, example, and public opinion, combined to preserve inviolable. As the champion of God and the ladies, he devoted himself to speak the truth, maintain the right, practise courtesy, pursue infidels, despise the allurements of ease and safety, and vindicate the honour of his character' in every perilous adventure. Though the abuse of the same spirit provoked the turbulent to despise the arts of industry and peace, to esteem themselves the sole judges and avengers of their own injuries, and to neglect the laws of civil society, as well as military discipline; "yet," as Gibbon has remarked; "the benefits of this institution, to refine the temper of barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith, justice, and bu manity, were strongly felt, and have been often observed. The asperity of national prejudice," he adds, in continuation, "was. softened; and the community of religion and arms spread a similar colour and generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad, in enterprize and pil grimage, at home, in martial exercise, the warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic games of classic antiquity. Instead of the na ked spectacles which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the lists was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were invented in France, and eagerly adopted |