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LETTER XXX.

TO THE SAME.

By degrees I won my way through several different currents of the crowd, and established myself with my back to the wall, full in the centre of the Advocates' side of the house. Here I could find leisure and opportunity to study the minutia of the whole scene, and in particular to "fill in my foreground," as the painter's phrase runs, much more accurately than when I was myself mingled with the central tumult of the place. My position resembled that of a person visiting a peristrephic panorama, who, himself immoveable in a darksome corner, beholds the whole dust and glare of some fiery battle pass, cloud upon cloud, and flash upon flash, before his eyes. Here might be seen some of the "Magnanimi Heroes," cleaving into the mass, like furious wedges, in order to reach their appointed station-and traced in their ulterior progress only by the casual glimpses of "the proud horsehair nodding on the crest"--while others, equally determined and keen εν προμάχοισι μαχεσθαι, from their stature and agility, might be more properly compared to so many shuttles driven through the threads of an intricate web by some nimblejointed weaver, Μικροι μεν αλλα Μαχηται. On one side might be observed some first-rate champion, pausing for a moment with a grin of bloody relaxation, to breathe after one ferocious and triumphant charge-his plump Sancho Panza busily arranging his harness for the next, no less ferocious. On another sits some less successful combatant, all bis features screwed and twisted together, smarting under the lash of a sarcasm or gazing blankly about him, imperfectly recovered from the stun of a retort; while perhaps some young beardless Esquire, burning for his spurs, may be discovered eyeing both of these askance, envious even of the cuts of the vanquished, and anxious, at all hazards, like Uriah the Hittite, that some letter might reach the directors of the fray, saying, "Set ye this man in the front of the battle."

The elder and more employed advocates, to have done with my similitudes, seemed for the most part, when not actually engaged in pleading, to have the habit of seating themselves on the benches, which extend along the whole rear of their

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them half-shrouded under their lids-and I bave no doubt, from the mode in which he delivered himself, that he must have been a most accomplished debater when at the Bar. At the other extremity, the greatest stream of business seemed to rush in the direction of Lord Pittmilly's tribunal. This Judge has the most delightful expression of suavity and patience in his look and manner, that I ever saw in any Judge, unless it be our own venerable old Chancellor Eldon. The calm conscientious way in which he seemed to listen to every thing that was said, the mild good-tempered smile with which he showed every now and then that he was not to be deceived by any subtilty or quirk, and the clear and distinct manner in which he explained the grounds of bis decision, left me at no loss to account for the extraordinary pressure of business with which this excellent judge appeared to be surrounded. Before these two Lords it was, that all the principal causes of the morning appeared to be argued. I happened to be standing close beside Lord Pittimilly's Bar, when a pleading was going on for aliment of a natural child, at the instance of a servant-wench against an Irish student, who had come to Edinburgh to attend the Medical Classes. The native of the Emerald Isle was personally present in rear of his Counsel, arrayed in a tarnished green great-coat, and muttering bitterly in his national accent. I heard him say to one near him, that he had been prevented from getting out of the way in proper time, by the harsh procedure of a grocer in Drummond-Street, whose account was unpaid, and who had detained him by what be called a "meditatione fugæ warrant." The poor girl's case was set forth with great breadth of colouring and verity of detail by Mr. Clerk, (a fine sagacious-looking old gentleman, of who. I shall speak anon,) and the Bar was speedily surrounded by close ranks of listeners. Mr. Jeffrey, who was of counsel for the son of Erin, observed that the exceeding rapidity with which the crowd clustered itself around did not escape my attention, and whispered to me, that cases of this kind are always honoured with an especial allowance of such honour-being regarded as elegant nuga, or tasteful relaxations from the drier routine of ordinary practice-somewhat Jike snatches of the Belles-Lettres in the midst of a course of hard reading. I could perceive, that even the grimmest and most morose-looking Men of Business would, in passing, endeavour to wedge their noses into the crowd, and after catch

ing a few words of the pleading, would turn away grinning like satyrs, with the relish of what they had heard still mantling in their opaque imaginations. Jeffrey also told me, that Irish cases of the sort above-mentioned are extremely frequent even in the Scottish courts; and, indeed, the great Phillips himself seems never to enjoy the full command and swing of his powers, unless on the subject of a seduction; so that it may be said with truth of this wonderful man, and the galJant nation to which he belongs, that they mutually stand in much need of each other.

""Tis well that they should sin, so he may shine."

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.

P.M.

DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE walls of this Outer House are in general quite bare; for the few old portraits hung here and there, are insufficient to produce any impression in the general view; but the Hall has lately received one very important ornament-namely, a statue of the late Lord Melville by chantry, which has been placed on a pedestal of considerable elevation in the centre of the floor. As a piece of art, I cannot say that I consider this statue as at all equal to some others by the same masterly hand, which I have seen elsewhere. I am aware, however, that it is seen to very little advantage in the situation where it is placed; and, moreover, that no statue can be seen to its utmost advantage, when it is quite new from the chisel of the sculptor. It requires some time before the marble can be made to reconcile itself with the atmosphere around it; and. while the surface continues to offend the eye by its first cold glare of chalky whiteness, it is not quite easy for an ordinary connoisseur to form a proper idea of the lines and forms set forth in this unharmonious material. Making allowance for all this, however, I can scarcely bring myself to imagine. that the statue of Melville will ever be thought to do honour

to the genius of Chantry. There is some skill displayed in the management of the viscount's robes; and in the face itself, there is a very considerable likeness of Lord Melvillewhich is enough, as your recollection must well assure you, to save it from any want of expressiveness. But the effect of the whole is, I think, very trivial, compared with what such an artist might have been expected to produce, when he had so fine a subject as Dundas to stimulate his energies. It is not often, now-a-days, that an artist can hope to meet with such a union of intellectual and corporeal grandeur, as were joined together in this Friend and Brother of William Pitt.

This statue has been erected entirely at the expense of the gentlemen of the Scottish Bar, and it is impossible not to admire and honour the feelings, which called forth from them such a magnificent mark of respect for the memory of their illustrious Brother. Lord Melville walked the boards of the Parliament House during no less than twenty years, before he began to reside constantly in London as Treasurer of the Navy; and during the whole of this period, his happy temper and manners, and friendly open-hearted disposition, rendered him a universal favourite among all that followed the same course of life. By all true Scotchmen, indeed, of whatever party in church or state, Melville was always regarded with an eye of kindliness and partiality. Whig and Tory agreed in loving him; and how could it be otherwise, for although nobody surely could be more firm in his political principles than he himself was, he allowed no feelings, arising out of these principles, to affect his behaviour in the intercourse of common life. He was always happy to drink his bottle of port with any worthy man of any party; and he was always happy to oblige personally those, in common with whom he had any recollections of good-humoured festivity. But the great course of his popularity was unquestionably nothing more than his intimate and most familiar acquaintance with the actual state of Scotland, and its inhabitants, and all their affairs. Here in Edinburgh, unless Mr. W exaggerates very much, there was no person of any consideration, whose whole connexions and concerns were not perfectly well known to him. And I already begin to see enough of the structure of Scottish society, to appreciate somewhat of the advantages which this knowledge must have placed in the hands of so accomplished a statesman. The services

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which he had rendered to this part of the island were acknowledged by the greater part of those, who by no means approved of the general system of policy in which he had so great a share; and among the subscribers to his statue were very many, whose names no solicitation could have brought to appear under any similar proposals with regard to any other Tory in the world.*

In the two Inner Houses, as they are called, (where causes are ultimately decided by the two great Divisions of the Court,) are placed statues of two of the most eminent persons that have ever presided over the administration of justice in Scotland. In the ball of the Second Division, behind the chair of the Lord Justice Clerk, who presides on that bench, is placed the statue of Duncan Forbes of Culloden; and in a similar situation, in the First Division, that of the Lord President Blair, who died only a few years ago. The statue of Culloden is by Roubilliac, and executed quite in his usual style as to its detail; but the earnest attitude of the Judge, stooping forward and extending his right hand, and the noble character of his physiognomy, are sufficient to redeem many of those defects which all must perceive. The other statue-that of Blair, is another work of Chantry, and I think, a vastly superior one to the Melville. The drapery, indeed, is very faulty-it is narrow and scanty, and appears to cling to the limbs like the wet tunic of the Venus Anadyomene. But nothing can be grander than the attitude and "whole air of the figure. The Judge is not represented as leaning forward, and speaking with eagerness like Forbes, but as bending bis head towards the ground, and folded in the utmost depth of quiet meditation; and this, I think, shows the conception of a much greater artist than the Frenchman. The head itself is one of the most superb things that either Nature or Art has produced in modern times. The forehead is totally bald, and shaped in a most heroic style of beautythe nose springs from its arch with the firmness and breadth

*As one little trait, illustrative of Lord Melville's manner of conducting himself to the people of Scotland, I may mention, that to the latest period of his life, whenever he came to Edinburgh, he made a point of calling in person on all the old ladies with whom he had been acquainted in the days of his youth. He might be seen going about, and climbing up to the most aerial habitacula of ancient maidens and widows; and it is probable he gained more by this, than he could have gained by almost any other thing, even in the good opinion of people who might themselves be vainly desirous of having an interview with the great statesman.

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