at first enable me to recognize what busts they were, but a sudden gleam of sunshine, which occurred very fortunately, soon discovered to me another edition of the same features which I had just been admiring sub dio. Lord B

pies the central niche in this

"temple, where the great

Are honoured by the nations.”

осси

On his right band he has Homer, and on his left Mr. Watt of Birmingham, the inventor of the steam engine. Mæonides again is supported by General Washington, and Mr. Watt by Sir Philip Sidney. Shakspeare-Count Rumford-Dr. Matthew Baillie-Charles James Fox-Socrates-Ciceroand Provost Creech of Edinburgh-follows on the left; while on the right, the series Heroum is continued with equal propriety, by the Author of the Seasons-Lord Nelson-Julius Cæsar-Benjamin Franklin-Mozart-John Knox-Michael Angelo-Aristotle--and a rueful caricature of the Ettrick Shepherd---bearing abundant marks of the agony with which that excellent but unsophisticated person must, no doubt, have submitted to the clammy application of the Savoyard cast-maker. There are some dozens more of worthies dead and living, who partake in the same honours; and altogether the effect of the chalky congregation is as impressive a thing as need be.

In riding back, I received from Mr. Scott a good deal of interesting antiquarian information concerning these great religious establishments, of which there is such an uncommon quantity in this district of Scotland---for these two I have spoken of are only the last links of a complete chain of similar buildings, which stretches all along the banks of the Tweed from the border of England. That these rich ecclesiastical foundations were, in their origin, the pure products of piety, I have little doubt; but I as little question, that, in after times, they were found to be eminently useful in a more worldly point of view, and therefore protected and enriched by the munificence of many successive monarchs, in whose character piety formed but a slender ingredient. The sanetity of the soil, set apart for the support of the Ministers of Religion, was reverenced by the rudest foes that came to seek spoil in Scotland, and it is easy to see what wisdom there was in investing as large a portion as possible of the frontier soil with this protecting character. The internal

state of the country, moreover, during those lawless times of baronial feuds, may have rendered the kings of Scotland fond of conferring as many of their richest fiefs as they could with safety on the less turbulent churchmen-a body, on whose general attachment to the cause of loyalty and order, they might always think themselves entitled to depend. As it was, I have no doubt the cultivation of the country throve much more uniformly under the superintendence of the monks and abbots of Kelso, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Melrose, than it would have done in any other hands which the times could furnish-and you know these holy men were commonly bound by their tenures to supply the king's banner, either in offensive or defensive warfare, with the full proportion of soldiers which the value of their lands might seem to render fitting. The rich abbeys of Northumberland, probably, owed their wealth to similar views of policy-and, perhaps, those on the Wye, and elsewhere along the march of our own principality, may be accounted for in the same way.

P. M.

LETTER LIV.

TO THE SAME.

*

*

AFTER various attempts, I have at last succeeded in making what I am inclined to think a very fair sketch of the head of Mr. Walter Scott. I send you a copy of it in pen and ink, on the other side of my sheet, and would hope you may consider it worthy of a double postage. I have made various drawings of him, both in more solemn and more ludicrous moods; but I think the expression comes of this nearest the habitual character of his face. Study it well for a few minutes, and then listen to a few of my remarks on the organization of this remarkable man.

In the general form, so very high and comical, and, above

* Durham was an exception to this rule. Mr. Surtees mentions, that on one occasion, when the tenants of the bishoprick were called upon to contribute their assistance to a royal host advancing upon Scotland, they refused, saying, "We are haly wark folk, and must stay here where we hold our lands by the tenure of guarding the body of our Bishop St. Cuthbert." This plea was admitted.

all, in the manner in which the forehead goes into the top of the head, there is something which at once tells you that here is the lofty enthusiasm, and passionate veneration for greatness, which must enter into the composition of every illustrious poet. In these respects, Scott bears some resemblance to the busts of Shakspeare-but a much more close resemblance to those of the great Corneille; and, surely, Corneille was one of the most favonred of all poets, in regard to all that constitutes the true poetic soaring of conception. No minor poet ever approaches to this conformation; it is reserved for "Earth's giant sons" alone. It is lower down; however, that the most peculiar parts of the organization are to be found or rather those parts, the position of which, close beneath these symbols of high poetical impetus, gives to the whole head its peculiar and characteristic expression. The development of the organ of imitation is prodigious, and the contiguous organ of pleasantry is scarcely less remarkable. This again leads off the swell into that of imagination, on which the upper region rests, as on a firm and capacious basis. I do not think that the head is so long from stem to stern as Lord Byron's, which probably indicates some inferiority in point of profound feeling. Like Lord Byron's, however, the head is, in general, well brought out in every quarter, and there is a freedom in the air with which it sits upon his shoulders, which shows that nature is strong in all the different regions-or, in other words, that a natural balance subsists among the various parts of his organization, I have noticed, on the other hand, that people whose strength lies chiefly in one direction, have, for the most part, a stiff and constrained way of holding their heads. Wordsworth, for instance, has the back part of his head-the seat of the personal feelings-small and little expanded, and the consequence is, that there is nothing to weigh against the prodigious mass of mere musing in front-so that his head falls forward in any thing but a graceful way; while, on the other hand, the deficiency of grave enthusiasm allows the self-love in the hinder parts of Mr. Jeffrey's head, to push forward his chin in a style that produces a puny sort of effect. Tom Moore has no want of enthusiasm, but it is not quite placed as it should be or, at least, with him also the sinciput predomimates in an irresistible degree. Now Scott and Byron are distinguished from all these by a fine secure swing of the head,

as if they were prepared at all points. Lord Byron's head, however, is, I think, still more complete all throughout, than that of Mr. Scott. The forehead is defective in much that Scott's possesses, but it is very fine upwards, and the top of the head is wonderfully capacious. The back part, in both of their heads, is manly and gallant-looking. Had they not been lame, (by the way, what a singular coincidence that is!) I have no doubt that they would both have been soldiersand the world would have wanted Marmion and the Corsair. Lord Byron's head is, without doubt, the finest in our time— I think it is better, on the whole, than either Napoleon's, or Goethe's, or Canova's, or Wordsworth's. The chin, lips, and neck, are beautiful-in the most noble style of antique beauty-and the nose is not unworthy of keeping them company and yet that of Wordsworth is more perpendicular, and belongs still more strictly to the same class which the ancients, having exaggerated it into the ideal-attributed to Jupiter. It is better shaped in the ridge, than any nose of modern times I have seen; it comes down so straight from the forehead, that the eyes are thrown quite back into the head, as in the loftiest antique. Coleridge has a grand head, but very ill balanced, and the features of the face are coarsealthough, to be sure, nothing can surpass the depth of meaning in his eyes, and the unutterable dreamy luxury in his lips. Thomas Campbell again, has a poor skull upwards, compared with what one might have looked for in him; but the lower part of the forehead is exquisite, and the features are extremely good, though tiny. They seem to me to be indicative of a most morbid degree of sensibility-the lips, in particular, are uncommonly delicate, and the eyes are wonderfully expressive of poetical habits of feeling. His brow speaks him to be born with a turn of composition truly lirical, and, perhaps, he should not have cared to aim at other things. An uncommon perception of sweetness and refinement sits upon the whole of his physiognomy, but his face, like his mind, seems also to glow ever and anon with the greater fires of patriotism and public glory. He should have been a patriotic lyrical poet, and his lays would not have failed to be sung,

"Mid the festal city's blaze,

When the wine-cup shines in light."

Indeed, why do I say he should have been? he has been, and Hohenlinden, and Ye Mariners of England, and the Battle of

the Baltic, will never be forgotten as long as the British Jack is hoisted by the bands of free men. I have already said something about the head of the author of the Isle of Palms and that of the Ettrick Shepherd. They are both fine in their several ways. That of Wilson is full of the marks of genuine enthusiasm, and lower down, of intense perception, and love of localities-which last feature, by the way, may, perhaps, account for his wild delight in rambling. I have heard that in his early youth, he proposed to go out to Africa, in quest of the Joliba, and was dissuaded only by the representation made to him on the subject of his remarkably fair and florid complexion-but I believe he has since walked over every bill and valley in the three kingdomshaving angling and versifying, no doubt, for his usual occupations, but finding room every now and then, by way of interlude, for astonishing the fairs and wakes all over these islands, by his miraculous feats in leaping, wrestling, and single-stick. As for the Ettrick Shepherd, I am told that when Spurzheim was here, he never had his paws off him—and some cranioscopical young ladies of Edinburgh are said still to practise in the same way upon the good-humoured owner of so many fine bumps. I hear Mathews has borrowed for his "At Home," a saying which originally belongs to the Ettrick Shepherd. When Dr. Spurzheim, (or as the Northern Reviewers very improperly christened him in the routs of Edinburgh, Dousterswivel,)—when the Doctor first began to feel out the marks of genius in the cranium of the pastoral poet, it was with some little difficulty that Mr. Hogg could be made to understand the drift of his curiosity. After hearing the Doctor's own story-"My dear fellow," quoth the Shepherd, "if a few knots and swells make a skull of genius, I've seen mony a saft chield get a swapping organization in five minutes at Selkirk tryst."

Since I have found my way once more into the subject of Craniology, I may as well tell you that I totally disagree with you, in regard to your remarks upon my notion of the Farnese Hercules. I do not think your eye has been sufficiently trained in the inspection of living skulls; you must not venture as yet upon the antique, in which there is always some allowance to be made for the proper and necessary exaggeration of artists, that knew well enough what was right, but knew also that things should be broadly told, which are