vice his virtue and his genius have ministered, that he establishes for his children a true and lofty species of nobility in the eyes of that people, and secures for all their exertions, (however these may differ in species from his own,) a watchful and a partial attention from generations long subsequent to that on which the first and immediate lustre of his own reputation and his own presence may have been reflected. The truth is, that a great national author connects himself for ever with all the better part of his nation, by the ties of an intellectual kinsmanship-ties which, in his own age, are scarcely less powerful than those of the kinsmanship of blood, and which, instead of evaporating and being forgotten in the course of a few generations, as the bonds of blood must inevitably be, are only rivetted the faster by every year that passes over them. It is not possible to imagine that any lineal descendant of Shakspeare, or Milton, or Locke, or Clarendon, or any one of the great authors of England, should have borne, in the present day, the name of his illustrious progenitor, and seen himself, and his great name, treated with neglect by his countrymen. The son of such a man as the Historian of Scotland, is well entitled to share in these honourable feelings of hereditary attachment among the people of Scotland; and he does share in them. Even to me, I must confess it afforded a very genuine delight, to be allowed to contemplate the features of the father, as reflected and preserved in the living features of his son. A more careless observer would not, perhaps, be able to trace any very striking resemblance between the face of Lord Robertson and the common portraits of the historian; but I could easily do so. In those of the prints which represent him at an early period of his life, the physiognomy of Robertson is not seen to its best advantage. There is, indeed, an air of calmness and tastefulness even in them, which cannot be overlooked or mistaken; but it is in those later portraits, which give the features, after they had been devested of their fulness and smoothness of outline, and filled with the deeper lines of age and comparative extenuation, that one traces, with most ease and

satisfaction, the image of genius, and the impress of reflection. And it is to those last portraits that I could perceive the strongest likeness in the general aspect of the Judgebut, most of all, in his grey and over-hanging eye-brows, and eyes, eloquent equally of sagacity of intellect, and gentleness of temper.

In the other Division of the Court, I yesterday heard, without exception, the finest piece of judicial eloquence delivered in the finest possible way by the Lord President Hope. The requisites for this kind of eloquence are of course totally different from those of accomplished barristership—and I think they are in the present clever age infinitely more uncommon. When possessed in the degree of perfection in which this Judge possesses them, they are calculated assuredly to produce a yet nobler species of effect, than even the finest display of the eloquence of the Bar ever can command. They produce this effect the more powerfully, because there are comparatively very few occasions on which they can be called upon to attempt producing it; but besides this adventitious circumstance, they are essentially higher in their quality, and the feelings which they excite are proportionally deeper in their whole character and complexion.

I confess I was struck with the whole scene, the more because I had not heard any thing which might have prepared me to expect a scene of so much interest, or a display of so much power. But it is impossible, that the presence and air of any Judge should grace the judgment-seat more than those of the Lord President did upon this occasion. When I entered, the Court was completely crowded in every part of its area and galleries, and even the avenues and steps of the Bench were covered with persons who could not find accommodation for sitting. I looked to the Bar, naturally expecting to see it filled with some of the most favourite Advocates; but was astonished to perceive, that not one gentleman in a gown was there, and, indeed, that the whole of the first row, commonly occupied by the barristers, was entirely deserted. An air of intense expectation, notwithstanding, was stamped upon all

the innumerable faces around me, and from the direction in which most of them were turned, I soon gathered that the eloquence they had come to hear, was to proceed from the Bench. The Judges, when I looked towards them, had none of those huge piles of papers before them, with which their desk is usually covered in all its breadth, and in all its length. Neither did they appear to be occupied among themselves with arranging the order or substance of opinions about to be delivered. Each Judge sat in silence, wrapt up in himself, but calm, and with the air of sharing in the general expectation of the audience, rather than that of meditating on any thing which he himself might be about to utter. In the countenance of the President alone, I fancied I could perceive the workings of anxious thought. He leaned back in his chair; his eyes were cast downwards; and his face seemed to be covered with a deadly paleness, which I had never before seen its masculine and commanding lines exhibit.

At length he lifted up his eyes, and at a signal from his hand, a man clad respectably in black rose from the second row of seats behind the Bar. I could not at first see his face; but from his air, I perceived at once that he was there in the capacity of an offender. A minute or more elapsed before a word was said, and I heard it whispered behind me, that he was a well-known solicitor or agent of the Court, who had been detected in some piece of mean chicanery, and I comprehended that the President was about to rebuke him for his transgression. A painful struggle of feelings seemed to keep the Judge silent, after he had put himself into the attitude of speaking, and the silence in the Court was as profound as midnight—but at last, after one or two ineffectual attempts, he seemed to subdue his feelings by one strong effort, and he named the man before him in a tone, that made my pulse quiver, and every cheek around me grow pale.

Another pause followed-and then, all at once, the face of the Judge became flushed all over with crimson, and he began to roll out the sentences of his rebuke with a fervour of indignation, that made me wonder by what emotions the tor

rent could have been so long withheld from flowing. His voice is the most hollow and sonorous I ever heard, and its grave wrath filled the whole circuit of the walls around, thrilling and piercing every nerve of every ear, like the near echo of an earthquake. The trumpet-note of an organ does not peal through the vaults of a cathedral with half so deep a majesty; and I thought within myself that the offence must indeed be great, which could deserve to call down upon any head, such a palsying sweep of terrors. It is impossible I should convey to you any idea of the power of this awful voice; but, never till I myself heard it, did I appreciate the just meaning of Dante, where he says, "Even in the wilderness, the Lion will tremble, if he hears the voice of a just Man."

Had either the sentiments or the language of the Judge been other than worthy of such a vehicle, there is no question that the effect of its natural potency would soon have passed away. But what sentiments can be more worthy of borrowing energy from the grandest music of Nature, than those with which an upright and generous soul contemplates, from its elevation of purity, the black and loathsome mazes of the tangled web of deceit? The paltry caitiff that stood before him, must have felt himself too much honoured, in attracting even indignation from one so far above his miserable sphere. With such feelings, and such a voice, it was impossible that the rebuke he uttered should not have been an eloquent rebuke. But even the language in which the rebuke was clothed, would have been enough, of itself alone, to beat into atoms the last lingering reed of self-complacency, on which detected meanness might have endeavoured to prop up the hour and agony of its humiliation. Mens est id quod facit disertum; and whatever harrowing words the haughtiness of insulted virtue, the scorn of honour, the coldness of disdain, the bitterness of pity might supply, came ready as flashes from a bursting thunder-cloud, to scatter ten-fold dismay upon this poor wretch, and make his flesh and his spirit creep chill within him like a bruised adder. His coward eye was fascinated by the glance that killed him, and he durst not look

for a moment from the face of his chastiser. He did look for a moment; at one terrible word he looked wildly round, as if to seek for some whisper of protection, or some den of shelter. But he found none. And even after the rebuke was at an end, he stood like the statue of Fear, frozen in the same attitude of immoveable desertedness.

This Judge was formerly President of the Criminal Court:and after being present at this scene, I have no difficulty in believing what I hear from every one, that, in pronouncing sentence, he far surpassed every Judge whom the present time has witnessed, or of whom any memory survives. Had any gone before him, his equal in the "terrible graces" of judicial eloquence, it is not possible that he should soon have been forgotten. Feelings such as this man possesses, when expressed as he expresses them, produce an effect, of which it is not easy to say whether the impression may be likely to abide longest in the bosoms of the good, or in those of the wicked.

As I came away through the crowd, I heard a pale, anxious looking old man, who, I doubt not, had a cause in Court, whisper to himself" God be thanked-there's one true GENTLEMAN at the head of them all."

I HAVE endeavoured to give you some notion of the present. state of the Bar and Bench of Scotland-and I have done