Of the line deer, or goats' depending beard;
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities, or Pan himself,

The simple Shepherd's awe-inspiring God!

When Williams has finished a few more pictures such as these, I have no doubt it will be found, that his genius is entitled to exert a deep sway over the minds of his contemporaries. It seems as if nature had fitted him to complete among us the impression, which similar inspirations had already enabled one of the greatest poets of the day to introduce to us with so much majesty of effect.

But the length of these remarks must not lead you to suppose, that there are no great landscape painters in Edinburgh besides Mr. Williams. He is the only one whom I have met frequently in society, and perhaps his very elegant appearance and manners, and the interest his wanderings have given to his conversation, may sufficiently account for this circumstance. But there is no want of admirable artists in the same department in this city. There is the venerable father of landscape painting in Scotland-Mr. Nasmyth, whose son Peter enjoys a splendid reputation at present in London. There is a delightful sweetness in the old man's pencil, and assuredly there is in it as yet no want of vigour. There is Mr. Thomson, the clergyman of Duddingston, a village in the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh, whose works, in masterly ease and breadth of effect, seem to me to approach nearer to the masterpieces of Turner, than those of any other artist with whom I am acquainted, and who, you will be happy to observe, is engaged along with that Prince of Artists in Mr. Scott's great work of the Provincial Antiquities of Scotland. Among the younger artists, there are, I believe, not a few of very great promise, and one, above all, who bids fair ere long to rival the very highest masters in the department he has selected. I allude to Staff-Surgeon Schetky, a gentleman, whose close and eminent attention to his own profession, both here and while he served with Lord Wellington's army, have not prevented him from cultivating with

uniform ardour an art fitted above all others to form a delightful relaxation from the duties of professional men, and which, it is easy to see, must besides be of great practical and direct utility to a man of his profession. During the longest and most fatiguing marches of our Peninsular army, his active and intelligent mind was still fresh in its worshipping of the forms of nature; finding its best relief from the contemplation of human suffering, in the contemplation of those serene beauties of earth and sky, which that lovely region for ever offers to the weary eye of man. I think the Doctor is a very original painter. He has looked on nature with an eye that is entirely his own, and he has conceived the true purposes of his art in a way that is scarcely less peculiar. He seems to have the most exalted views of the poetical power of landscape-painting, and to make it his object on every occasion to call this poetical power into action in his works. He does not so much care to represent merely striking or beautiful scenes, as to characterize natural objects, and bring out their life and expression. A painter, who feels, as he does, what nature is, considers every tree or plant as in some measure an animated being, which expresses the tone of its sensations by the forms which it assumes, and the colours which it displays. How full of poetry and meaning is every vegetable production, when sprouting forth spontaneously in such places as nature dictates, and growing in the way to which it is led by its own silent inclinations! Even the different surfaces and shapes of soils and rocks have an expression relating to the manner in which they were formed, although they cannot be literally considered as expressive of sensation like plants. Mr. Schetky seems more than almost any painter to be imbued with these ideas of universal animation. His trees-his rocks-his Pyrenees, seem to breathe and be alive with the spirit of their Maker; and he has no superior, but one, in every thing that regards the grand and mysterious eloquence of cloud and sky.

As you have seen the London Exhibitions as often as myself, you of course do not need to be told, that, in Raeburn,

Edinburgh possesses a portrait-painter, whose works would do honour to any capital in Europe. I really am not certain, that this artist is in any important particular inferior even to Sir Thomas Lawrence. He also is an old man; but the splendid example of his career has raised about him several, that seem destined to tread in his steps with gracefulness scarcely less than hi own. Such, in particular, are Mr. Geddes, whose fine potrait of Mr. Wilkie has lately been engraved in London-Mr. John Watson, a very young artist, but (I prophesy) not far from very splendid reputation—a most chaste colourist, and one that wants nothing but a little more practice to be in all things a Raeburn-and, lastly, Mr. Nicholson, whose delicate taste in conceiving a subject, and general felicity in executing it, do not always receive so much praise as they should, on account of a little carelessness in regard to drawing, which might be very easily corrected. You must have seen many etchings from his pictures. Mr. Nicholson is also a very charming miniature-painter; indeed, he has no rival in that department but Mr. William Thomson, a truly delicious master in this style.

Ever your's,

P. M.

P. S. You must not expect to hear from me again for several days, as I am to set off to-morrow morning to pay my promised visit to Mr. S. I shall write you immediately on my return to Edinburgh.

S

Pray, is there any truth in the neswspaper paragraph about Sir Watkin?-Give my love to Lucy-" Quid Luce clarius ?"

AFTER passing the town of Dalkeith, and all along the skirts of the same lovely tract of scenery on the Esk, which I have already described to you, the road to Ad leads for several miles across a bare and sterile district, where the progress of cultivation has not yet been able to change much of the general aspect of the country. There are, however, here and there some beatiful little valleys cutting the desert-in one of which, by the side of a small mountain stream, whose banks are clothed every where with a most picturesque abundance of blooming furze, the old Castle of Borthwick is seen projecting its venerable Keep, unbroken apparently, and almost undecayed, over the few oaks which still seem to linger like so many frail faithful vassals around the relics of its grandeur. When I passed by this fine ruin, the air was calm and the sky unclouded, and the shadow of the square massy pile lay in all its clear breadth upon the blue stream below; but Turner has caught or created perhaps still more poetical accompaniments, and you may see it to at least as much advantage as I did, in his magnificent delineation.*

Shortly after this the view becomes more contracted, and the road winds for some miles between the hills-while, upon the right, you have close by your side a modest little rivulet, increasing, however, every moment in breadth and boldness. This is the infant Gala Water-so celebrated in the pastoral poetry of Scotland-flowing on to mingle its tributary stream with the more celebrated Tweed. As you approach, with it,

* In the first Number of the Provincial Antiquities of Scotland.

the great valley of that delightful river, the hills become more and more beautiful in their outlines, and where they dip into the narrow plain, their lower slopes are diversified with fine groupes of natural wood-hazel-ash-and birch, with here and there some drooping, mouldering oaks and pines, the scanty relics of that once mighty Forest, from which the whole district still takes its name. At last, the Gala makes a sudden tura, and instead of

"The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy,"

you have a rich and fertile vale, covered all over with nodding groves and luxuriant verdure, through which the Gala winds proudly toward the near end of its career. I crossed it at the thriving village of Galashiels, and pursued my journey for a mile or two on its right bank-being told, that I should thus save a considerable distance-for the usual road goes round about for the sake of a bridge, which, in the placid seasons of the Tweed, is quite unnecessary. I saw this far-famed river for the first time, with the turrets of its great poet's mansion immediately beyond it, and the bright foilage of his young larches reflected half-way over in its mirror.

You cannot imagine a more lovely river-it is as clear as the tiniest brook you ever saw, for I could count the white pebbles as I passed-and yet it is broad and deep, and above all extremely rapid; and although it rises sometimes to a much greater height, it seems to fill the whole of its bed magnificently. The ford of which I made use, is the same from which the house takes its name, and a few minutes brought me to its gates. Ere I came to it, however, I had time to see that it is a strange fantastic structure, built in total defiance of all those rules of uniformity to which the modern architects of Scotland are so much attached. It consists of one large tower, with several smaller ones clustering around it, all built of fine grey granite-their roofs diversified abundantly with all manner of antique chimney-tops, battlements, and turrets-the windows placed here and there with