of a genuine antique-the lips are drawn together and compressed in a way that gives the idea of intensest abstractionand the whole bead is such, that it might almost be placed upon the bust of Theseus, without offence to the majesty of that inimitable torso. The most wonderful circumstance is, that, unless all my friends be deceived, the statue, in all these points, is a most faithful copy of the original. Nor, to judge from the style in which the memory of the man is spoken of by all with whom I have conversed on the subject of his merits, am I inclined to doubt that it may have been so. He died very suddenly, and in the same week with Lord Melville, who had been through life his most dear and intimate friend; and the sensation produced all over Scotland by this two-fold calamity, is represented to have been one of the most impressive and awful things in the world. In regard to the best interests of the Scottish nation, perhaps the Judge might be even a greater loss than the Statesman; for there seems to be no reason to doubt, that he was cut off not far from the commencement of a judical career, which, if it had been continued through such a space of time as the ordinary course of nature might have promised, would have done more for perfecting the structure of the Civil Jurisprudence of Scotland, than is likely to be accomplished under many successive generations of less extraordinary men. It would appear as if the whole of his clear and commanding intellect had been framed and tempered in such a way, as to qualify him peculiarly and expressly for being what the Stagyrite has finely called " a living Equity"-one of the happiest, and perhaps one of the rarest, of all the combinations of mental powers. By all men of all parties, the merits of this great man also were alike acknowledged, and his memory is at this moment alike had in reverence by them all. Even the keenest of his now surviving political opponents, himself one of the greatest lawyers that Scotland ever has produced, is said to have contemplated the supreme intellect of Blair with a feeling of respectfulness not much akin to the common cast of bis disposition. After hearing the President overturn, without an effort, in the course of a few clear and short sentences, a whole mass of ingenious sophistry, which it had cost himself much labour to erect, and which appeared to be regarded as insurmountable by all the rest of his audience, this great Barrister is said to have sat for a few seconds, ruminating with much bitterness on the discomfiture of his cause, and then to

have muttered between his teeth, "My man! God Almighty spared nae pains when he made your brains." Those that have seen Mr. Clerk, and know his peculiarities, appreciate the value of this compliment, and do not think the less of it because of its coarseness.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE SAME.

I BELIEVE I repeated to you, at the close of my last letter, a remark of Mr. Clerk concerning President Blair. This Mr. Clerk is unquestionably, at the present time, the greatest man among those who derive their chief fame from their appearance at the Scottish Bar. His face and figure attracted my particular attention, before I had the least knowledge of his name, or suspicion of his surpassing celebrity. He has by some accident in infancy, been made lame in one of his limbs; but he has, notwithstanding, every appearance of great bodily vigour and activity.

I remember your instructions concerning the Barristers of Scotland, and after having visited their Courts with great assiduity, during the greater part of my stay in this place, shalt now proceed to draw you portraits of the most eminent, as near as I can hit it, in the style you wish me to employ. I must begin with Mr. Clerk, for, by the unanimous consent of his brethren, and indeed of the whole of the profession, he is the present Coryphæus of the Bar-Juris consultorum sui seculi facile princeps. Others there are that surpass him in a few particular points, both of learning and of practice; but, on the whole, his superiority is entirely unrivalled and undisputed. Those who approach the nearest to him, are indeed so much his juniors, that he cannot fail to have an immense ascendancy over them, both from the actual advantages of his longer study and experience, and, without offence to him or them be it added, from the effects of their early admiration of him, while he was as yet far above their sphere. Do not suppose, however, that I mean to represent any part of the respect with which these gentlemen treat their senior, as the result of empty prejudice. Never was any man less of a quack

than Mr. Clerk; the very essence of his character is scorn of ornament, and utter loathing of affectation. He is the plainest, the shrewdest, and the most sarcastic of men; his sceptre owes the whole of its power to its weight-nothing to glitter.

It is impossible to imagine a physiognomy more expressive of the character of a great lawyer and barrister. The features are in themselves good-at least a painter would call them so; and the upper part of the profile has as fine lines as could be wished. But then, how the habits of the mind have stamped their traces on every part of the face! What sharpness, what razor-like sharpness, has indented itself about the wrinkles of his eye-lids; the eyes themselves so quick, so gray, such bafflers of scrutiny, such exquisite scrutinizers, how they change their expression--it seems almost, how they change their colour-shifting from contracted, concentrated blackness, through every shade of brown, blue, green, and hazel, back into their own open, gleaming gray again! How they glisten into a smile of disdain!-Aristotle says, that all laughter springs from emotions of conscious superiority. E never saw the Stagyrite so well illustrated, as in the smile of this gentleman. He seems to be affected with the most delightful and balmy feelings, by the contemplation of some soft-headed, prosing driveller, racking his poor brain, or bellowing his lungs out-all about something which he, the smiler, sees through so thoroughly, so distinctly. Blunder follows blunder; the mist thickens about the brain of the bewildered hammerer; and every plunge of the bog-trotterevery deepening shade of his confusion-is attested by some Tuore copious infusion of Sardonic suavity, into the horrible, ghastly, grinning smile of the happy Mr. Clerk. How he chuckles over the solemn spoon whom he hath fairly got into his power! When he rises, at the conclusion of his display, he seems to collect himself like a kite above a covey of partridges; he is in no hurry to come down, but holds his victims "with his glittering eye," and smiles sweetly, and yet more sweetly, the bitter assurance of their coming fate; then out he stretches his arm, as the kite may his wing, and changing the smile by degrees into a frown, and drawing down his eyebrows from their altitude among the wrinkles of his forehead, and making them to hang like fringes quite over his diminishing and brightening eyes, and mingling a tincture of deeper

scorn in the wave of his lips, and projecting bis chin, and suffusing his whole face with the very livery of wrath, how he pounces with a scream upon his prey-and, may the Lord have mercy upon their unhappy souls!

He is so sure of himself, and be has the happy knack of seeming to be so sure of his case, that the least appearance of labour, or concern, or nicety of arrangement, or accuracy of expression, would take away from the imposing effect of his cool, careless, scornful, and determined negligence. Even the greatest of his opponents sit, as it were, rebuked before his gaze of intolerable derision. But careless and scornful as he is, what a display of skilfulness in the way of putting his statements; what command of intellect in the strength with which be deals the irresistible blows of his argumentsblows of all kinds, fibers, cross-buttockers, but most often and most delightedly sheer facers-choppers." Ars est celare artem," is his motto; or rather, "Usus ipse natura est;" for where was there ever such an instance of the certain sway of tact and experience? It is truly a delightful thing, to be a witness of this mighty intellectual gladiator, scattering every thing before him, like a king, upon his old accustomed arena; with an eye swift as lightning to discover the unguarded point of his adversary, and a hand, steady as iron, to direct his weapon, and a mask of impenetrable stuff, that throws back, like a rock, the prying gaze that would dare to retaliate upon his own lynx-like penetration-what a champion is here! It is no wonder that every litigant in this covenanting land, should have learned to look on it as a mere tempting of Providence to omit retaining John Clerk.

As might be expected from a man of his standing in years and in talent, this great advocate disdains to speak any other than the language of his own country. I am not sure, indeed, but there may be some little tinge of affectation in this pertinacious adherence to both the words, and the music of his Doric dialect. However, as he has perfectly the appearance and manners of a gentleman, and even, every now and then, (when it so likes him,) something of the air of the courtier about him-there is an impression quite the reverse of vulgarity produced by the mode of his speaking; and, in this respect, he is certainly quite in a different situation from some of his younger brethren, who have not the excuse of age for the breadth of their utterance, nor, what is, perhaps, of greater importance, the same truly antique style in its breadth. Of

this, indeed, I could not pretend to be a judge; but some of my friends assured me, that nothing could be more marked than the difference between the Scotch of those who learned it sixty years ago, and that of this younger generation. These last, they observed, have few opportunities of hearing Scotch spoken, but among servants, &c. so that there clings to all their own expressions, when they make use of the neglected dialect, a rich flavour of the ball, or the stable. Now, Mr. Clerk, who is a man of excellent family and fashion, spent all his early years among ladies and gentlemen, who spoke nothing whatever but Scotch; and even I could observe (or so, at least, I persuaded myself) that his language had a certain cast of elegance, even in the utmost breadth. But the truth is, that the matter of his orations is far too good to allow of much attention being paid to its manner; and after a little time I scarcely remarked that he was speaking a dialect different from my own, excepting when, screwing his features into their utmost bitterness, or else relaxing them into their broadest glee, he launched forth some mysterious vernacularism of wrath or merriment, to the tenfold confusion or tenfold delight of those for whose use it was intended.

I had almost forgotten to mention, that this old barrister, who at the Bar has so much the air of having never thought of any thing but his profession, is, in fact, quite the reverse of a mere lawyer. Like old Voet, who used to be so much laughed at by the Leyden jurisconsults for his frequenting the town-hall in that city, (where there is, it seems, a very curious collection of paintings,) Mr. Clerk is a great connoisseur in pictures, and devotes to them a very considerable portion of his time. He is not a mere connoisseur, however, and, indeed, I suspect, carries as much true knowledge of the art in his little finger, as the whole reporting committee of the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh do in their heads. The truth is, that he is himself a capital artist, and had he given himself entirely to the art be loves so well, would have been, I have little doubt, by far the greatest master Scotland ever has produced. I went one day, by mere accident, into my friend John Ballantyne's sale room, at the moment when that most cunning of all tempters had in bis hand a little pen and ink sketch by Mr. Clerk, drawn upon the outer page of a reclaiming petition-probably while some stupid opponent supposed himself to he uttering things highly worthy of Mr. Clerk's undivided attention. I bought the scrap for a mere