of the rocks and the waves, joined to the superb effect of the sky, render it a school in itself to the artist, as well as an object of the highest admiration to the ordinary observer. In the composition it has perhaps some faults; the foreground does not correspond in dignity to the distant parts of the landscape, and there is too uniform a tint of yellow pervades the whole; but, notwithstanding these defects, this picture is decidedly superior to any storm piece by the same author in the Louvre, or, indeed, in any continental collection with which we are acquainted.

The cabinet picture of the Madonna and Child by Correggio, the property of Miss Alexander, is as beautiful as any picture, of the same dimensions, by that great master, which Italy has to shew. It exhibits his well known delicacy and softness of shading; and in the countenances of the infants, we see the same expression of heavenly sweetness which so peculiarly characterizes his productions. But the small pictures by this master give no idea whatever of the exquisite beauty of his larger works; and beautiful as many parts of this picture undoubtedly are, we must caution those who have not seen his great pictures in Italy against forming their opinion of his merits from the specimen which it exhibits.

The limits of this paper forbid us to pursue the agreeable task of dwelling on the excellencies of this delightful collection. Suffice it to say, that there are few collections of equal extent on the Continent of greater merit; and that in landscapes in particular, it would be difficult in the same compass to find its equal.

We cannot help, indeed, recommending to the directors to do their utmost in the collection of a fine series of landscapes for this institution. There may be a considerable difficulty in collecting a sufficient number of historical paintings to form a school of painting in that its greatest department in this city. But, with respect to landscape-painting, the materials of excellence are quite within our reach. Placed on the confines of the mountain scenery of Britain, and surrounded on all sides by romantic objects, Edinburgh is fitted by nature inore than any other place in the island to become a great school for

landscape-painting. The vicinity to London gives our artists the whole advantages of the encouragement which the wealth or the taste of England can afford; while the sublime and interesting objects which are so entirely within their reach, furnish both the materials for study, and the subjects of contemplation. In this respect, they are in a far better position than the London artists, who are wholly deprived of the means of habitually studying the scenes of nature, and who must travel two hundred miles, before they can arrive at its wilder and more savage productions. It is in the habitual study of the works of Nature, in her sublimest forms, however, that the mind of a great landscape painter is formed. We are told that Salvator Rosa studied incessantly in the mountain scenery between Pompeii and Salerno; and it is from the magnificent forms which Nature there exhibited, that he became so admirable in the delineation of savage character. Gaspar Poussin lived at Tivoli during the greater part of the year; and no one can see his pictures without both perceiving the traces of the scenery in which his taste was formed, and admiring the faithfulness and accuracy of his delineation. Claude Lorraine spent days and even weeks in summer, wandering through the woods and sunny hills of the Alban Mount, without ever taking a pencil in his hand; watching the lights and shadows which the different periods of the day exhibited, and marking the changes in the appearance of the sky, and the colour of the atmosphere, which are expressive of the delight which we feel in the presence of the sun. It was from this habitual and incessant observation of Nature, in scenes where she exhibited her finest combinations, that these great men filled their minds with the splendid conceptions which have immortalized their names, and acquired the means of expressing them with such truth and vigour; and no situation seems better adapted for similar study than the vicinity of Edinburgh, where the picturesque and the beautiful are so prodigally combined; and where the skies exhibit, at different periods, the glow of an Italian, and the varietics of a northern climate.

NEGLECTED ORIENTALISM.

MR EDITOR,

OUR literature is now beginning to assume an air of independence. It has in some degree emancipated itself from the shackles of classical domination. We no longer feel constrained to look up with a superstitious adoration to the models of antiquity; but the sincere homage we still willingly pay to these, acquires greater worth and consequence from our very assertion of freedom. It is not now the implicit admiration of blind ignorance; it is the disinterested reverence which results from an intelligent appreciation. Escaping from the cells of scholastic drudgery, we venture to look abroad on Nature for ourselves, and, not content with reflecting the mere films and spectra of ideas, we catch them "fiving as they rise," in all their native freshness.

But it is in vain to dissemble, that, in asserting our emancipation from our former state of pupilage, we have, in many instances, rushed with too much eagerness into the bye-paths of literature, and have maintained rather too vehement an admiration for all that we can discover to be good, in defiance of Aristotle and the scholastic code. Our first exhibition of spirit was only a little harmless swaggering behind the backs of our great masters, ever ready to humble itself down when confronted by their presence, into all the abasement of inferiority; but, since we have acquired the power of thinking and acting for ourselves, we have rather abused our liberty, and have turned our backs on our tutors with somewhat of an ungenerous contempt. Ranging even beyond the boundaries which the mature and moderated exercise of reason will in the end prescribe, we have exulted too much in our lawless rambles, and have too often been content to gorge our excited appetites on the veriest garbage of rusticity and antiquarianism. There is something of degeneracy and paltry spirit in our present wild gusto for oddity, ferocity and turbulence; but we trust the fermentation will soon subside, and that our Gothic taste will at length shade into Attic elegance and propriety.

But I should be the last to put any violent curb upon this excursive spirit. We are right in ceasing to re

VOL. IV.

strict ourselves to any one model. It is both more just and more worthy of us to exercise a general, yet discriminative, appreciation of all excellence, wherever it may present itself; to receive the contributions of Scandinavia with as kind, if not as respectful, a welcome as the relics of Greece, and to ransack the arcana of Hindooism at the same time that we are bringing into light the treasures of Hercula neum.

It has often been a subject of wonder with me, that this rage for novel beauty which has explored the remains of classical antiquity, which has opened up the East to our view, and carried us back with so much interest upon our own ancient, literature, should not have long ago excited us to dig a little in the rich mine of Sacred literature;-that even infidel taste should be content to skim superficially over those hallowed tracks, under which it cannot but suspect much treasure to be hid.

The exploring of these mines, indeed, belongs more properly to ecclesiastical industry, and I doubt not but that the fear of encroaching upon the rights of the church has contributed much to deter curiosity. I am proud also to think, that, among us, the Sacred books are so hallowed by general veneration, that a feeling of delicacy and reverence withholds the hands of genius from their wonted freedom.

But, while this delicacy has happily preserved the Sacred writings from much unworthy abuse, it has sometimes, I am convinced, contributed to an abuse more fatal, that of setting even their beauties aside with too pre cipitate a disreg⚫rd, and of consigning them to the rapacious hands of dulness, often but to be buried under heavy masses of controversy and annotation.

Certainly, while the spiritual application of Scripture is given up to the divine, it is wrong in criticism to blind herself to those beauties which come within her own province, and which no touch of her's can pervert or destroy. Far, indeed, am I from wishing that the blessed book in which the holy mysteries of our religion are contained should ever be made subservient to the mere gratification of our taste; but I hope I am not less far from that pusillanimous bigotry which would curb and repress the ris

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ings of admiration excited within us as we journey over that land which has been hallowed by the real presence of Divinity.

In this spirit, I subjoin a specimen of Hebrew poesy from that passage of Isaiah relating to the fall of Babylon, which Bishop Lowth pronounces to be the grandest ode in existence; and for my part, I know no human composition in which is compressed into so short a compass so much simple majesty of sentiment, combined with such a terrible energy of expression, in which images of brilliant magnificence are so artfully interwoven with images of horror. Every part is wrought with consummate skill. The contrasts are most striking. The oppressor is introduced; but it is just at that fatal moment when he is hurled from his throne of pride. The "Golden city" rises before us; but it is just at the instant when she is to be stript of her ornaments. Throughout the ode the liberation of the Jews from their captivity is the grand theme of exultation; and the Prophet pourtrays in awful colours the destruction of Babylon, and the downfal of its monarch. When it was written, indeed, the Babylonish empire was just rising into grandeur. After this denouncement of its doom, far from exhibiting any symptoms of decay, it increased in splendour and power for a period of nearly 120 years; and Babylon in its glory was a mighty city. It formed a regular square of 45 miles. It was enclosed by a wall 200 feet high, and 50 broad, in which were 100 gates of brass. It boasted a number of stately edifices. The Temple of Belus re from a square base, a quarter of a mile in extent, in a tower of eight stories. The palace of the kings was most sumptuous and magnificent. Among its other decorations are to be noted the famous hanging gardens, with an artificial mountain, raised upon arches, and planted with the largest and most beautiful trees.

The history of the demolition of this splendid metropolis comports exactly with the tenor of the prediction before

us.

Cyrus diverted from their course the waters of the Euphrates, which ran through the city, and insinuating his army under the walls by the channel of that river during the night, at once made himself master of the place.

The river overflowing the country, soon converted it into a perfect morass.

These incidents, with the slaughter of the inhabitants, and other disastrous consequences attending the taking of the place, were the first steps to its ruin. The Persian monarchs kept it down with a jealous eye during the period of their supremacy. Darius Hystapes, in punishment of a revolt, depopulated the place, lowering its walls, and demolishing its gates. Soon after Xerxes destroyed its temples, and, with the rest, the most stupendous monument of its ancient glory, the temple of Belus. The building of Seleucia, on the Tigris, next contributed, by its neighbourhood, to exhaust and depopulate Babylon. Not long after, a king of the Parthians carried away into slavery a great number of the inhabitants, and burnt and destroyed the most beautiful parts that remained of the city. In Strabo's time, the greatest part of it was a desert. He states, that the Persians had partly destroyed it, and that time, and the neglect of the Macedonians, while they were masters of it, had nearly completed its annihilation. In Jerome's time, it was quite in ruins, the walls serving only for the enclosure of a park for the king's hunting. Modern travellers have discovered no remains, finding great difficulty even in ascertaining the site of it.

This extraordinary desolation may be thus accounted for. The buildings of that age and clime were not so well compacted as ours. They were formed of brick, or a mixture of clay and straw dried in the sun. The wall was constructed by throwing up the earth from a ditch excavated beside it. Hence it was very thick and very high, and at the same time liable to sudden dissolution-to be washed away and reduced to its original mould, -as it now is, verifying, with extraordinary precision, the words of the prophecy.

ISRAEL'S SONG OF TRIUMPH

The sceptre, whose sway hath so proudly prevailed,

The sceptre of rulers and princes is broken.

The tyrant, whose iron heart knew not to spare,

Who blasted the world with the rod of his wrath,

Is hurried along to the Den of Despair,

The earth-worms are gathering their slime for thy bed,

And weave their long folds for a covering o'er thee.

Oh! how art thou fall'n from thy splendour on high,

All-radiant Lucifer, son of the morning!

Thou dread of the nations! to earth from the sky

Art thou cast, and no morrow shall greet thy returning.

"Thou didst say in thine heart," I shall rise into Heaven;

My throne shall be set o'er the stars of the Lord;

On the mount, where Jehovah's dread presence is given,

Will I sit all sublimely,-exalted— adored.

The earth from her terror reposes again,

And her howlings of anguish and agony

cease;

Joy comes with her smiles to the dwellings

of men,

And sings in her bowers to the angel of peace.

The fir-tree rejoices, and waves his proud bough;

In triumph the cedars of Lebanon bend; For the death-fiend has THEE in his dungeon, and now

No feller comes ruthless their glories to rend.

From her dismalest chambers, Hell moves

on to meet thee;

The graves yawn-the dead, in their vestments that glow, Come forth, waving torches of vengeance to greet thee,

The tyrant, who sent them from light

into woe.

And grinning around thee the chiefs of the earth

Present thee the chalice of venomed despair;

And to welcome thee, now but the theme

of their mirth,

Each king hath arisen from his canopied chair.

Ah! thus is the proud and the mighty o'erthrown,

Is the brow of thy glory thus shrouded in gloom;

And com'st thou, who haughtily held thee alone,

To be fettered with us in the realms of the tomb ?

There enthroned his own glories shall bathe and surround me;

Above his enveloping cloud will I soar, And gather the might of omnipotence

But thou from thy tomb must dishonoured be driven,

Like the murderer's death-stake, all loathsome, abhorred,