protect its soil from the foot of the spoiler

when

"The Gaul-King before Delphi lay."

The streams of Castalie glitter in the distance, and a single snów-white heifer, the only living thing in all the picture, browses upon the tall grass and wall-flowers, that spring from out the centre of the long silent sanctuary. A certain dim and sultry vapour of mystery seems to sleep upon everything around-a dreamy mistiness of atmosphere, fit mother and fit nurse for the most fanciful and graceful of superstitions.

-In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:

And in some fit of weariness, if he,

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,

A beardless youth, who touched a golden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.

The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes
Toward the crescent Moon with grateful heart,
Called on the lovely wanderer, who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:

And hence a beaming goddess with her nymphs, Across the lawn, and through the darksome grove, (Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes,

By echo multiplied from rock or cave,)

Swept in the storm of chase, as Moon and Stars
Glance rapidly along the cloudy Heavens,
When winds are blowing strong:

The traveller slaked

His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad.-Sunbeams upon distant hills,
Gliding apace with shadows in their train,

Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly;

The Zephyrs fanning as they passed their wings,
Lacked not for love fair objects, which they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert, peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns
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 inspira tions 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 ap proach nearer to the masterpieces of Turner, than those of any other artist with whom I am acquainted, and who, you will be happy to ob serve, 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 everything that regards the grand and mysterious eloquence of cloud and sky.