Mr Smith, the author of the "Life of Nollekens," has prepared for the press "Memoirs of his own Life and Times," which are said to contain many eurious anecdotes of art and artists.

OUR STUDY TABLE is labouring under a plethora. There is the Iliad of that fine old veteran Sotheby. Montgomery's Oxford-an amiable tribute by an ingenious young man to his Alma Mater. We shall speak of its merits and defects freely and candidly. Mr Sewell Stokes is there also with a volume of Discourses on Opinion -we devoutly pray that they may prove better than his poetry. Dibdin's Sunday, and Lardner's Cabinet Library, look the one black, and the other blue. No wonder-there are so many rival libraries, that they must be tolerably squeezed. No. II. of the Library of the Fine Arts, is dull and commonplace. Two new numbers of the Ecole Anglaise, and a batch of the beautiful landscape illustrations of the Waverley Novels, are lying lovingly together. There are besides Sermons on the death of Dr Andrew Thomson-Pamphlets on the Barilla Question, on Tythes, on the City of Edinburgh Improvements, and on Reform-that "blatant beast," whose roar threatens to drown our small piping, pipe we never so sweetly. Our comfort is that our still small voice will be heard long after he has ceased to thunder. The new number of the Edinburgh University Magazine, which has just come to hand, is excellent. We propose to overhaul the whole of these publications immediately. FINE ARTS.-Macdonald's Exhibition has opened in London under the most favourable auspices. This artist is taking a bust of Lockhart-a fine subject.-There are murmurs abroad that the Suffolk Street Exhibition will tread close upon the heels of that of Somerset House.-Allan's picture of Lord Byron is finished, but we have not had time to take a glance at it yet.-A trashy pamphlet has been published here, purporting to be a Catalogue Raisonnée of the Scottish Academy's Exhibition. To this no mortal has any right to object; but we certainly are entitled to complain that a big lubberly boy should be stationed on the pavement before the door of the Exhibition, with orders to perk it in the face of every person who enters.

CONCERT.-The Concert of the organist, Mr ROGERS, of St John's chapel, consisted, very appropriately, chiefly of sacred music. It was, however, by no means so appropriate that he should attempt "Comfort ye, my People!" "Behold, I tell you a mystery!!" and 66 Deeper, and deeper still!!!" This was one of those benefit concerts, as they are called, which are no benefit to the giver, a tax on his friends, and sickening to the Public. Of such concerts we have too many. They should not be encouraged. The excuse for them is," Mr Humdrum must have an opportunity of making himself known to the musical world, otherwise how is he to get teaching?" Fudge! If Mr Humdrum's abilities as a public singer (at a concert he cannot display his abilities as a teacher) are such as to do him credit, it is not necessary that he should spend his money upon a benefit concert to make them known. That is rather the place to hide his talents from all but his friends, who know them already. His proper arena for display is at the concerts of the Professional Society, where he will be heard by the whole musical public of Edinburgh. Should his measure of ability not come up to the Professional Society's standard, the more carefully he avoids bringing himself so prominently forward, the better for all parties. These remarks do not apply to Mr Rogers exclu sively. They are applicable to all benefit concerts, with a few rare exceptions; such as Miss Eliza Paton's annual, and Mr Yanie. wicz's farewell concert. Of Mr Rogers we know nothing; but we have heard that he is a worthy man, and a good teacher. Pos sessed of this reputation, he may rest contented, without aspiring to rival Braham in "Deeper, and deeper still." We have to thank Mr Rogers for considerable exertions to render his concert agreeable. An organ and a chorus, such as Edinburgh affords, were provided; and we had some delicious music from the Misses Paton and Mr Edmunds, in strong contrast with the rest of the performances.

MR YANIEWICZ.-This excellent artist and respectable man has now resided among us for many years; his time chiefly occupied with the laborious duties of a private teacher. There is not one of his pupils, possessed of real musical talent, who is not fully aware how much is due to Mr Yaniewicz's good taste and judicious instructions, in the improvements that have been gradually taking place in the musical feelings of the public, since he first settled in Edinburgh. It was he who introduced a higher and more finished style of instrumental performance than any of his predecessors here had been able to teach by example. We have heard it said, that Mr Yaniewicz's next concert is to be his last. If it is to be so, we can only say that we heartily regret his determination. However, we sincerely hope that he does not mean to leave Edinburgh, or to give up private teaching. No man who has ever taught music in Edinburgh has yet contributed so much as Mr Yaniewicz has done to the diffusion of good musical taste and style in our city. This we say with high respect for other masters, some of whom have been his pupils have carefully studied their art, and have come forth as artists and teachers, long after Mr Yaniewicz's arrival among us-men of

liberal feelings and good sense, who will at once acknowledge the justice of our remarks, their own obligations to this venerable artist, and their determination to follow the same higher course that he has followed, and to give good music and good style their proper place and rank, without yielding one iota to vulgar and ignorant clamour, or to modern musical novelties and humbug. If Mr Yaniewicz's last concert is really to be his last, we trust that his real friends and admirers-among whom we are pleased to number ourselves-will make his concert "A Bumper at Parting!"

ABERDEEN.-The Rev. Abercromby L. Gordon, the talented minis. ter of Greyfriar's Church, has lately called the attention of the Aber. deen public to the introduction of Sessional Schools for the poor, in the six parishes into which this city has been divided; on the principles of those established in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, &c The advantages arising from these schools, in this large and popu. lous manufacturing city, would be unspeakably great, and would prove that the Aberdonians, amidst the polishing of their granite, the embellishment of their city, and the noise of their steam-engines and spinning-jennies, were zealous in promoting the moral and religious education of their poorer brethren. By the publica. tion of his " Address to the Inhabitants of Aberdeen," Mr Gordon has conferred a public benefit on this city, and shown himself justly entitled to the appellation of the Poor Man's Friend.-On Tuesday the 1st instant, the Right Hon. the Earl of Errol was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College for the ensuing year; although the students had been upon the qui vire for some time, the election was not so keenly contested as it has been for some years past.

Theatrical Gossip.-Kean has terminated his engagement at Drury-Lane: it is feared little to the profit of the management. He ought not to have returned-at least without such an alteration in the state of his health as would have enabled him to do justice to his own conceptions. We feel towards Kean as we did in his brightest days, although we could wish that he tried the public forbearance less. If he has sinned, he has also suffered. -The farce of "Decorum," by Mr Haynes Bayly, was damned, without a hearing, at the same theatre, and has been withdrawn for curtailment and alteration.-At the Adelphi, in like manner, the burletta, called "Bringing Home the Bride," has appealed from the audience of the first to the audience of the second night of performance." La Cenerentola" has been produced with great success at the King's Theatre.-At the Olympic, a new burletta, called " My Grand Aunt, or Where there's a Will"-by Planché, has succeeded.-Nothing but Revolutions; we learn that Messrs Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas, have offered to the commis. sion appointed by the Minister of the Interior to regenerate the Théâtre Francais, to take upon themselves, at their own risk and peril, the direction of that establishment, without any assistance. "A Week at Holyrood" has been withdrawn in consequence of the sudden death of Denham. "Don Giovanni" is to be perform. ed this evening.-Young has taken his farewell of the Dublin audience in the character of Hamlet.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

We see no reason why we should be denied our Easter Holy. days, when all the rest of King William's loyal subjects are allowed them. We propose, therefore, in our next, to throw reviewing to the dogs, and indulge in a frolic. It is true that we take this liberty the week before Easter-but the gentle reader will take into consideration that had we waited, our gambols must have been played on the first of April, and who knows to what ill. natured remarks this might have given rise?

"Aberbrothicus" is inadmissible." James Megrim" has quiet sly humour about him-he may try again." A Lover of the Muses" scarcely comes up to our standard." A Reader" is decidedly below it-notwithstanding the delicate morceau of flattery by which he seeks to win us." R. W." (we think that is the sig nature) of Glasgow, is under consideration.-We hereby give notice, that for three months from this, no person need send us any amatory effusions--we are quite overstocked, and intend to hand them over to " John Thomson" for next St Valentine's.

No. 124.

EASTER.

AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE.

DR JOHNSON took no cream in his tea on Good Friday. We insist upon hot cross-buns to breakfast, on that day of mortification. Nay, in our anxiety to do it all honour, we are apt to superadd the Scottish ritual to the English, and present some favoured friend with a dyed egg on the occasion. Since our years and infirmities have kept us in some measure a prisoner within the house, we have rather dropped astern of the world's ways, and the practice of which we have spoken may by this time have become obsolete-even among children, those most sturdy adherents to antique usages. But, in our young days, a dyed egg was as indispensable an appendage to PASCHE FRIDAY (vulgarly pronounced Pace) as our breakfasts. The favourite colour was a purple, more or less deep, produced by boiling the egg in a solution of alum, into which some chips of logwood had been thrown. The most disliked was yellow, produced by boiling it with the coats of onions-a make-shift to which only the very poorest who could not afford to purchase the costly ingredients above mentioned were reduced. It is strange, at how early an age the unamiable propensity to estimate the worth of our fellows by their wealth and rank, shows itself in children!

Another symptom of the inveterate perversity of our nature, is the stubbornness with which children cling to outworn heretical practices and opinions, long after the fanners of clerical castigation have winnowed them from among the mature of the land. Could it be believed, that in such an enlightened age and country, the children in some of our western county towns not only adhered to this papistical rite of dying their eggs, but even retained the heathenish practice of going to gather their earliest nosegays on Good Friday? The daffodils,

"That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty,"

are, at that early season, almost the only wild-flowers extant. We feel yet the sensation of freshness they produced in us as we scrambled along the woody banks of Doon seeking for the richest:

"Even yet my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

It is strange the prejudice which the good people of Scotland entertain against the keeping sacred certain times and seasons. If they really acted up to their principles, one might tolerate them; but when we see the very strictest among them giving into the weakness they so sternly condemn, it is not in human nature to endure it. Look at the Cameronians. Long after there was peace and security in the vales did they insist upon remaining perched upon their hill-tops, skraiching out their psalms among the mists, like so many corbies on a tall fir's top, although a bien house was ready for their reception below. Nay, to this day do they insist upon celebrating their

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sacramental rite under the free canopy of heaven. why? Because they feel and felt that, by thus embodying their principles in external symbols, recalling the circumstances under which they had sprung up and wrestled to maturity, they strengthen and confirm their faith.

It may be, that, in the rude age when the Reformation was effected in Scotland, there was a necessity, by a sudden and violent shock, to separate, in the dull minds of an uneducated populace, the symbol from the thing signified. It might be requisite, by transferring for a time the celebration of the Sacrament of the Supper to another occasion than that of Easter, to teach communicants that this holy ceremony does not derive its efficacy from fit planetary terms and conjunctions. But now that the diffusion of intelligence has rendered the reawakening of such gross error unlikely, if not impossible, the propriety of continuing to slight the return of the season at which the great mystery of our delivery was accomplished, is questionable.

We do not find that the practice retained in England, and in Lutheran countries, of setting apart Easter as a term of peculiar sanctity, has been favourable to super. stition; but we know that it gives to "the hard-handed artisan" one happy day in every year, and we know that its recurrence has often checked the career of heedless dissipation. By multiplying the number of days in the year, which have some tale of moral or religious importance attached to them, and by imprinting their association deeply on the memory of youth, we spread, as it were, guide-posts through the whole intricate maze of life, for the direction of the unwary. Passion is ever awake, and under its headlong impulse we may rush past many of them with our eyes shut, but one or other must arrest our course at last.

This feeling is finely expressed in the introductory scene of Goethe's Faust. That wayward being, maddened by sceptical doubts, and the quenching of youthful emotion, rather than drag on an insipid life, is about to drink poison. It is Easter morning, and, just as he raises the cup to his lip, the matin bells, and the song of the choristers, burst upon his ear.

CHORUS OF ANGELS.

Of mortals the Saviour,
Christ is arisen ;

No more shall sin's guile,
With his serpent coil,
Bind them in prison.

FAUST.

What booming sound, borne on the wings of night,
Draws from my lips the glass with magic power?
Already swinging with slow, sullen roar,
Do the church-bells announce the Easter-tide?
Ye choirs, already sing ye the glad song,
Which once to the Grave's night, from Angel lips,
Told of a Covenant's new grace divine?

What seek ye with me midst the dust, ye mighty
All-searching tones of heaven?-go, sound afar,
Where weak men live-the errand hear I well,
But faith to me is wanting. Miracles
Can but be born where Faith, their parent, dwells.
Through every sphere I have not toil'd my way,
To shrink whene'er the friendly warning sounds.
And yet each peal reminds me of my youth,
And summons back life's unremember'd hours.
The kiss of heavenly peace falls on my cheek,
As in the Sabbath-stillness of the past,
When the sweet voice of distant bells was bliss,
And a still prayer was as a strong delight.
A calm, yet irresistible emotion

Through wood and meadow, drove me devious on.
And, 'midst a burning shower of quenchless tears,
I felt a holier world arise before me.

That song hath brighten'd up the darken'd mirror,
The joys of spring, the morn, and dew of youth,
And memory now hath seized me with her glow,
Tracing last footsteps backward to the first.
Sing on, ye heavenly songs-sing sweetly on-
My tears gush forth: Earth, I am thine again!

In another passage, the poet presents us with a vivid picture of the eagerness with which the citizens-churchservice being over-rush forth to treat themselves on this holyday to a mouthful of fresh air. The free mountaineer can have no idea how sweetly the gales of heaven play around his temples who is only emancipated from the cotton-mill once in a year.

FAUST.

From its fetters of ice leaps the brook, now thawn
By Spring's genial glow; waking life to the core
Of the valley beneath, that looks green once more
Under Hope's sweet blessing. Old Winter has gone,
In his weakness, back to the mountains hoar,
And flying, he throws, as he northward doth pass,
His harmless showers of granulous hail,
In stripes all over the emerald grass;
But the sun will not suffer his garments pale,
For everywhere stirs the Creative Form,
Seeking all nature with hues to adorn.

The flower dare not yet peep forth from its bed,
But these holyday dresses will serve instead,

Turn now thine eyes from this distant height,
Turn and behold the citizens' flight;
How from the yawning gate the flood
Onward streams of the multitude!
Each one now basks in the sun so gay,
They feel 'tis their Lord's resurrection day-

That they themselves are arisen

From their cottages low, and their cheerless gloom,
From each craftsman's seat, and each workman's prison.
From the confinement of gabel and room--

Forth from the pressure, and forth from the squeeze,
From the cathedral's murky night,-

All are now gather'd and rush to the light.

See, now see, how among the trees,

Through the gardens and fields the multitude floats,
Or crosses the river before the breeze,
Ruffling the mirror with its boats!

See, wellnigh sinking, with its deep load,
Far in the distance, the last boat fade.
E'en from this distant mountain road
How gaily glitters the cavalcade !

I hear the shouts by the village given,
Here is the multitude's true heaven;
I listen to their thoughtless glee,
And am reconciled to humanity.

The order of nature sanctions, in some degree, the observance of festivals. While the obliterating power of time has swept away every local trace of our Saviour's existence, the anniversaries of the most eventful occurrences of his career, by their connexion with the changeless revolutions of the seasons, have not, and, until the course of nature is changed, cannot be wiped from man's remembrance. They are linked too with the old Holytides of the Jewish dispensation, as if Providence wished to intensify the hint given by the circumstance alluded It is for our good to observe them. There is nothing that so strengthens the mind in virtue as making "The child the father of the man."

to.

When at an advanced period of life we can turn our look backwards, and trace, amid all our lapses and deviations, a constant, and on the whole a successful struggle to cling to one uniform rule of action, we may rest assured that our life has not been altogether useless or unimportant. And does it not still further elevate our consciousness of the high task imposed upon us in return for the gift of life, when we can look backward to the earliest records of humanity, and trace one uniform principle of action developing itself throughout the long ages which have since intervened, by which we can square and adjust our own comparatively momentary exertions ? We feel that we do not exist alone, but are enrolled in the glorious company of those who, in all ages, have striven for the good cause.

There is something in the Easter festival more peculiarly impressive, than in any of those which the reformed Christian churches (Lutheran and Anglican) recognise. It commemorates death at the very moment that nature is re-awakening into life. It is like meeting a funeral as we are hastening to a merry-making. It is laying a friend in the cold, dark grave, at the moment when softer breezes lure the buds from the trees, and the first songs from the birds, and bear up to a higher region of the atmosphere lighter and fleecier clouds. It is a consummation of that inversion of the order of moral as compared to that of physical nature, indicated by the season of the nativity being cast in the dead of winter. The serpents, emblematical of spiritual and material eternity, are intertwined in reversed positions-thus heightening the mystery of that Idea, from grasping at which the mind shrinks back powerless,-that Something, which, having neither Beginning nor End, has in like manner neither Before nor After.

Our readers may think this rather a solemn proem; but we have placed it at the head of our Easter revels, as the sermon of Christmas morning precedes the wassail of the evening. We now commend them to our more mundane friends.

Aux armes! aux combats, encor!

Au triomphe, enfans de la France! Des tyrans l'aveugle insolenceRédit-"l'esclavage ou la mort !"

Que veulent ils? de quelle injure
Avez vous donc fletri ces Rois?
Vous avez reconquis vos droits,
Vous avez chapé le parjure!
Voilà votre crime, Français !

Du parjure ils sont solidaires;
Ils proclament-guerre à jamais!
Nous proclamons comme nos peres
Aux armes! aux combats, &c.

Ont ils donc perdu la memoire

De leur honte et de nos combats? Du monde tremblant sous nos pas Faut il renouveller l'histoire ? Eh bien, marchons! au fond du nord Sur le Danube et sur la Sprée, Dans les fers la liberté dort; Qu'elle s'eveille delivrée !

Aux armes ! &c.

Peuples! qu'ils trainent en esclaves,
Ou qu'ils egorgent en troupeaux,
Venez, venez sous nos drapeaux,
Vous affranchir de vos entraves,
Avec nous vengez vos affronts,

Avec nous brisez leurs couronnes, Brisez leurs sceptre sur leurs fronts, Faites des tombeaux de leurs trones! Aux armes ! &c.

CHILDREN of France! your country's breath
Cries-" Arm for battle, and away!"
For the pride-blinded tyrants say-
"Yours-yours is slavery, or death!"
And whence their restlessness and rage-
What is the charge these despots bring?

O, ye have chased your perjured king,
And enter'd on your heritage!

There is your crime-you have withstood

The perjured monarch's menaced wrongs; And now they threaten you with, Blood! But we will sing our fathers' songs. Children of France! &c.

What! must our march remind them yet
Of our successes, and their shame
The world, which trembled at our name,
Can they forget--can they forget?
Well! to the march again—the plains,

Where rolls the Danube and the SpreeWhere freedom sleeps, but sleeps in chains Let her awake sublime and free! Children of France! &c.

Nations! they fetter to their car,

Or, like poor sheep, to butchery dragCome, gather round our glorious flag! Come, march with us to freedom's war! Come, come, by holy vengeance led,

And let us break their iron crownsBreak their base sceptres on their head, And turn to sepulchres their thrones. Children of France! &c.

THE MINISTER'S ANNIE.

Communicated by the Ettrick Shepherd. SIR,-When I was a girl I was boarded in the house of the Rev. Joseph Taylor for several years, and was therefore an eye and ear-witness of many of the incidents which I shall endeavour to narrate to you in this letter, and which I shall do as closely accordant with truth as the events remain engraven on my memory.

Mr Taylor had been left a widower, with a family of daughters, but their eldest sister Anne was all that the most tender mother could be to them. She was their nurse in sickness, and their monitor in health; their milliner, their dressmaker, and their instructor in every virtue under heaven. I and my cousin Caroline were sent there to reside, and receive the rudiments of our education in the kind vicar's house, along with his daughters, and in all my life I have never seen a more admirable young woman than Miss Taylor. She was so lovely in her person, so amiable in her deportment, and elegant in her manners, that she attracted, as she deserved, very general admiration. Her worthy father doted on her her sisters obeyed and loved her; and the life, of no young lady could be more usefully or happily spent, until love, that everlasting intruder on the female heart, deranged all the internal motions of that virtuous and industrious family.

The cavalry barracks being immediately adjoining to the village where the vicarage is situated, we often went in the evenings to listen to the music, where Anne, during the second year that I was there, attracted the attention of the officers so much, that a number of them fell deeply in love with her, at least so I imagined, so did her sisters, and I believe so did the lovely and amiable young lady herself. Among the rest there was a Captain George

Ascot, a distant relation of her mother's, by whose attentions she seemed often pleased, although those attentions were not of that respectful and delicate nature which such a girl would naturally have estimated highly. He was constantly teasing and playing tricks on her; misleading her in all her little enquiries about the other officers, promising her one thing and performing quite the reverse, and was, in short, a most intolerably provoking person; yet, with none of the other gentlemen's visits did Miss Taylor appear so well pleased.

The old vicar was kind to him, for indeed it was not in his nature to be unkind to any living creature, but he often smiled at his extravagance, and would say, " Hush, George! that will never do," or, " You must not believe all that he tells you, Anne, my dear." It is almost impossible to conceive how a species of tormenting should have had any charms for the heart of such a lady. I never could comprehend it, for while he was causing her to blush at one time, to laugh at another, and cry at another, yet she appeared more and more unhappy when he was not present.

Thus matters stood, when Colonel Allerbeck of the same regiment made proposals for Anne, and offered such a settlement that her father at once acceded to the match. She had never been accustomed to dissent from her father's opinions and talents-no, not in the smallest instance in her whole life; she held them sacred, and prepared to yield to this as she had done to them all: but alas! her heart went not with it, for I remember well of the confused and abstracted state of her mind at that period-she could not settle at any work, and would run up stairs fifty times a-day to the window that looked towards the barracks.

How her former handsome and teasing lover got the intelligence I know not, but suspect that she must have