this for religious zeal, and although no country, I firmly believe, possesses a more religious population than this, Scotland has been poor beyond all example in the production of eminent theologians. The Kirk of Scotland has produced many sensible, and a few elegant sermon-writers; but she has nothing to show beside our great phalanx of biblical or doctrinal divines. Dr. Erskine, however, was skilled not only in the branches of what is commonly called theological reading, but in many things beside, which must have enabled him to throw new lights upon the deeper parts of his theology. He was skilled, above all, in profounder kinds of philosophy than his countrymen or ours are fond of; and, among all modern authors, he used to say his chief favourite was Mendelssohn. Some Latin translations from the works of that illustrious Hebrew excited his first curiosity in regard to the Philosophy of Germany, and he acquired the language of that country, at a very advanced period of his life, without the assistance of any master. In all things he was an original man; and he carried with him into all his pursuits a full measure of that high and dauntless ardour, without which nothing great ever was accomplished in any department. I have seen a very fine engraving from a picture of him painted long ago by Raeburn, and I shall bring a copy of it with me to hang in my study beside my uncle's old favourites, Barrow, Hooker, Butler, Warburton, and Horsley. It is an easy matter to see in his physiognomy the marks of profound reflection, blended and softened with all Christian gentleness of heart and mind. For a better portrait than the pencil can make, you may turn to Guy Mannering; you will there find it drawn to the life-(so I am assured)-by one who has preserved many fine things for Scotland, and few things better worthy of preservation than the image of this eminent divine.

On the left hand of the Moderator, I saw the successor of Dr. Erskine in the chieftainship of the Whig party of the Kirk of Scotland-Sir Henry Moncrieff. This gentleman is the representative of one of the oldest families in this kingdom, and stands, I believe, very near the head in the list of its baronets; and, like his predecessor, he also no doubt,

owes not a little of his pre-eminence to the influence of his birth and rank. The truth is, that these are things which always do command a very great share of respect every where-and in Scotland more than almost any where else in the world. You see that even the democrats of Westminster cannot shake off their old English prejudices in regard to these matters; they will never listen to their Gale Joneses and their Bristol Hunts, while they have any chance of being harangued by mistaken gentlemen, such as Burdett, Kinnaird, and Hobhouse. The herd of plebeian clergymen in the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland confess the same innate veneration for symbols of wordly distinction, by the half-proud, half-humble glances which they are perpetually casting towards the orange-tawney ribbon and Nova Scotia badge that decorate the breast of the only man of title in their body. Sir Henry, indeed, does not require these symbols to attest his claims to aristocratical distinction. His air is decidedly that of a man of birth and station-he holds himself with the true mien of a dignitary-and looks (under favour,) when surrounded by his adherents, very much like a Lord bishop receiving the bows of his country curates at a visitation. All this, however, is very far from constituting his sole right to the eminence he holds. The marks of strong vigorous intellect are planted thick upon his phisiognomy-his forehead is compact and full of nerve, and the head rises into a superb height in the region of will-his nose is thick set between his brows, and the nostrils are curved like those of an Hercules. His lips are compressed with a decision of purpose that nothing can shake; and the whole face abounds in square massy lines, that pronounce his temperament to be that of one fond of gladiatorship. His smile, too, is full of a courtly suavity, which shows that he is skilful as well as bold-and, what is best of all for a leader of a party, the general air of the man is stamped with the expression of sheer honesty. Nobody can look upon the Baronet without perceiving that nature meant him to be a ruler, not a subject; and, if I may judge from the specimens I have seen, he is, in truth, a very admirable master in the great art of rule. He seems, indeed, to have a pro

digious tact in the management of his tumultuous array; and the best proof of it is, that those whom he leads do not seem to have the least suspicion of the extent of their subjection. When he speaks, one is put very strongly in mind of the forensic eloquence of his son, which I think I have already described to you. Like him, his voice and gestures are harsh-like him, he disdains, or seems to disdain, all the elegancies of the art-but, like him, he plants himself resolutely before his difficulties—and, like him, if nothing else will do, he cuts the knots with the decision of a genuine Macedonian. The contrast which his plain downright method of attacking the understanding where it should be attacked, presents to the vague illogical rhapsodies of the rural fine speakers from the back rows of the aisle-or to the feeble irresolute middle-sailings of the smooth would-be sages that sit nearer himself—is as striking a thing as possible. But his main excellence seems to lie in the art with which he contrives to correct, almost ere they are made, the blunders of his ambitious and to nerve, even while they are faltering, the courage and decision of his timorous associates. He is a great politician; and, had he come into Parliament, I have very little doubt his peculiar faculties would have made him as powerful a person there as he is here in the General Assembly of the Kirk.

Nearly opposite to him, at the other hand of the Moderator, sits Dr. Inglis, the chief of the Moderate or Tory party— or rather, perhaps, the chief of a small college of cardinals, by whom that party is managed, as the other party is by the undivided vigour of Sir Henry Moncrieff. The doctor is an ungainly figure of a man at first sight, but, on looking a little, one easily observes in him also the marks both of good breeding and strong intellect. His voice is peculiarly unfortunate—or, rather, he has two voices, a hoarse and a sharp, from the one to the other of which he sometimes makes different digressions in the course of the same sentence. But when once the impression of this disagreeable voice is got over, one finds that it is the vehicle both of excellent language and of excellent sense. He does not appear to speak under the same violent impulses of personal will which cha

racterize the Baronet's eloquence; but he is quite as logical in his reasoning, and perhaps still more dexterous in the way in which he brings his arguments to bear upon the conclusion to which he would conduct his hearers. In his illustrations, too, he displays the command of a much more copious reading, and a much more lively fancy than his rival. And even his voice, when he touches upon any topic of feeling, reveals a something totally unexpected by those who hear him for the first time-its harshest notes being, as it were, softened and deepened into a mysterious sort of tremor, which is irresistibly impressive, in spite of its uncouthness. The secret is, that Dr. Inglis is a man of genuine power, and the eloquence of such men cannot be stayed by any minor obstacles from working its way to its object. But I am forgetting the order in which all these things appeared to me.

LETTER LIX.

P. M.

TO THE SAME.

In witnessing the forms of the Presbyterian Convocation, I could not help feeling a greater degree of interest than I should otherwise have done, from the notion that in them, and, indeed, in the whole aspect of the Assembly, not a little might be perceived of the same appearances which characterized, two centuries ago, those more important meetings, in which the Presbyterian party in Church and State took the lead and direction. On the first day of the Assembly, for example, after the Commissioner had delivered his credentials, which consisted of a long pious epistle upon parchment, from the Prince Regent to the Ministers and Elders in General Assembly convened, wherein his Royal Highness stimulates them to a still more zealous discharge of their respective duties, by all manner of devout arguments, and copious quotations from the minor Prophets and Epistles-and

after the Moderator had returned thanks for this favour, and intimated the firm resolution of himself and his brethren to profit, as far as the infirmities of their nature might permit, by the faithful admonitions of "the nursing father of our Zion," after these ceremonies had been duly gone through, the whole of the forenoon, that is from twelve till five o'clock, was devoted to a succession of extemporaneous or seemingly extemporaneous prayers delivered by the Moderator himself, and after him by various clergymen in different quarters of the house, who appeared to call upon each other for addresses to the Deity, in the same way as the members of less sacred assemblies call upon each other for glees and catches. This reminded me most strongly of the descriptions which Clarendon gives of the opening of the Sessions of the Rump -to say nothing of the committees of major-generals under Cromwell. The long, dreary, dreamy, wandering, threadless discourses, too, which some of the reverend performers took occasion to deliver, reminded me of some of the crafty vaguenesses of old Noll himself, and the more sincere absurdities of Sir Harry Vane. A few of the more sensible seniors, and most of the younger members, appeared to have some faint notion that a prayer to the Almighty ought not to be a composition of the same class with a homily to sinful men; but, in general, those who conducted the devotions of the Assembly on this occasion, although they began and concluded with the usual invocation and glorification, did not in fact pray, but preach, throughout the body of their addresses. It seems to me that there is something most offensively irreverent in the style of these extemporaneous effusions-Nay, I do not hesitate to say, that their character was such as entirely to take away from me all notion of joining mentally in the devotions which they were probably meant to express. Under the mask of supplication to the Deity, it seemed to be considered as quite a proper thing to introduce all manner of by-hits at the errors and corruptions observed, not only in the practice, but in the creed also of our fellow-men; and it was easy to see, that instead of humbly pouring out the aspirations of a devout spirit before the throne of Grace, the intention of the praying minister was not unfrequently to