landscape and sea views. Samuel Bough has made the largest stride in the direction of excellence of any Scottish exhibitor. Before, we may justly say, that he had not arrived at his ultimate conclusions in art, for he has now so far excelled his pictures of last year, that they actually appear like the productions of a different mind. His pictures in the present exhibition evince less effort,-are less theatrical. fact both his landscape and river scenes are distinguished by so much truthfulness, simplicity, and feeling, that they at once satisfy the imagination and the reason. The air and water and shipping in his "Port of London," appears to be as perfect as art could make it.

In

John Houston has evinced equal powers in the treatment of figure composition and landscape. Of late he has chiefly confined himself to the latter, in which he has manifested decided excellence. He delineates some of the picturesque aspects of nature with great force and feeling. Several of our young artists continue to improve. Clark shews considerable advance on last year. He is superior in harmony of colouring, clearness, and decision. Alexander Fraser exhibits several excellent specimens marked by his characteristic force. Edward Hargitt has departed from his original simplicity and truthfulness of colouring. Some of his pictures are garish and theatrical in the extreme. Waller Paton, with a fine pencil for landscape, has fallen into a purple tone of colouring that is as remote from nature as the poles asunder. We cannot help admiring, however, his untiring efforts in always unfolding an expansive view of his subject. Several English landscapists exhibit, and are distinguished by much truthfulness and feeling.

There is as usual the ordinary complement of portraits and busts. The portraits by Sir John Watson Gordon, John Graham Gilbert, Daniel M'Nee, and Colvin Smith, are marked by their characteristic excellencies. The busts are comparatively few, and the fancy subjects in marble still fewer, but on the whole, viewed even as a mere Scottish exhibition, the toute ensemble shews an improvement, which, while it delights us in the present, argues more for the future.

With so many pictures by French artists in the rooms, it may not be inappropriate to throw out a few observations on the present occasion, on the wide difference between French and British art. For nineteen centuries, the people of Gaul or France have been under the influence of a larger amount of civilising agencies, than any other people of Europe, and if we are to believe the commentaries of Julius Caesar, they were, even in his time, peculiarly adapted for being affected by such influences. In this land, moreover, Christianity was first planted by the Apostles themselves, and its growth and rapid spread strikingly bespoke the fact that the mere elements of civilization had long preceded it. The comprehensive idea of law, physical, moral, and intellectual, which Christianity first impressed, found a ready outlet and realization both in the useful and ornamental arts in France, for large ideas cannot have long place in the human mind, irrespective of their application to useful purposes. Accordingly, in the larger towns of Gaul, all the useful arts of life grew up and unfolded themselves commensurately with the natural intelligence of the people.

At an early period indeed, the French mind had been trained into a clear knowledge of all the physical and mechanical laws, applicable to all practical and everyday operations. Hence it is that to the present hour, the French preserve their ideas of completeness and perfectability in every article they produce and manufacture. Every thing they do is in conformity with a large form of civilization, which the coarser, more materialistic, and empirical mind of Britain cannot understand. Hence it is, that even in their commonest manufactures, such as shoes, gloves, clothes, &c., they evince a completeness which our artizans cannot approach. Everything they do is more in harmony with a larger and more perfect idea,-their gloves better fit the human haud, their shoes the human foot, and their dresses the human body, because they had previously made themselves perfectly familiar with these structures, as well as the laws that regulated or affected them. The same holds true of every production of the French mind, from these trifling articles to the loftiest and most complicated structures in France. Now, bringing this state of things to bear upon art, it naturally follows that their productions in every department of invention will participate of the same superiority emanating as they do from minds deeply imbued with a larger and higher civilization. Hence, in almost all the French pictures, there is the representation of a larger and deeper form of thought and feeling, than is given by any of the British school. The feeling unfolded in the features and attitudes of the children in the Tower of London, tell their story with a power and pathos that is evinced by no other picture in the rooms-nay, which is shewn by no picture of the British School. The picture too, of "Christ in the Garden," by Ary Schoeffer, possesses the same characteristic. Both artists have chiefly in view to unfold the soul and deeper meaning of their subjects. No garishness of colour or effect can seduce them from their main design. These pictures, indeed, stand out in striking contrast to the productions of the Lauders and all of the same fantastic and theatrical school. The other French pictures have about them a completeness of thought and idea, which our best artists fail to realise. Many of our artists may be superior colourists or more notable draftsmen, but one and all of them are far inferior to the French in realising the truth and real feeling of their subjects. But space precludes us from saying more.

LITERARY NOTICE.

Letter to the Rev. James Veitch, D.D., upon the Title Page of his recent Pamphlet. By JOHN LOWIS, Esq. of Plean. Edinburgh: Myles Macphail.

We are glad to find that Dr Veitch's pamphlet has called forth a rejoinder from one, whose official position in India claims for his opinions the greatest weight. As member of the Supreme Council of India, and Chairman of the Church of Scotland's Mission Board in Calcutta, Mr Lowis forms a link between the Church and the Indian government,-and no one is better entitled to hold the balance evenly between them. It is a happy idea to deal only with the title-page, for this enables the writer to make short work of the pamphlet itself. The title-page contains the gist of the pamphlet, and

the body of it is only an expansive, or rather, a weak dilutive. The points adverted to are, first, the suggestio falsi, as Mr Lowis terms it, in the statement of the question, and, secondly, the motto which illustrates the sad travesty of the Sacred Scriptures running through every page. We regret much that any minister of the Church should subject himself to the calm, dignified, Christian-like rebuke, of one who, occupying the highest position in the Church and the State, has rendered such eminent service to the cause of Christian Missions in the East. The practical mind of Mr Lowis has enabled him to put the whole question in the clearest light, and in the breifest compass. It is certainly a great relief, to turn from the cloud of misconception and wrath in which Dr Veitch has enveloped the subject, to the bright daylight which Mr Lowis has let in upon it. He has clearly shewn that the Indian dispatch is the exact concession which the missionaries, and all interested in the evangelization of the East, had been long struggling to obtain. The missionary institution had long lain under grievous disabilities. The students had been shut out from those privileges which the government schools had enjoyed. Though qualified by a high standard of education, yet they were denied access to those high positions of emolument and influence where they might most effectually advance the interests of Christ's kingdom. The rulers of India at last saw the justice of the claim, and, embued with a better spirit, agreed to the affiliation of these institutions, or, in other words, to the removal of the disabilities under which they laboured. When this great barrier to the triumphs of the gospel was removed, the universal feeling amongst the friends of Christain missions in India, was, "This is the Lord's doing, it is wondrous in our eyes." We can well conceive their astonishment, when it was announced, that this great triumph was received at home, not only with coldness, but with active opposition; and that the opposition came, not from the open enemies of Christianity, but from men bound by the most solemn vows to proclaim Christ to the heathen, instead of abandoning them to a purely secular system of education. We are glad to find, from the tone of Mr Lowis's letter, that the many devout laymen in India, labouring for the spiritual welfare of its perishing millions, are not likely to be disheartened by such treatment. We trust that they will be refreshed and cheered on in this great work, by the hearty God-speed so emphatically pronounced by the last General Assembly. The letter deserves the widest circulation among the ministers and laity of the Church.

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Whitehall, February 13.-The Queen has been pleased to present the Rev. James Gunn to the church and parish of Uig, in the presbytery of Lewis, and county of Ross, vacant by the death of the Rev. David Watson, late minister thereof.

Presentation.-The Earl of Haddington has presented the Rev. William Paul, M.A., to the united parishes of Whitekirk and Tynninghame, vacant by the death of the Rev. James Lang.

Ordination at Belford, Northumberland.-On Wednesday last the Presbytery of the North of England met at Belford, and ordained the Rev. John Ellis Rae, a licentiate of the Presbytery of Edinburgh, to the pastoral charge of the Scotch Church there.

Parish of Abbotshall.-We under

stand that the Rev. John Duncan, lately assistant to the Rev. Mr Blaikie, has been almost unanimously recommended by the people to the patron as assistant and successor in the parish of Abbotshall.

Some correspondence between the Earl of Leven and Melville, and the Rev. Messrs Leitch (Monimail) and Williamson (Colessie), with the Privy Council, has resulted in the removal of the present restriction in reference to the holding of the office of heritors' clerk by schoolmasters in the receipt of Privy Council grants.

Died, at 132 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow, on the 1st ult., in the 75th year of his age, and the 54th of his ministry, the Rev. John Muir, D.D., minister of St James' Parish, Glasgow.

Is drawing, so far as we have yet done, in our truly erratic rambles over ancient India, for our illustrations of the progress of the Hindus in the arts and sciences, we have to acknowledge ourselves deeply indebted to works, that have emanated from the alumni of the now doomed and devoted College of Hayleibury; and we venture to hazard a doubt, if all the cramming Schools of England, now called on, under Mr Macaulay's celebrated Minute, to supply the ranks of the Civil Service, will easily produce abler men to conduct the judicial and other departments of the public service in India, than the distinguished scholars, who amidst all their official duties, have so eminently contributed to the stores of our Oriental knowledge. In acknowledging our obligations, and taking leave of some of our guides in the more strictly called literary and scientific fields of research, we cannot do otherwise than ask from our readers the benefit of a "de mortuis" for the old and once so much coveted College of Hertford. They will, we are persuaded, join us in expressing a wish, that the new system of filling up the ranks of the civil service in India may prove equally successful as the old, in sending out tide after tide of public servants, to play their part of Judges, Magistrates, and Collectors in India, clad in that panoply of high principle and honourable bearing, which have so long been the pride of England's well-bred sons, and which surround the names and memories of such men as Colebrook, Elphinstone, Metcalf, Ellis, and Thomason. If the aspirants after civil office in India, now called into the field from a wider, and what is no doubt regarded as a more

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promising range than the so much decried nepotism of the India House, do not sympathize in this wish, let them bear with us of the old school in telling them, that they may chance themselves to lack a qualification for offices in India, to which in the day of competition at home they may be called, for which no merely literary or intellectual attainments may be able to compensate, when the day of trial arrives abroad; and India at least may have no cause to rejoice, under the rule of such Judges and Magistrates, that the doors of Hayleibury should have been shut.-But, 66 revenons a nos moutons."

The MIMANSA, or section of Theology, properly so called, presents, as might have been expected among such a people as the Hindus, features of no ordinary interest, demanding the most especial attention of those, who are now going forth to guide them to a purer and a better faith. We have already referred to the Mahabharat, in illustration of what may be called the heroic life and manners of these early times; and in that gigantic record, not only of the military exploits, but also of the literary, the philosophical, and the religious wars of ancient India, we shall find presented to us very antagonistic theories, as to the origin of the world and the nature of God and the human soul-sketched it may be thought as much by the poet as by the theologian, but not the less curious and interesting. When the wars of the Mahabharat are carried into the intellectual and theological arena, it is a combat between the Vedanta and the Sidhanta―the traditional, and the rationalistic "terdencies" as we would now a days call them,of the theo-philosophy of these early times. In the contest which in those days arose in the religious world of India, Superstition came to be pitted against an antagonist of the same family, but more powerful than it was itself, and if possible still more destructive of the peace and happiness of mankind. A cunning priesthood had succeeded in peopling heaven with a vast array of "gods," hiding from human view the great Supreme Being himself, or confining all knowledge of his nature and attributes to a select few; but there now arose an order, which drew down these gods to earth itself to dwell among, and to domineer over men of all castes and ranks: Fanaticism took full possession of the stage; and in the shape of the Sunyuasi or Faquir,-the prototype, as we have seen, of the Monk of the Christian world-ruled it over the highest born Brahmin. The very nature of their vocation forbade that the ascetics should usurp or exercise that secular authority, which it was doubtless the great object of the priesthood to attain; but in a sphere of action all the more flattering to their pride, that it was wide enough to embrace all within its compass, they held the most paramount and despotic sway; and the more that they set at defiance all allegiance to the humanities of our nature or the decencies of life; the more hideous and disgusting they could render their bodies; the more cruel and revolting the penances and provocations they could undergo, so much the more successfully did they trade upon the fears and trample on the reason of their deluded votaries. When the tyranny and oppression of a reigning Rajah became too intolerable to be any longer submitted to, the insurrection against his authority was headed by a "holy man ;" but it was under something more than a