that even as a child the passages on the science in his school-books "were read with an unction and a glow which made old Master Cooper select them for specimens of my elocution." Professor Nichol, a man of more than common enthusiasm and poetic feeling, gladly welcomed the cooperation of such an artist, and the result is a set of designs strangely differing from the formal diagrams with which such treatises are usually illustrated, giving, as art can, "the impassioned expression on the face of science." The series was to have been etched by Scott's own hand; but his death prevented this, and only a selection of the finest of the drawings which he executed were transcribed by Mr. W. B. Scott and other engravers.

The volume itself is now scarce, but one subject is given in the memoir "The Procession of Unknown Powers"-grave spirit-forms, each bearing a light, floating out of the distance of the future, passing the human spirit who appears seated on the round of the earth, and then vanishing for ever in the past. They may stand for the Days of mortal life, each with his proffered gift

"Out of Eternity

This new Day is born;
Into ternity,

At night, will return."

In another design we have the astronomer set in his observatory, raised high over the din and bustle of the dim spot that men call earth, the city beneath hidden by his elevation, only the tops of its highest spires visible, and around and behind him the quietness of moonlit sky and sea. The man is old and feeble; the staff with which he stays his tottering steps rests beside him his face has no special charm of beauty or grace, but it may be compared for the look of reverence and awe which it lifts

towards the immensities above, to Baldini's "Astrologia," with her pale cheeks, and quivering lips, and rapt eager gaze into the starry sphere. In the eighth plate we have a splendidly imaginative subject-"Life radiating from the Creative Step." We see a great foot set on a seething liquid mass, which flies off at the touch into grand mysterious human forms, their faces averted and unseen, their heads crowned with coronals of stars. In the tenth illustration

"The Nebula," it is titled-we see vague involved forms locked in strange strife-the strife from nothingness into being in another, that naked long-haired figure of indeterminate sex under which Scott has SO often figured the human soul, is poised in mid-air, the head thrown back, the hands crossed over the forehead, listening with intolerable rapture to "The Eternal Harmonies," and behind, arranged in symmetrical arcs, are companies of angelic forms, with locked arms and interlacing hair, who "sing, and singing in their glory move." And then, in the final plate, for end of all, the artist has drawn three dead or dying men, and has gathered around them the implements of intellectual labourlyre, compass, rule, and scroll. One figure lies prostrate on the earth, his face hidden, his hand yet holding a book; another sits fainting in utter weakness; the third sage, whose foot rests significantly on an hour-glass, is breathing his last, attended to the end by human sympathy, seen as a female form, who sustains the dying man. Beside her hovers a winged angel, who directs her gaze aloft to where in a broad band of light which streams from heaven, the parted soul, like a little child, "perfect of lineament, perfect of feature," ascends with head held back in joyful

wonder and arms widely and eagerly outspread as it enters upon an hospitable eternity." We have said that Scott was engaged upon this great series of designs at the time of his death; and this, its last subject, may surely be received as the final message of his art.

The end came on the 5th of March 1849. Always, at least since his residence in Italy, his health had been feeble, and his forty-three years of life, so filled with eager work and ardent thought, had worn thin the ties that bind soul and body together. His mother and his brother were with him to the end. As he lay a-dying, his thoughts were still busy with the art in which he had lived and had his being. "If I could but have time yet, I think I could meet the public in their own way more, and yet do what I think good," he would murmur; and when his brother strove to encourage him with the hope of recovery-"If it were but so!

No, it cannot be it seems too great a prize, too awfully grand a thing to enjoy life again with this experience overcome, to have been thus ill, to have seen into the darkness and return to the clearness of life. It takes a long time to know how to live and work. "

There are many portraits by which we who did not know Scott as he lived, may gather what was the appearance of the man. There is a likeness by his own hand, engraved in the Memoir, and that painted by Charles Lees, R.S.A., both of them manifestly faithful and unaffected, agreeing both in the clear-cut, delicate lining of the features, in the firm compression of the beautiful mouth, in their look of

intellect, refinement, and resolution. Sir John Steele has carved in marble the head of his brother-artist and life-long friend, and presented it to the Scottish Academy-a bust apparently somewhat idealised in the inspired beauty of its lifted face, but on the testimony of all who are best able to judge, true to their impression and memory of the man. It shows the artist as he might be at the beginning of his career, young yet, and full of hope in the untried possibilities of life. There is a pathetic little pencil-drawing by his brother, sketched as he lay asleep not many hours before the end. But the portrait which to those of us who know Scott only through reverent study of his works, seems perhaps the most complete and realisable embodiment of their painter, is one of the striking calotypes by D. O. Hill, R.S.A.,* taken like the last-named likeness when the artist was worn with labour and sickness. The figure is seen nearly in full length, the head relieved against a curtain, the long dark hair disclosing the square lines of the high forehead: the cheeks are thin and hollow, and the eyes look out from their caverns beneath the brows with a strange expression of sad intensity. Here we have a touch of that weirdness which is so characteristic of Scott's art, we see the painter of "The Traitor's Gate," of "The Dead Rising."

Very shortly after Scott's death, his largest picture, "Vasco de Gama," was purchased by public subscription and deposited in the Trinity House at Leith; and a collection of more than fifty of his most notable works was brought together for exhibition in Edinburgh, and created an impression not easily for

gotten among the more thoughtful portion of the art public.

In the North British Review' for May 1849 there appeared an exceedingly discerning and sympathetic sketch of Scott's life and works, from the pen of his friend Dr. Samuel Brown; and in the following year was published the admirable Memoir by Mr. W. B. Scott, a volume to which those most interested in the artist will be most indebted, and to which the writer of the present paper desires to express his very especial obligations. To the same fraternal hand we owe the etchings of the forty "Illustrations to the Pilgrim's Progress,'" and of the "Selections from the Works of David Scott," a series of twelve plates from his most important pictures and sketches, published by the Art Union of Glasgow in 1866-67.

And surely the time has come when, if Scott's works were only more widely known, they would command recognition and win praise. For in these days we grow more and more tolerant of art that has great qualities, especially great imaginative qualities, even when these come to us as "a fair divided excellence," not "unmixed with baser matter." Our greatest critic, he who has insisted most strongly upon minute accuracy of workmanship and unswerving truth to nature, has pronounced not less clearly and emphatically that "art does not consist in any high manual skill, or successful imitation of natural objects, or any scientific and legalised method of performance;" that "all good art agrees in this, that it is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it;" and he has dwelt with characteristic eloquence upon the widened horizon, the mighty consequences which

follow upon our acceptance of this truth. Blake's name is one to conjure with. The quaintnesses of the early Italians do not blind us to their sweet imagination; we are no longer deaf to the words of inspiration when they are delivered to us "as by the stammering lips of childhood." Even in our study of the painters of last-century France, we have learned to disengage their especial "virtue" from much in them that is of little worth; to prize them for their clear perception, their keen portrayal of the vivid, transient, common moments of life

for their bestowal on these of the dignity and distinction of art. And if we think of the greatest and most typical of these Frenchmen— of Watteau himself,-and remember the dainty precision and vivacity of his method-how he catches the delicate shimmer of silks in the glinting sunshine, and every lightest motion of the figures beneath, with all their subtle gestures of half-real love or half-feigned caprice, we have the sharpest contrast that art can give us to the manner and the chosen subjects of Scott. His figures are strenuous and impetuous in action, vast and massive in repose. With him the colour is rich, glowing, and intense, the design and draftmanship large and powerful in spite of many errors of detail. By these great technical qualities his art claims descent from and kinship with that of the artists of the great time in Italy; by them he vindicates his choice of his method of expression, proves himself worthy of the name of painter. And besides these technical qualities, he has the clear individuality so precious in art: he is undoubtedly one of that "certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a quality of pleasure not otherwise obtainable."

And in this faculty-one to be felt rather than defined or formulated call it imagination, call it "visionary conception," lies the greatness of the painter whom we have been considering. "I have always

judged painting by its sentiment, by its mental bearing, and thought most of new spheres of meaning." With these words of Scott we may end, as we began with those of Blake.

Tommy. Isn't this a ripping place? It seems to me as if the downs were like great green waves, rolling along and swelling bigger and bigger; and here we are, you and I, up on the very top of the biggest wave of all, which hangs here for ever, as if it would plunge down the next moment and swamp the real old sea.

Sybil. What nonsense you do talk, Tommy! Come; it's quite time I began my lesson. What's this book, which you say I can read? T. The anthology.

S. The what?

T. The anthologia Latina.
S. What's that?

T. Oh, I don't know; it's a sort of collection. It's good for girls, because it leaves out the bad things. S. But I want to read what boys read.

T. You can't, you know. We have to read awfully improper things at school.

S. I don't see why it is good for you to read things which it isn't good for me to read. I don't see why girls should be different from boys.

T. I don't see why either. I suppose it's best. I think I am glad you are different.

S. Do let us begin. You are so idle.

T. It's so awfully jolly doing nothing up here. I should like to lie here for ever on this nice short

grass and stare at the sea. Isn't the sea dazzling in the sunlight? It looks like millions of penknives. S. Penknives! It's like diamonds.

T. Should you like to have millions of diamonds? I wish I were a fellow in the Arabian Nights,' and I would give 'em to you.

S. I don't wish for anything so silly. Do sit up, and let us begin.

T. Oh, very well. Here you are; I picked out this for you to read. It's all correct; it's about the death of a sparrow.

S. Well?

T. Well I say, Sybil, I wish the brim of your hat was a little wider.

S. Why?

T. Because, as we have got to look over the same book, it would be jolly to sit in the shade of the same hat. We should be like Paul and Virginia.

S. Who were they?

T. They were young people who were in love with each other-in an opera, or something.

S. How silly! Come now; do begin.

T. You must begin; see if you can translate it. I've got a stunning translation of it in my pocket, which my tutor made.

S. "Lament, o'
T. "Venuses and Cupids-
S. But there was only one Venus.
T. Oh, that don't matter.
It's a

sort of poetic licence; they have to make it scan, you know. I can't make out the next line; and I can't

S.

make out my tutor's translation of it but it don't matter; it's only a fill-up. Go on at "passer."

S. There's nothing about "sweet and clear" in the Latin.

T. You are so awfully particular, Sybil. I wish it wasn't all about a sparrow. I don't care for sparrows. Ah! look at that lark. He got up quite close to us. Phew! doesn't he jump? What great leaps he goes up in! Mustn't he be tremendously happy? Fancy being able to go like that, and having wind enough to sing all the time!

S. I wish you wouldn't let your eyes wander all over the country. If you don't keep them on the book we shall never get on.

T. All right. This other's a jolly one-this one-" To Lesbia." S. Who was Lesbia?

T. She was the girl who had the sparrow; he was in love with her: but you had better not think of her. I believe she wasn't at all a good sort.

S. What a pity!

T. She made him awfully unhappy.

S. It was his own fault. I can't think why people fall in love.

T. Of course it's awfully silly to fall in love.

S. I think it's horrid. T. People say that a man and a woman can't be friends, because

one of them is sure to fall in love.

S. That must be nonsense. Look at you and me! We have been friends for ever so long.

T. Yes; and do you know, Sybil, I'd rather you were my friend than any fellow I know.

S. It seems very hard, this "To Lesbia." What's the meaning of "basiationes"?

T. I think it means "kisses."
S. Oh!

T. "You ask how many of your kisses, Lesbia, are enough and more than enough for me. As great as is. the number of Lybian sand in spice-bearing Cyrenæ, between the oracle of something-Jove and the sepulchre of old Battus, or as many as are the stars that"

S. Oh, we won't go on with that. Poets are always so silly when they begin to talk about those things. I do wish you would finish one thing before you begin another;