&c.,
&c. Wonderful, to be sure! There is a pen-and-ink drawing by Munro, of
uncommon merit; another from a capital old engraving by Tiffen, hardly
to be distinguished from an elaborate line engraving, full of good faces
and straight lines, with nothing picturesque. A moonlight and cottage by
Gainsborough, very fine. Jackson's and Robinson's miniatures, and
sketches in water-colors,--charming. Leslie's designs, with Stothard's
on the same subject, are delightfully contrasted: Leslie's, neatly
finished and full of individuality; Stothard's, a beautiful, free
generalization, without finish. (But the engraver understands him, and
finishes for him, adding the hands and feet in his own way.) It is a
representation of Jeanie Deans's interview with the Queen. Leslie's
figure is standing; Stothard's, kneeling: yet both are expressive and
helpful to our conceptions. Here, too, I saw Rembrandt's celebrated
"Battle of Death," with a skeleton blowing a horn, and helmeted and
plumed, and having a thigh-bone for a battle-axe,--shadows on the
shoulders of horsemen, and skeleton feet;--on the whole, a monstrous
nightmare, such as you might expect from Fuseli after a supper on raw
beef, but never from such a painter as Rembrandt.

* * * * *

_Phrenology._--There must be something in this new science,--for they
persist in calling it a science,--though I cannot say how much. Just
returned from a visit to De Ville, in the Strand, in company with
Chester Harding, Robert M. Sully, the painter, and Humphries, the
engraver,--each differing from the others in character and purpose; yet,
after manipulating our crania, this man says of each what all the rest
acknowledge to be true, and what, said of any but the particular person
described, would be preposterous. Why are the busts of Socrates and
Solon what they should be, according to this theory of Gall and
Spurzheim? Were they modelled from life, or from characters resembling
them? Compared the head of a Greek boy with that of a young Hottentot.
One was largely developed in the intellectual region, the other in the
animal region, and the latter cries whenever his home or his mother is
mentioned. Both are at school here. Thurtell's head is a great
confirmation, which anybody can judge of. I must find time for a
thorough investigation.

P. S.--I have kept my promise, and am thoroughly satisfied. Phrenology
deserves to be called a science, and one of the greatest