more profoundly studied or more thoroughly knew.
Alas! what can it betoken our Church, that we should thus see such
men, at once its strength and its ornament, so fast falling around us,
like commanding officers picked down at the beginning of a battle, and
that so few of resembling character, and none of at least equal power,
should be rising to occupy the places made desolate by their fall!

_November 13, 1847._

THE CALOTYPE.

There are some two or three slight advantages which real merit has,
that fictitious merit has not; among the rest, an especial advantage,
which, we think, should recommend it to at least the quieter members of
society--the advantage of being unobtrusive and modest. It presses
itself much less on public notice than its vagabond antagonist, and
makes much less noise; it walks, for a time at least, as if
slippered in felt, and leaves the lieges quite at freedom to take
notice of it or no, as they may feel inclined. It is content, in its
infancy, to thrive in silence. It does not squall in the nursery, to
the disturbance of the whole house, like 'the major roaring for his
porridge.' What, for instance, could be quieter or more modest, in
its first stages, than the invention of James Watt? what more
obtrusive or noisy, on the contrary, than the invention of Mr. Henson?
And we have illustrations of the same truth in our Scottish metropolis
at the present moment, that seem in no degree less striking.
Phreno-mesmerism and the calotype have been introduced to the Edinburgh
public about much the same time; but how very differently have they
fared hitherto! A real invention, which bids fair to produce some of the
greatest revolutions in the fine arts of which they have ever been the
subject, has as yet attracted comparatively little notice; an invention
which serves but to demonstrate that the present age, with all its
boasted enlightenment, may yet not be very unfitted for the reception of
superstitions the most irrational and gross, is largely occupying
the attention of the community, and filling column after column in
our public prints. We shall venture to take up the quieter invention of
the two as the genuine one,--as the invention which will occupy most
space a century hence,--and direct the attention of our readers to
some of the more striking phenomena which it illustrates, and some of
the purposes which it may be yet made to subserve. There are few
lovers of art who have looked on the