ms one of the groups taken under the eye of Mr. Hill, as
materials for the composition of his historic picture. In the
centre Dr. Chalmers sits on the Moderator's chair, and there are
grouped round him, as on the platform, some eighteen or twenty of the
better known members of the Church, clerical and lay. Nothing can
be more admirable than the truthfulness and ease of the figures.
Wilkie, in his representations of a crowd, excelled in introducing
heads, and hands, and faces, and parts of faces into the interstices
behind,--one of the greatest difficulties with which the artist
can grapple. Here, however, is the difficulty surmounted--surmounted,
too, as if to bear testimony to the genius of the departed--in the
style of Wilkie. We may add further, that the great massiveness of the
head of Chalmers, compared with the many fine heads around him, is
admirably brought out in this drawing.

In glancing over these photographic sketches, one cannot avoid being
struck by the silent but impressive eulogium which nature pronounces,
through their agency, on the works of the more eminent masters. There
is much in seeing nature truthfully, and in registering what are in
reality her prominent markings. Artists of a lower order are
continually falling into mere mannerisms--peculiarities of style that
belong not to nature, but to themselves, just because, contented with
acquirement, they cease seeing nature. In order to avoid these
mannerisms, there is an eye of fresh observation required--that ability
of continuous attention to surrounding phenomena which only superior
men possess; and doubtless to this eye of fresh observation, this
ability of continuous attention, the masters owed much of their
truth and their power. How very truthfully and perseveringly some of
them saw, is well illustrated by these photographic drawings. Here,
for instance, is a portrait exactly after the manner of Raeburn.
There is the same broad freedom of touch; no nice miniature
stipplings, as if laid in by the point of a needle--no sharp-edged
strokes: all is solid, massy, broad; more distinct at a distance than
when viewed near at hand. The arrangement of the lights and shadows
seems rather the result of a happy haste, in which half the effect
was produced by design, half by accident, than of great labour and
care; and yet how exquisitely true the general aspect! Every stroke
tells, and serves, as in the portraits of Raeburn, to do more than
relieve the fe