a successful comedian, a favourite dancer at the opera, or even a popular clown at Astley's was an outrage of all good taste and decorum, and a proof that those concerned in it had no becoming sense of the solemnity of the circumstances in which they were placed. Could Dr. Chalmers be pleased with such a demonstration of respect? Could he approve of such a compliment, paid to him at a moment when one of his brethren was addressing the house in a strain as solemn as if he had been speaking from the pulpit, making the strongest appeals to Scripture, and pronouncing at every breath the most venerable name that mortal lips can utter? We will not pretend to answer these questions; but we know personally of a divinity-hall* in a certain university not twenty miles from the metropolis of Scotland, in which the students are in the habit, or were in the habit, not many years ago, of applauding their professor by ruffing, in the same way as the people in the galleries, and the ministers on the Non-intrusion side of the house, manifested their respect for Dr. Chalmers on the occasion in question. The reverend professor who presides in the divinity-hall alluded to takes, or was wont to take, a volume or more of his own very eloquent productions along with him to lecture, and proceed as follows:

Suppose him going on with an examination upon any of the most solemn subjects of theology, with the aid of such text-books, say, as Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures, Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, or Pearson On the Creed. He is catechising one of the students; and on receiving an answer to some question remarks, that he has himself entered fully into this subject, in such and such a place. He then produces a printed volume of his works, cast up the passage to which he had just alluded, likely a very splendid one, and reads it from his chair with all the emphasis of his powerful delivery. He shuts the book and sits down, and immediately the same "loud ruffing noise" that greeted Dr. Chalmers on his first appearance in the last General Assembly, rewards the professor for the

eloquence of his recitation, and the homage which "a well-graced actor" receives from his audience, this celebrated teacher of Christian theology condescends to accept from his pupils. There is only one Divinity Hall in Scotland in which this practice has ever prevailed; nor was it known in that one till within the last dozen or twenty years.

But what has all this long story about the Divinity Hall to do with the portrait of Dr. Chalmers? Not much, perhaps, further than that “a loud ruffing noise" forms, by the association of ideas, a sort of casual link between them. Our intention, however, in mentioning the "ruffing noise," whether in the Divinity Hall or in the General Assembly, was to make way for the remark, that the love of receiving and conferring vain applause seems to be making fearful inroads among a certain class of Scotch churchmen. Under the Moderate regime there was no such thing tolerated as 66 ruffing noises," whether loud or low, in any ecclesiastical court or meeting for religious purposes. No, the Moderates, much as their doings in the days of their ascendancy are now reprobated, despised all that sort of thing. If the spectators or people in the galleries ventured to express their enthusiasm by making a "ruffing noise," or any other noise whatever, in those days, they forthwith received an intimation from the Moderator, that if the experiment were repeated, the house would be instantly cleared; and the same decency enforced in the General Assembly was maintained in the inferior courts. But the present dominant party do not like this demure way of proceeding. They are, or would be, popular preachers. The applause of the multitude is dear to their hearts; "they love greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi!" Hence the introduction of "loud ruffing noises" into divinityhalls, general assemblies, synods, and presbyteries, hence the fondness of the Nons for holding public meetings and spouting matches,-hence the disgusting way in which they beslaver each other with fulsome panegyric, both in their spoken and written effusions, and hence, also,

such praise-gone-mad productions as the Sketches" which we are now reviewing.

But this "ruffing noise" has nearly made us forget Dr. Chalmers's head --and the largest head in Europe ought surely not to be forgotten. The fact is, however, that the Witness has grossly exaggerated its dimensions; and it is, after all, no such portentous affair as he would make us believe. We happen to have seen Dr. Chalmers more than once, and we can assure such readers as have not had the same felicity, that his head did not by any means appear to us to be of colossal dimensions. It did not strike us as disproportioned to the body, and the neck seemed to support it easily,- circumstances which unite to prove that what the Witness says is incorrect. We have seen giants carried about the country for exhibition, placed upon whose shoulders it would seem no larger than a turnip which one of the average Aberdeenshire oxen, sent up by the steamers for Smithfield market, would devour at two or three mouthfuls; but were it so enormous as the witness pretends, it would make no bad fit for Goliath of Gath himself. Is there such a thing as for people to have telescopic eyes? If there is, we suspect that the Witness, or, rather, its accomplished editor, has got peepers of that description ; and, by the way, such a hypothesis enables us to account for several anomalous facts. First, it explains how it was that he discovered so many things in red sandstone, which the philosophy of previous geologists had not dreamed of. Again, it is well known to every adept in phrenology that the organs of the brain often decline in size with the advance of For example, a man in youth and in the prime of life may have acquisitiveness large, and will evidently be a miser; but as old age comes on, the organ may grow so small, that his avarice is changed into profusion, and he dies an actual spendthrift. This is a case, as every one knows, that often happens.* Now, if there is any truth in the science of phrenology at all, Dr. Chalmers's conscientiousness, once

old age.

confessedly very large, must have grown gradually less, till, at present, it is far below the average size; and the same must be true of his organ of benevolence,--for how else can we account for his injustice and inconsistency in the case of the Strathbogie ministers, moving as he did that they should be deposed, and supporting that motion in what we must call, with all our respect for the doctor, a long-winded, jesuitical, unfeeling speech? The editor of the Witness takes no notice of any depression in either of those organs,a circumstance which, in so minute and accurate an observer, seems inexplicable. If, however, he have telescopic eyes, the diminished organs would be seen by him magnified so as, though actually small, to be apparently large. Thus the whole difficulty is cleared up in a moment.

"How heartless, by such vile buffoonery as this, to attempt to throw ridicule upon a man so great as Dr. Chalmers!" Is it thus thou exclaimest, most sentimental reader? Then, bless thy gentle art! be it known to thee, it is the gentleman with the telescopic eyes-he of the Witnesswho has burlesqued Dr. Chalmers, and we are only sporting a few grotesque-fooleries we suppose we must call them, to try, if possible, to make the caricaturist ashamed of what he has done. Throw ridicule upon Dr. Chalmers, indeed! Turn back, we beseech thee, to the extract we have given from the Witness about the great divine's head, and then say, with thy hand upon thy breast, whether thou canst conceive or imagine any buffoonery which it is possible for pen to inscribe on paper more calculated to associate ludicrous ideas with a man's person than that piece of arrant phrenological humbug.

In the same Bombastes - Furioso style which magnifies the doctor's head into a size that would indicate the last frightful stage of hydrocephalic incurability is the part of the sketch which relates to his oratory. Eloquence has been compared to a stream, a torrent, a conflagration, thunder and lightning, &c. &c.; but one and all of these are inadequate as

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similitudes to do justice to the rhetoric of Dr. Chalmers. The author of the "Sketches," therefore, draws upon his inventive powers, and tells us that the eloquence of the man with the largest head in Europe" is like "a stream of dense molten lava pouring down the steep side of a mountain, and floating away on its surface rocks, and stones, and entire buildings." This is terrible enough, certainly; but its effect is rather lessened than otherwise, when we are are told that Jeffrey said of the man with the largest head in Europe, that there was no man that so enabled him (Jeffrey) to form a conception of Demosthenes. Now since a stream of cold water-a dreadful enough kind of thing certainly, when it is very broad, and very deep, and so impetuous, that in attempting to cross it your ferry-boat, just when you have reached the middle, begins, in spite of helm and oar, to spin round like a top, at the same time that it descends with the velocity of a bird flying in the air, affording a prime illustration of the compound motion of a planet in its orbit and on its axis a stream of cold water such as this has, by the soundest critics, been deemed a quite adequate comparison by which to illustrate the force of the great Athenian orator. But what is a stream of mere cold water, however broad, and however deep, and however impetuous, to a torrent of "dense molten lava" (red-hot of course) "pouring down the side of a mountain, and floating away on its surface rocks, and stones, and entire buildings ?" Yet this is the only adequate similitude, it appears, to which the eloquence of Dr. Chalmers can be compared. It was, to say the least, therefore, very wishy-washy in Jeffrey to speak in a way which implied that Demosthenes was the greater of the two orators. Had he said of Demosthenes that there was no man who so enabled him to form a conception of Dr. Chalmers, it would have been something, and our sketcher might have recorded the remark without lessening the effect of his grand volcanic simile. After all, may not the oratory of Dr. Chalmers be most adequately compared to a shallow, brawling stream, covered with froth and bubbles, which, by sending forth some prismatic rays in

the sunshine, produces an optical illusion that gives an appearance of depth? We speak, be it understood, of the efforts of his better days,-for his last public appearance, that, namely, when he proposed the deposition of the Strathbogie clergyman, had, bating its jesuitry and its heartlessness, nothing in it to stir up any feeling but contempt.

But looking at the portrait even of the man with "the largest head in Europe" grows at length tiresome; and so we turn to the likeness-the next in the series-of the Rev. Mr. alias Professor Candlish. Of this too well-known individual, we are told that

"He is below the middle stature, and though turned of thirty by perhaps five or six years, seems at this distance, from the smallness of his features and figure, some years younger. His person is well formed, his features good, and the expression seems indicative of great activity and energy. The forehead is very remarkable. We are by no means sure of the truth of phrenology in its minuter details; but Nature does certainly seem to set her mark upon the foreheads of men of extraordinary capacity. In the man before us, the part immediately above the eyes-the seat, it is alleged, of the knowing organs-is in exact proportion to the face below; but the upper part swells out in the region of causality and comparison, especially in the former, so that it projects at either side, and forms a broad bar across. There is, perhaps, scarce a head in the kingdom in which the reflective organs are more amply developed, and the mind consorts well in this instance with the material indications. They mark decidedly one of the ablest men in the church. -a man fitted for every walk of literature, whether power, or elegance of intellect, just taste, or nice discrimination, be required."

But for all his projecting "crossbar" reflective organs, his "power" and "elegance of intellect," his "just taste, and nice discrimination," Smith Candlish has that dwarfishness of person to which when associated with coxcombry and impertinence, as it happens to be, and that to a very considerable extent, in his case --his countrymen, in their expressive vernacular, apply the term smatchit, than which, when applied to an individual who has attained his full stature, the vocabulary of a Scotchman, though peculiarly rich

in that department, has no word expressive of more thorough contempt. The Witness feels the full force of his disadvantage in being small, and obviates it most ingeniously, as follows:

"It is curious to remark how unwilling people generally are to believe that a person by much too short for a grenadier may yet be a great man. It is at least equally curious to note the care which Nature seems to take in iterating and reiterating the fact. A very great proportion of the intellect of the age just passing away was lodged with men who fell short of the middle stature. Napoleon was scarcely five feet six inches in height, and so very slim in early life as to be well-nigh lost in his boots and uniform. Byron was no taller. Lord Jeffrey is not so tall. Campbell and Moore are still shorter than Jeffrey; and Wilberforce was a less man than any of them. The same remark has been made of the great minds of England who flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century."

This we must admit to be an able pleading for the greatness of Mr. Candlish; though we can easily foresee that many Scotchmen, with that obstinate tenacity of opinion which is one of their national characteristics, will be inclined to dispute its relevancy, on the formidable ground that, though Napoleon and Byron were little, and though the same is true of Jeffrey, Moore, and Campbell, yet that none of them can with any propriety be called smatchits. In other words, though corporeally speaking little men, it cannot be predicated of one of them that he either is or ever was a smatchit. But we have not yet heard the Witness out upon this interesting subject; for mark what follows:

"In the August of 1790, some workmen engaged in repairing the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, found under the floor of the chancel an old coffin, which, as shewn by the sexton's register, had rested there undisturbed for a hundred and sixteen years. For a grown person, it was a very small one. Its length did not exceed five feet ten inches, and it measured only sixteen inches across at the broadest part. The body almost invariably stretches after death, so that the bodies of females of the middle sta

ture require coffins of at least equal length; and the breadth even outside did not come up to the average breadth of shoulders in adults. Whose remains

rested in that wasted old coffin? Those of a man the most truly masculine in his cast of mind, and the most gigantic in intellect, which Britain or the world ever produced; the defender of the rights of the people of England; as a scholar, the first among the learned in Europe; as a poet, not only more sublime than any other uninspired writer, but, as has been justly said, more fertile in true sublimities than all other uninspired writers put together. The small old coffin disinterred from out the chancel of St. Giles contained the remains of that John Milton who died at his house in Bunhill Fields, in the winter of 1674,-the all-powerful controversialist, who, iu the cause of the people, crushed the learned Salmasius, full in the view of Europe, the poet who produced the Paradise Lost."

Reader, is not this magnificent? John Milton and Professor Smith Candlish! Whoever saw such a collocation of names before? Who would have ever thought of them being brought together but for the purpose of exciting the most obstreperous mirth? Smith Candlish is dwarfish; and John Milton's coffin, which was of course large enough to contain the illustrious poet's body, after being stretched out beyond its living dimensions, was only five feet ten inches long, and sixteen inches broad. What follows? Why, to be sure, that Professor Candlish will require a coffin quite as roomy as that which accommodated the author of Paradise Lost. Who, after this, will doubt that the Professor, though inadmissible into any grenadier company in her majesty's service,-nay, though too small for any capacity in military life, excepting perhaps that of a drummer,-who, we ask, after this, will doubt that the said little Professor may be a great man notwithstanding? Is the editor of the Witness actually serious, or does he mean to turn the minister of St. George's, Edinburgh, into ridicule ? Serious? Bless you! he is as grave as an owl; and in introducing the story of Milton's coffin, found below the chancel of St. Giles's church, Cripplegate, in the August of 1790, he imagined that he was giving such a cross-buttock" as would prove a perfect "clincher" to the prejudice that existed regarding the would-be Professor's pigmy dimensions. "Let me only," said he to himself, "get

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people to associate the name of Candlish with that of Milton, and the Lilliputian Professor will instantly swell to a portly size in the public mind; for to keep company with a man of real merit and eminence confers respectability even on the most contemptible characters." So, no doubt, reasoned the most ingenious editor of the Witness, when the happy idea occurred to him of bringing Candlish the Little into close proximity with John Milton the Great. Many persons, however, will be disposed to think that his philosophy was at fault. Violent contrasts should be avoided; and a dwarf never appears more dwarfish than when standing at the side of a giant. What, too, is the natural source of the ludicrous? Is it not incongruity in the ideas brought together by the mind? But what two ideas can possibly be more incongruous than those respectively called up by the name Candlish and the name Milton? Does it, we ask, add any dignity to Lord John Russell, that his name often occurs in the newspapers in close juxtaposition with that of Sir Robert Peel? Are the Radicals the less disposed on that account to conceive and talk of him as "finality Johnny" or does any class of her majesty's subjects think the more highly of his truckling principles and place-keeping policy? We opine not; and still less, we imagine, will the reputation of Robert Smith Candlish be promoted by his having been brought into close contact with "that John Milton who died at his house in Bunhill Fields, in the winter of 1674, the all-powerful controversialist, who, in the cause of the people, crushed the learned Salmasius, full in the view of Europe,-the poet who produced the Paradise Lost."

After the story of Milton's coffin, we have a flaming panegyric, near the length of a column, about his eloquence; and among other modest information which we get upon that subject, we are let into the secret, that the little chatter-box is a greater master of the English language than Fox and Chatham, on the one hand, or than Dryden, Addison, and Adam Smith on the other! That the smachit has great fluency of gab, and some facility in committing common

place to paper, is not to be denied ; but Fox and Chatham, Dryden, Addison, and Adam Smith! O ye powers of blarney! Was not this editor of the Witness born within sight of the Suters of Cromarty? And yet, in extravagance of exaggeration, who is his equal among all the Gascons and Hibernians ever bred?

But enough of Professor Candlish, -for his portrait is bedaubed with colours so glaring, that we are nearly blind with looking at it. Turn we now to the picture of the Rev. Mr. Cunninghame:

'But who is that tall and very strongly built man in the same corner of the house" -viz. with the little Non whose likeness we have been just admiring-"so strongly built, that we are scarce aware that his stature considerably exceeds six feet, except when we see men of the ordinary size beside him? He is large-limbed, broad-shouldered, deep-chested; and his large head"-mark what is coming, O most excellent reader!"his very large head is covered by dark brown hair-as thickly covered as that of the Hercules Farnese. His complexion is pale, indicating, perhaps, a sedentary life and studious habits; the nose is slightly aquiline; the compression of the lips speaks of firmness. But the general expression is one of tranquillity; and he seems marked by a peculiar quietness of manner."

In illustration of this "peculiar quietness of manner," we are told, a little farther down:

"The speaker warms as he proceeds. The voice heightens; and such is the force and energy of the tones, that the arguments seem projected, missile-like, against his opponent. There is corresponding action. The right fist, firmly clenched, is raised every two seconds to the shoulder, and then aimed with tremendous force in the direction of the floor. We are reminded of the iron man of iron mould' in the allegory, who went about with his huge flail, beating out the grains of truth from the chaff and stubble of falsehood."

Here is undoubtedly a strongly drawn portrait; but it would have been much liker the original if painted thus:

"The Rev. William Cunninghame, of the College Church, Edinburgh, is a man of a huge carcass, and has a surly, ferocious-looking phiz. The tout ensemble of his person is very like that of the sturdy