Scotch vagrant and bully, Sandy Mackay, who went to England in quest of adventure about ten or eleven years ago, and had been in that country only a few days when he was killed in a boxing-match by as great a blackguard as himself, one Byrne, an Irishman. Mr. Cunninghame's head-piece is surmounted by a wisp or truss of matted sandy-coloured hair; and in speaking he roars at the full pitch of a dissonant, screech-owl voice; while his action consists in clenching his monstrous right fist and striking in the direc tion of the floor, as if he were planting potatoes with a dibble in hard soil, or basely pitching into an adversary who was down. Altogether, the appearance of his hair and the style of his delivery is such, that you are reminded of Hamlet's address to the players, in which he speaks of a robustious periwig-pated fellow, who tears a passion to tatters.""

Were it thought necessary, as a finish to this picture, to say any thing more, the last sentence of the quotation from the Witness should be altered thus:

"He reminds you of the iron man of iron mould,' who went about with a huge flail beating out the brains of truth."

On Mr. Cunninghame's eloquence the Witness dilates as follows:

"Mark how the words arrange themselves into sentences, which could be punctuated more readily than those now flowing from our pen; so very distinct are the members, and so very defined the meaning. Mark, too, the strictly logical sequence of the thoughts, the clearness and order of the propositions, and how the inevitable and undeniable conclusions, condensed into the concluding members of single sentences, give more than epigrammatic point to the style. The amount of meaning thrown at times into a short, compact antithesis is altogether amazing."

Yea, Mr. Witness, "the sequence" of Mr. Cunninghame's thoughts is truly "logical" indeed! Let us try a few specimens. "Materials are to be found in Scripture to prove that patronage ought not to exist in the church," says Mr. Cunninghame. Well, how is this proposition made out? By adducing passages? No; that would be up-hill work even for the man whose " large head is covered with dark brown hair, as thickly covered as that of the Hercules Farnese." How, then, does he proceed? Why, thus:-"I affirm

that there are materials in Scripture to prove that patronage is unwarrantable, because "- -now mark the logical sequence-" because I should think it very strange if there were not." This said, down goes the orator's clenched fist with tremendous force in the direction of the floor, while his countenance assumes an expression as if he meant to add, "Let him who disputes the conclusion take that ;" and the demonstration is complete. Again: "The Strathbogie ministers have turned against Christ." This is the proposition to be proved; and the logical sequence which establishes it beyond all doubt is, "Because the Strathbogie ministers have obeyed the civil magistrate and the law of the land, according to the injunction of St. Paul, and have disobeyed me and the majority of the General Assembly when we were pleased to be rebellious;" and thwack down again goes the terrible fist, while the fierce eye, and "the compression of the lip that speaks of firmness," say very distinctly, “Let every reprobate Moderate of you who will not adopt my conclusion get a toucher like that in the pit of your stomach.” Take a third example: "Dr. Forbes of Aberdeen has published a pamphlet, in which he has laid down erroneous statements as to the doctrine of the Confession of Faith with regard to the power of the civil magistrate;" and the "logical sequence” is, "The statements of Dr. Forbes are erroneous because I say so; and if any of you dare to contradict me, here is at you;" while down goes the fist again, with the air of a practical man of "the fancy" throwing in a turn-up blow.

Such are Mr. Cunninghame's "logical sequences," and they surely are striking ones. There is a passage in Swift's Tale of a Tub, where Peter helps his two brothers to a slice of bread a-piece, and tells them it is mutton. One of them ventures to differ in opinion from him, and says very modestly, "I never saw a piece of mutton in my life so nearly resembling a slice from a twelvepenny loaf;" while the other, in a bolder style, and prefacing his observation with a pretty round oath, remarks, "I can only say that, to my eyes, and fingers, and teeth, and nose, it

found you both eternally if you offer to believe otherwise." The dashes here stand for oaths, which we deem it unnecessary to express, but which may very well represent the vertical blows of Orator Cunninghame; while the argument employed by Lord Peter is as like a "logical sequence" of that doughty champion of non-intrusion, as one impudent and groundless assertion can be like another.

The portrait placed next after that of him of the "dark brown hair, as thickly curled as that of the Hercules Farnese," is that of Dr. David Welsh, professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Edinburgh; the same institution in which Professor Candlish holds the sinecure without a salary. Of him we are told that "he is of the middle size;" that "his complexion is pale, and speaks, perhaps, of severe study, perhaps of delicate health, perhaps of both;" that "his features are regular," and his proboscis, or nose, "of the straight Grecian form;" that he was "the friend and biographer," and it might have been added, the flatterer and lickspittle, "of the great metaphysician, Dr. Thomas Brown;" that he is " one of the most acutely philosophic intellects of Scotland in the present day," the fact being that he is a twaddling dabbler in phrenology, which no acute metaphysician ever was; that "his testimony on the side of the church is peculiarly valuable," and so forth.

We have next a great deal of impertinence about Mr. Maitland Macgill Crichton. We are told to mark his dress, probably because he wears a sky-blue coat, with metal buttons, and sports white inexpressibles,—to look at which, among so many black vestments, must no doubt be refreshing. He is the undoubted representative at the present day of the ancient lords of Crichton and Frendraught;" and certain earls, no friends of the Nons, "would," it seems, "deem their genealogies

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mightily improved if they could claim relationship to some of his progenitors;" especially, we suppose, to that Lord Crichton who, in the palmy days of the Covenant, after having signalised himself by various acts of cruelty and oppression, handed down an illustrious name to posterity by treacherously burning to death, in his castle at Frendraught, his relative and guest, the second son of the Marquess of Huntly, a piece of hospitality of which his descendants have, of course, much cause to be proud. "Mr. Maitland Macgill Crichton, of Rankeillor," says the Witness, can shew, ranged among his family portraits, General Leslie, who led the armies of the Covenant;" and who, he might have added, would have inevitably taken or cut to pieces the usurper Cromwell, and his army, at Dunbar, had he not been obliged to leave an impregnable position, and fight at disadvantage, by the intrigues and absurd clamour of the Candlishes and Cunninghames of the time. When Old Noll saw poor Leslie-who was a very able general, and learned his tactics under no less celebrated a master than the great Gustavus Adolphus-descend with his troops unwillingly from the heights to give him battle, he exclaimed, in his characteristic slang, "The Lord hath delivered them into my hands!"

Passing by two other gentlemen, who, like Mr. Macgill Crichton, sat in last assembly as ruling elders, namely, Captain Knox Trotter of Bellendean, and Mr. Brodie of Lethem, we come to Dr. Macfarlane of Greenock, "who in countenance," the Witness affirms, "closely resembles Erasmus." It may be so; but we dare swear that the doctor is in every other respect as unlike the man who, as the Papists assert, "laid the egg of the Reformation," which Luther merely "hatched," as an indifferent potato is unlike a choice pine-apple.

There is but one other picture which we have time to look at, and the gallery, indeed, is now pretty nearly exhausted. Behold, then, the Rev. Andrew Gray of Perth; and take notice that our artist of the Witness is not less ingenious than a class of persons whom Pope has immortalised as follows :—

"There are who to my person pay their

court:

I cough like Horace; and though lean, am short;

Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high;

Such Ovid's nose; and, Sir, you have an

eye.

Go on, obliging creatures; let me see All that disgraced my betters meet in me; Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed, Just so immortal Maro hung his head; And when I die, be sure you let me know Great Homer died three thousand years ago."

Socrates, as appears from " cameos and various other sources, had a pugnose and very plain physiognomy. Now this same Socrates, notwithstanding the pug-nose, &c., was, as Byron has sung, and as the Delphian oracle asserted some three or fourand-twenty centuries ago, " Athena's wisest son"-in fact, the greatest philosopher of antiquity. How fortunate, if not for himself, at least for the minister of the West Church, Perth, and his panegyrist, that the sage carried upon his face a proboscis the reverse of aquiline, and that he was as to the whole contour of his countenance rather a rumlooking chap! How would the author of the "Sketches" have disposed of Mr. Gray's "mug" had it not been for this propitious circumstance? and how, on the other hand, could Mr. Gray have justified himself for having such a mug" in his possession-to say nothing of the aggravation of carrying it along with him into a grave assembly of divines? But Socrates wore a phiz not a farthing better, from his cradle to the day he drank the hemlock; and with such a precedent as that of the omnium philosophorum sapientissimus on his side, who does not see that the Rev. Andrew Gray is perfectly justifiable in retaining the nose, as well as the other members and features, all and sundry, which Nature bestowed upon him? These considerations were seen in their full force by the editor of the Witness; and he accordingly says

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Mr. Gray's "nose has an almost Socratic degree of concavity in its outline; indeed, the whole profile more nearly resembles that of Socrates, as shewn in cameos and busts, than it does any other known profile to whom we could com. pare it. The expression of the lower part

of the face indicates a man who, if once engaged in battling in a good cause, would fight long and doggedly ere he gave up the contest. The head is also marked by the Socratic outline in a singularly striking degree. The forehead is exact, broad, high; and the coronal region of immense developement."

Socrates, then, professor of moral and political philosophy in the University of Athens, and the Rev. Andrew Gray, minister of the West Church of the "Fair City" of Perth, have thus, by the instrumentality of the Witness, been united in an indissoluble copartnery, to deal in plain phizes and pug-noses. The firm is a most respectable one, and will rise, we have no doubt, to equal celebrity with that of Milton, Candlish, and Co.

In

There are two or three other sketches of Nons, and several of Moderate leaders; but we have already had sat superque. Those lastmentioned are distinguished as much by a spirit of detraction, as the ones we have examined by a bombastic vein of loathsome panegyric. bepraising its friends, too, the Witness has missed no opportunity of introducing ill-natured remarks and innuendoes touching its opponents. Of these, however, we deem it unnecessary to take any particular notice. It is enough to observe of them, generally, that they bear the seal of a mean, malicious partisanship, and that the snarling tone in which they are expressed is worthy of the spiteful feelings that gave them birth.

Now that we have done with the lucubrations of the Witness, we trust our readers will do us the credit to believe that our remarks, such as they are, were intended to have a wider scope than merely to criticise that newspaper. To have written at it we should have deemed a very nugatory exercise indeed, unless we had regarded it as embodying, in the sketches which we have noticed, one of the strongest and most interesting features in the non-intrusion character. Let us explain ourselves. The Witness newspaper is the chief organ of the non-intrusion party. Its editor is deep in their confidence; and, in his intercourse with their leading men, enjoys the most favourable opportunities of sounding their dispositions, and taking the measure of their sentiments and feelings. He

is also in their employ, and must, independently of other motives, have that of worldly interest, for maintaining his place in their favour and esteem. In the Sketches, therefore, which, during the sittings of the last General Assembly, he inserted in his columns, it cannot be supposed that he admitted any thing which he could have conceived would prove offensive to them, or even which he thought it likely would not receive the meed of their full and unqualified approbation. In one word, he felt quite certain that the Sketches would suit their taste; and, in the circumstances in which he is placed, could not be deceived in this opinion. Well, what follows? Why, just this, that the fulsome strain of panegyric in which he has indulged was perfectly agreeable to them-suited their fancies to a tittle; and that we may regard it, therefore, as a sort of thermometric scale for ascertaining the heat of nonintrusion vanity. Does it not, then, indicate a tolerably high temperature? When you mark the degree to which the mercury has risen in the tube, can you fail to be amazed at the quantity of caloric which must have been given out in order to produce such a dilatation? But metaphors becomes obscure when pursued too far; and so we shall just ask, in plain terms, Whether any greater amount of human vanity can be imagined than is involved in swallowing with complacency the hyperbolical, or, if you like a new word better, super-exaggerated praise, which the Witness has bestowed on the leading Nons? Yet these gentlemen can bolt it, else it had never been placed before them. What ravenous appetites! Nothing, it seems, in the way of applause, can surfeit or disgust them. Vanity being the stomach, and panegyric the food, what a magnificent idea we must entertain of the capacity of the former, from the enormity of the meal which the Witness has prepared for it! But as corporeal gluttony is a beastly vice, and generally accompanied by disease in the physical constitution, so great voracity for praise moves our contempt, and indicates that something is radically wrong in the moral system. The Nons pretend that, in all their sayings and doings as churchmen, they are influenced by "high and

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holy principles." This has often been believed upon no better authority than that of their own assertion; and in many quarters, where their heads are considered to be entirely wrong, their hearts have been goodnaturedly looked upon as perfectly right. But an inordinate desire of applause, an incurable itch for human praise, is neither a high" nor a 'holy principle." It was one of the besetting sins of the ancient Pharisees; and when we see it strongly manifested, there is some ground for suspicion that other traits of the Pharisaic character are not wanting. But waving this consideration, looking at the vice in itself, and regardless of others that, without any great breach of charity, may be supposed to accompany it, do men inflated by such a portentous vanity as that which we have been contemplating, deserve respect on the one hand, or confidence on the other? Are they not proper objects for ridicule and contempt? and is it right that they should receive a particle of more credit, however high sounding may be their pretensions, than belongs to the merit of their overt acts? Is it fitting that any affair of moment should be committed to their prudence? or that any great degree of trust should be reposed in their acting at one time in consistency with their professions at another? Does the history of human nature speak of an outrageous desire of applause as a harmless passion, or not rather as one which has often obliterated every better principle, and led to the most pernicious and melancholy results? We think many people, not Nons themselves, but looking at that party with a degree of respect entirely unmerited, would be the better for having such questions strongly urged home upon them. It is for this reason that we have noticed the lucubrations in the Witness; and in making use of its panegyric in order to accomplish our object, we think we have employed an engine which may be compared in power to Bramah's hydraulic press.

But from these "Sketches" of the Nons by their organ, we must now turn to consider a few of their own more interesting sayings and doings in last Assembly. On Tuesday, May 27, Mr. Cunninghame brought for

ward a motion on the necessity of the abolition of patronage, and supported it in a characteristic speech. We have already adverted to his general style of argument, and on this occasion the peculiarities of that style were pretty well exemplified. The opponents of patronage could not agree among themselves upon what grounds it ought to be abolished; hence he inferred that the necessity of its abolition was fully established. Patronage was unscriptural; because it appeared to him, William Cunninghame, that it would be very unreasonable were it not unscriptural. The decisions of the Court of Session and House of Lords in regard to the veto law were 66 atrocities." Queen Anne's act of 1712 establishing patronage was "infamous and detestable-an accursed thing." His arguments against patronage were invulnerable; "they had often been scribbled at, often been carped at, but had never been answered."

Such, with the exception of certain rather presumptuous intimations of the speaker's knowledge of the divine mind in regard to patronage, was Mr. Cunninghame's speech. His chief argument, as on all other occasions, was the ipse dixit, enforced by bullying challenges, blustering defiances, tremendous roaring, prodigious rampaging, and the terrible vertical pugnacity of the right fist.

When Mr. Cunninghame had finished his exhibition, Dr. Chalmers rose, and no sooner began to speak, than it became evident, that on the subject of patronage there was a fell division in the Non-intrusion camp. The doctor seemed to feel himself placed in an awkward situation, while his anxiety not to offend either section of his friends gave his eloquence an undecided, wavering, go-between sort of character, that did any thing but improve its effect. He supported a modified patronage, such as that proposed in the Duke of Argyll's Scotch church-bill,— a measure which he warmly eulogised, and to recommend which was, in fact, the great object of his speech. He was followed on the same side by Dr. Makellar, who proposed that Mr. Cunninghame's motion should be rejected, as "calculated to increase, and not to diminish, the existing embarrassments of the church."

Dr. Cook, the leader of the Moderates, in a very able speech, in which he supported the present system of patronage, proposed a still more thorough - going amendment than that of Dr. Makellar. A very long and tiresome series of speeches succeeded; and when the vote was at length taken, the Moderate motion, that of Dr. Cook, carried by a majority of six.

This division was very important, and may teach the Duke of Argyll and other legislators who flatter themselves that either any relaxation in the present laws of patronage, or their total abolition, would lead to ecclesiastical pacification in Scotland, how ill founded such views really are. The vote in question exhibits the General Assembly-though the Non-intrusionists had successfully adopted means to pack it with their adherents-divided into three sections, of which the friends of patronage, as the law now stands, are the greatest in number, while the modification men and the entire abolitionists are nearly equal. In such a state of parties, it is evidently quite visionary to think of promoting reconciliation by means of legislative changes; and the plain duty of government is to stick fast to the present system, leaving those who, like Mr. Cunninghame and others, feel that system a burden upon their tender consciences, to shake themselves free of it, by demitting their charges and resigning their stipends. To the Church of Scotland, and the interests of pure and undefiled religion within her, no more propitious event could, humanly speaking, at the present juncture, take place, than for Mr. Cunninghame, and those who pull at the same oar with him, to take themselves away from her communion. Their consciences would thus be relieved; and the church, delivered from their turbulence, arrogance, and intolerable self-conceit, would gain infinitely more by their secession than she could possibly lose by their opposition to her as leaders of dissent. But this is a consummation which, though most devoutly to be wished for, is not at all likely to happen. At one time, indeed, they talked pretty frequently of "throwing their endowments to the winds;”