suade me that four-fifths of this immense collection are not composed of very indifferent pictures, originals as they may be.

Mr Angerstein has not many pictures, but they are all excellent; they occupy two large rooms. His famous Rembrandt (the woman taken in adultery,) is certainly the finest thing I ever saw as to the magic of colouring; it is impossible to say how the effect is produced when you examine it attentively. This picture cost, I believe, L.6000 sterling. A large picture of the resurrection of Lazarus, drawn by Michael Angelo, and painted by his disciple, Del Piombo, fixed our attention. The history of this picture is, that it was painted in competition with Raphael, and that it had the advantage! The figure of Christ has nothing of that expression of ineffable goodness which should always be its character. The fire of his eyes, the paleness of his hollow cheeks, his thin ragged beard,-animated, and almost threatening gestures, may give him the look of an inspired prophet, but not of a god: Omnipotence is more calm,-it acts without effort. The limbs also are too affectedly indicated under the drapery; the object was not to draw an academical figure. As to Lazarus, he is not only restored to life, but to all that fulness of flesh which he must be supposed to have lost during the course of the disorder which sent him to

the grave; and instead of that astonishment and ecstacy naturally expected in a man just raised from the dead, Lazarus is coolly employed in loosening his garter, or at least some ligament round his left leg, and that by means of the great toe of his right foot, which he seems to use with a great deal of force and dexterity, instead of his hands, which are otherwise employed. Alive as he is, a woman, his sister probably, holds her nose and averts her head, as if, notwithstanding his good looks, he still smelt of the place he had just left. There does not seem to me in all this a single thought worthy of the subject; and as to the colouring, it is dull, flat, and dusky,-the figures all look like mulattoes. Such is the picture which is an acknowledged test of taste. I own I do not understand it. Of four Claude Lorraines, two pleased me much; fine hazy distances, and light graceful trees,-the figures very bad. One of these pictures is a seaport; buildings, vessels, masts, and yards, afford endless strait lines; the last rays of the setting sun edge. each of these strait lines with a sharp light, then another long strait line of reflection on the surface of the water. Claude liked this sort of composition, for he has repeated it often. We next remarked a small picture, all blue and cold, very preciously finished, and under a glass; Christ in the Garden of Olives, and the name of the pain

ter no less than Corregio! Then two Titians; the outlines hard and incorrect, and by way of colouring, all the interval between the outlines, that is to say, all the figure, of a dingy white, without any difference of light and shadow, making it quite flat. Another Rembrandt, the Adoration of the Wise Men of the East, superlatively beautiful as to colouring; for Rembrandt is not great in expression. A good bacchanalian scene by Poussin, but still the same dingy red, dull colouring. Above a door I observed a good Murillo, and was greatly surprised to find it was tapestry, by a lady-artist, a Miss Thompson. I saw there, with great pleasure, the collection of the original pictures of the Marriage-d-la-Mode of Hogarth; they are very good, but I think I should prefer the excellent engravings made of them by himself.

Every morning, about eleven o'clock, the band of the Guards assembles in the court yard of that miserable palace of St James's, and plays for about three quarters of an hour,-softly-slowly, in that beautiful medium, the sotto voce of the Italians, which, both for instruments and voices, is so full, so rich, so favourable to great effects in music. The performers are mostly Germans. The audience is usually composed of the lower ranks of people, the higher are not up. I have' been struck with the profound attention,-the

fixed eye, where stands a tear, now and then observed among the crowd. There is a sixth sense for music, which may be cultivated, but cannot be supplied when wanting, and of which it would be as much in vain to attempt giving an idea to those who have it not, as of colours to a blind man. This sense, like the others, only opens an avenue to that moral sense, which exists without the material sense of music; for it is the same which feels the power of eloquence, the charms of poetry, and probably the same also which thirsts for glory, and admires virtue. He who has feelings, but no ear, may conjecture, by analogy, what the effect of music is ;-with an ear and no feelings, he will understand the rythm, and enjoy the harmony of fine sounds, but without emotion, and will not even be able to conjecture what music is. "Homme vulgaire," says Rousseau, in the celebrated article genie of his Dictionary of Music, "que t'importe de le connoitre? tu ne saurois le sentir."

The Persian ambassador is still in fashion everywhere. I was surprised to hear him laugh very loud yesterday with Sir Gore Ousley, his interpreter, and another person who understands his language. I did not think the Orientals ever departed from their gravity. An officer present, Sir David B. with his arm carried off at the shoulder, modest and unassuming, seemed to attract less attention than this diplomatic barbarian.

England has just lost Mr Windham. His death has been marked, as his life was, with the originality of his character. He would undergo a cruel operation, against the advice of medical men, and prepared himself with great courage, and a perfect knowledge of the danger, as appears by the letters he wrote, to be delivered in case of his death. It afforded, probably, the only chance for his life. Mr Windham has left a voluminous diary, which will be given to the public some time or other. This illustrious man has excited so general an interest, that it became necessary, in the last days of his illness, to satisfy the public by a daily bulletin. His sins are now forgiven, and all parties agree in doing justice to his perfect disinterestedness, his frankness, his generosity, his courage, his profound contempt of mere popularity, his knowledge, and eloquence. He leaves behind him no reputation equal to his; but he leaves many men capable of being more solidly useful than he was; and the state loses only a brilliant ornament. His fortune was about L.6000 sterling a-year, and all from patrimony, -not acquired.

An event of another sort has divided public attention, the extraordinary attempt to assassinate one of the Princes, who was attacked in his bed, during the night, with his own regiment. al sabre, and escaped with difficulty, after recei