efforts of his pencil, and were alone sufficient to give him an eminent place among Scotch painters of Genre. We must congratulate Mr Wm. Crawford on his very creditable work" Return from Maying." In colour and composition alike it is very good, and the pleasant joyance of the scene is rendered with spirit and effect. We have very little doubt that Mr Crawford will sufficiently sustain the dignity of the Associateship to which he has been recently elevated. We had a good deal more to say, but are sternly warned that our allotted limits have been far exceeded. Of the water colours and Sculpture we had intended to write at some length. In the latter walk of Art there are some very beautiful specimens, as Mr Brodie's Enone, Mr Hutchinson's "Roman Matron" and "Roman Girl." There are one or two female busts by the gentlemen named and by Mr Ewing, very beautiful in feeling and handling. Mr Steel is busy otherwise and does not exhibit. Mr Clark Stanton having been on a visit to Garibaldi, has nothing important in his own branch of Art, though he contributes an exceedingly clever sketch of a Calabrian scene. We reckon thus five men of eminent ability present with us in Scotland. There is Calder Marshall in London (worth a few Marochettis) and the immortals have not quite deserted Rome so long as John Gibson and Macdonald are there. We have some reason to be proud of our Scotch sculptors. We had intended to say something also in regard to the Association, by way of enquiring whether and to what extent the Fine Arts are really promoted by the general actings of the managing Committee,— whether the gentlemen or gentleman occupying the important func tions of that body be quite qualified for the duties-entirely unswayed by the desire of bestowing patronage, able to appreciate when an artist makes a decided step, and ready to encourage him in a new and better path when he strikes it. We fear very much that we could show some reason for dissatisfaction with the proceedings of this Committee, and good ground for the public making a demand that, as in other Fine Art Associations, the system of money prizes be adopted. This system, with some obvious disadvantages, has been found to work on the whole well, and we are every year more convinced of the necessity of its being adopted in our Association. We may return to the subject however, and if we do so, it is odds that that Body may itself unpleasantly placed on the horn of a dilemma. find THE TYPICAL CHARACTER OF NATURE.* THIS is a learned and philosophical work, pervaded by a finely reverent and Christian spirit. The subject which Dr Balfour has chosen The Typical Character of Nature: or, All Nature a Divine Symbol. By Thomas A. G. Balfour, M.D. London: James Nisbet, 21 Berners Street. Edinburgh John Menzies. 1860. to elucidate is at once deeply recondite and profoundly interesting. With the eye of the Christian philosopher he finds many similitudes in nature, which he rightly regards as exponents of some of the highest mysteries of revelation. Nor does his veneration for the Sacred Scriptures, which is every where apparent, prevent him from drawing from the common consent of mankind and the marvellous traditions of almost all nations, sheaves of rich illustration in support of his positions. It may truly be said, therefore, that it is no ordinary production, and that nothing so ingenious on the subject has been offered to the world since the publication of Dr Kidd's elaborate work on the Trinity. Were we to enter on the discussion of the topics which Dr Balfour so eloquently handles, we feel assured that our readers would regard it as no common treat. The work is enriched with the ripened fruits of varied learning and philosophic observation; it contains a large induction of facts, and every where shows itself as a scholarly production. We may add that it is elegantly got up, and is adorned with some beautiful illustrations. As a specimen of the author's powers, we make the following quotation from the preface: "When a great principle is newly discovered, or is apprehended for the first time, we are very apt to suppose that it is universally applicable, and by this means we limit the variety which nature's works exhibit. Thus, after Harvey had made his brilliant discovery of the circulation of the blood, Boerhaave, in whose day it was comparatively new, was so transported with the idea, that even he could afterwards see nothing in the entire human mechanism but a great hydraulic machine, and all diseases were by him referred to the obstruction of some of the conducting pipes, in accordance with his well-known hypothesis of an Eerror Loci.' Some, we doubt not, will regard our statements as the offspring of a like feeling, and will give us credit for a strange facility in discovering types where nobody else could see them; as Scriblerus was fortunate enough to find the ten predicaments of logic in the narrative of the fight in the bear garden, His description is as follows:- Having called up the coachman, and asked him what he had seen in the bear garden, the coachman answered he saw two men fight a prize. One was a fair man, a sergeant in the guards; the other black, a butcher. The sergeant had red breeches, the butcher, blue. They fought upon a stage about four o'clock, and the sergeant wounded the butcher in the leg. Mark (cries Cornelius) how the fellow runs through the predicaments:-Men, substantia; two, quantitas; fair and black, qualitas; sergeant and butcher, relatio; wounded the other, actio et passio; fighting, situs; stage, ubi; four o'clock, quando; blue and red breeches, habitus. It may be thought by some readers that a similar course has been pursued by us in this little work; and that having seized a supposed principle, we have never rested till we have forced all creation-including sun, moon, and stars-to do obeisance to it; in other words, that, having mounted a hobby, we have ridden it to the death. Of such we make only one request, that they would carefully ponder over all the contents of this Treatise. The design of this work is to show that the Natural and Spiritual worlds are linked together by inseparable bonds, so that 'they twain are one;' and to protest against the vain and impious attempt of some of our men of science, to divorce these objects, and thus to drift men into the cold and icy region of a dreary scepticism, whose whole hopes are bounded by time, and whose god is proud but impotent human reason.' MR A. H. BRYCE AND HIS "" FIRST GREEK READER FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS." Χρὴ σιγᾶν ἢ κρείσσονα σιγῆς λέγειν." PYTHAG. ap. Stob. Flor. Tit. 34, 8 7. First Greek Reader for the Use of Schools: By Archibald H. Bryce, A.B. Trin. Coll., Dublin, one of the Classical Masters in the High School of Edinburgh. London: T. Nelson & Sons, Paternoster Row; Edinburgh; and New York. 1861. Pp. 222. "THE world knows nothing of its greatest men," and has not even heard of Mr Archibald H. Bryce. It does honour to the name of Bentley, and it cherishes the memory of Porson, but it ignores the author of a book which would render the doctrines of these men to themselves" a stumblingblock and to the Greeks foolishness." What Porson or Bentley never dreamt of undertaking Mr Bryce has achieved. They were content to know the half-articulate utterances of the great ones of old. He offers to prove that the great ones of old did not know what they were uttering. The fame of the Cambridge scholars is based on their interpretation of the language of the Greek authors; that of their Dublin superior will rest more securely on the demonstration that Thucydides wrote Greek when his knowledge of the grammar was still in arrear; that Sophocles broke down in the third declension; that Euripides murdered the laws of metre in truly tragic senarii; that Plato's notions of syntax were as vague as his philosophy; and that Lucian was in the habit of saying one thing and meaning another. We must, therefore, bestow on Mr Bryce's book a measure of consideration which, though quite disproportioned to its size, will hardly do justice to its deserts. A great philological light is vouchsafed to us but too seldom to warrant the concealment of it under a bushel. The book has cost its author no little labour. The Preface is a curious effort to present the subject in original attitudes. The satisfaction of the craftsman with his own handiwork betrays itself in every line. A teacher, however, who knows the human mind, and what he is presenting to it, will find his way to the desired terminus by a surer and speedier route than that which has been pointed out to him by the finger-posts of Mr Bryce. To the Preface and its exquisite felicities of English phrase we may afterwards return; meanwhile we invite the reader to accompany us on our exploring expedition through the Milesian waste itself, and halting at p. 13, we ask, 1°. What "Attics preferred TT to ☛☛ VOL. XXXI. in words like the above" (yλrra, etc.)? The Tragedians, occasionally the Comedians, and Thucydides use yλwooa. In what sense, then, is "Attics" to be understood? แ 2. P. 16 (foot-note). a in the vocative of masculines is short." This is true, and not true. It holds in such words as vaûră, etc., but it is a damning pity that Euripides, all unwitting of Bryce's Universal, has written & vea | víā (Androm. 1104). The pity falls of course on Euripides, the harder fate on him who knows better. 3. P. 19 (foot-note). "Deós has the vocative the same as the nominative." True; but every Christian knows (who knows Greek) that Jeós has also deé in the New Testament, Matt. xxvii. 46 (Vat.) 40. P. 32 (foot-note). "Words which end in a dental have two forms of the accusative if the accent is not on the last syllable; but if it be, as in dσrís, a shield, the accusative has only one form, domida, not ἀσπίν.” This rule is too narrow, because κλείς or κλῄς has both Kλeîda, Com. Frag. (Diphil.) 4, 378; (Anon.) 4, 620; Plut. Artax. 9; and kλnda, Eur. Med. 212; 661 (Chor.); but kλeiv Com. Frag. (Plat.) 2, 643; Andoc. 1, 61; Lys. 1, 13; Dem. 18, 67; and Avλís, acc. Ávida, Eur. I. A. 88; I. T. 26; but Avluv, I. A. 14, 121, 350; I. T. 358, 818. 5o. On p. 38 we meet with a N.B., and, as in duty bound, we have given heed to it; "but a in nouns in eus is long" in the acc. sing. (and plur., of course). Now, this is true in some cases; but not, as Mr. Bryce teaches, in all. We request him to scan pové à τίσ | αίμην | πατρός, Eur. Elec. 599, φονέ | & κεί | μενον, φονέ | ἅ τί | μωρή | σομαι |. -ὰ τισ-, - κεῖ-, form the fourth foot ; and γονέ | ds ouk, the fourth foot of a Trimeter, Com. Frag. (Antiph.) 3, 152. These instances are too respectable to be allowed to go by unnoticed. The spurious exquisite is either a sheer, shallow fool or a cramped prig. 6o P. 39. Here we have, as we are advised in the Preface, a foretaste of the long-promised Greek Grammar, by the Rev. Dr Reuben Bryce, of Belfast. This work contains certain rules of contraction, which, in the loving language of fraternal eulogy, “will be found brief, simple, and comprehensive." "General Rule. The former member of the concursus absorbs the latter." Three examples follow, which we beg to be allowed to take in our own order, viz., ἀέκων = ἄκων, τιμῆεν = τιμήν. These obey the rule, and are intelligible: the a and have absorbed the e, and remain a and 7 still. But when we come to the first, eap, in which the first member swallows the second, e loses its form and identity; a by gulp. inge gained in length but retained its form; e gains both length and a new form. Where is the rule in this book that directs the concourse ea to contract into n? The learner is not to know by instinct that if e eat a it will forthwith be fattened into 7; and what is he to think of the same concursus in doréa contracting not into ʼn but into a, in which the latter member, instead of being absorbed, becomes the absorbent? (1.) Two vowels that can form a diphthong are |