The figures which are combined with the landscape are painted with the
eame fidelity. Like those of Salvator Rosa, they are perfectly appropriate
SCOTT AND SCOTLAND.
a short notice of Messrs. It would seem scarcely necessary
to the spot on which they stand."
AxoxG our "reviews" of last month appears a short notice of Messrs,
Black's elegant edition of "The Lady of the Lake;"-a notice far too
brief to do justice to the merits of the volume ; it was all, however, for
which we could then find room We are now in a position to say a little
more on the subject, as well as to offer our readers examples of the
ly necessary to remark, considering the wide
rity of "The Lady of the Lake," that the scenery of the poem is
y in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, one of the most beautiful of
numerous woodcuts with which the book is illustrated.
All of Scott's works of fiction, whether in prose or poetry, are fertile
fields for illustration; had he turned his thoughts to painting instend
of to literature, he would doubtless have made an artist of the highest
order. As it was, he saw everything with a painter's eye, and recorded
everything with a painter's skill: his powers of observation and descrip. the many picturesque spots with which Scotland abounds. These passages
tion bring before the reader scenes of nature which we feel to be
they are not " composition pictures- images of fancy,--but objects per Foster with exceeding fidelity; the figure subjects are from the peneil of
f landscape have been rendcred, in the volume before us, by Mr. Birket
Mr. John Gilbert. The first of the two we have introduced represents
fectly familiar to the traveller who has wandered through the localities
he writes of, and perfectly recognisable by him. "The rocks, the ravines,
and the torrents," said a writer in the Quarterly Review," more than
forty years since, "which he exhibits, are the finished studies of a resi Ellen and the aged harper, as described in the commencement of the
dent artist, deliberately drawn from different points of view; each has second canto ; the other exhibits Ellen with her faleon aud dogs, whose
its true shape and position; it is a portrait; it has its name, by whicnce thus is also given in the same canto. These engravings have
the spectator is invited to examine the exactness of the resemblanee. not been selected on account of any peculiar excellence they may possess ;
they are only fair specimens of the whole series. We repeat our former
d The Tady of the Lake B Sir W. Seott, Bart. Ilnstrated by John Gilbert observation, that a nore elegant " book for the senson " has not yet come
and Birket Foster. PabMished by A. & C. Hlack, Edinbargh
under our notice than this-none more worthy of the poet's fane.
