more expressive of the character of a great lawyer and barrister. The features are in themselves good—at least a painter would call them so; and the upper part of the profile has as fine lines as could be wished. But then, how the habits of the mind have stamped their traces on every part of the face! What sharpness, what razor-like sharpness, has indented itself about the wrinkles of his eye-lids; the eyes themselves so quick, so gray, such bafflers of scrutiny, such exquisite scrutinizers, how they change their expression-it seems almost how they change their colour-shifting from contracted, concentrated blackness, through every shade of brown, blue, green, and hazel, back into their own open, gleaming gray again! How they glisten into a smile of disdain!-Aristotle says, that all laughter springs from emotions of conscious superiority.-I never saw the Stagyrite so well illustrated, as in the smile of this gentleman. He seems to be affected with the most delightful and balmy feelings, by the contemplation of some softheaded, prosing driveller, racking his poor brain, or bellowing his lungs out-all about something which he, the smiler, sees through so thoroughly, so distinctly. Blunder follows blunder; the mist thickens about the brain of the bewildered hammerer; and every plunge of the bog-trotter

every deepening shade of his confusion-is attested by some more copious infusion of Sardonic suavity, into the horrible, ghastly, grinning smile of the happy Mr Clerk. How he chuckles over the solemn spoon whom he hath fairly got into his power! When he rises, at the conclusion of his display, he seems to collect himself like a kite above a covey of partridges; he is in no hurry to come down, but holds his victims "with his glittering eye," and smiles sweetly, and yet more sweetly, the bitter assurance of their coming fate; then out he stretches his arm, as the kite may his wing, and changing the smile by degrees into a frown, and drawing down his eye-brows from their altitude among the wrinkles of his forehead, and making them to hang like fringes quite over his diminishing and brightening eyes, and mingling a tincture of deeper scorn in the wave of his lips, and projecting his chin, and suffusing his whole face with the very livery of wrath, how he pounces with a scream upon his prey-and, may the Lord have mercy upon their unhappy souls!

He is so sure of himself, and he has the happy knack of seeming to be so sure of his case, that the least appearance of labour, or concern, or nicety of arrangement, or accuracy of expression, would take away from the imposing effect of his

cool, careless, scornful, and determined negligence. Even the greatest of his opponents sit as it were rebuked before his gaze of intolerable derision. But careless and scornful as he is, what a display of skilfulness in the way of putting his statements; what command of intellect in the strength with which he deals the irresistible blows of his arguments-blows of all kinds, fibbers, cross-buttockers, but most often and most delightedly sheer facers-choppers.-" Ars est celare artem,” is his motto; or rather, “ Usus ipse natura est;" for where was there ever such an instance of the certain sway of tact and experience? It is truly a delightful thing, to be a witness of this mighty intellectual gladiator,scattering every thing before him, like a king, upon his old accustomed arena; with an eye swift as lightning to discover the unguarded point of his adversary, and a hand steady as iron to direct his weapon, and a mask of impenetrable stuff, that throws back, like a rock, the prying gaze that would dare to retaliate upon his own lynx-like penetration-what a champion is here! It is no wonder that every litigant in this covenanting land, should have learned to look on it as a mere tempting of Providence to omit retaining John Clerk.

As might be expected from a man of his stand

ing in years and in talent, this great advocate disdains to speak any other than the language of his own country. I am not sure, indeed, but there may be some little tinge of affectation in this pertinacious adherence to both the words, and the music of his Doric dialect. However, as he has perfectly the appearance and manners of a gentleman, and even, every now and then, (when it so likes him), something of the air of the courtier about him, there is an impression quite the reverse of vulgarity produced by the mode of his speaking; and, in this respect, he is certainly quite in a different situation from some of his younger brethren, who have not the excuse of age for the breadth of their utterance, nor, what is perhaps of greater importance, the same truly antique style in its breadth. Of this, indeed, I could not pretend to be a judge; but some of my friends assured me, that nothing could be more marked than the difference between the Scotch of those who learned it sixty years ago, and that of this younger generation. These last, they observed, have few opportunities of hearing Scotch spoken, but among servants, &c. so that there clings to all their own expressions, when they make use of the neglected dialect, a rich flavour of the hall, or the stable. Now, Mr Clerk, who is a man of excellent family and