Think of a man like this-a valuable, an invaluable public servant, the king of health in his own region-having to start in a winter's night on-ding o' snaw for the head of Ettrick, to preside over a primiparous herd's wife, at the back of Boodsbeck, who was as normal and independent as her cows, or her husband's two score of cheviots; to have to put his faithful and well-bred mare (for he knew the value of blood) into the byre, the door of which was secured by an old harrow, or possibly in the course of the obstetric transaction by a snow-drift; to have to sit idle amid the discomforts of a shepherd's hut for hours, no books, except perhaps a tenyear-old Belfast Almanac, or the Fourfold State (an admirable book), or a volume of ballads, all of which he knew by heart, -when all that was needed, was "Mrs. Jaup," or indeed any neighbour wife, or her mother. True, our doctor made the best of it, heard all the clavers of the country, took an interest in all their interests, and was as much at home by the side of the ingle, with its bit of "licht" or cannel coal, as he would be next day at Bowhill with the Duchess. But what a waste of time, of health! what a waste of an admirable man! and, then, with impatient young men, what an inlet to mischievous interference, to fatal curtailing of attendance !

"WITH BRAINS, SIR."

"Multi multa sciunt, pauci multum."

"It is one thing to wish to have Truth on our side, and another thing to wish to be on the side of Truth."-WHATELY.

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Αταλαίπωρος τοῖς πολλοῖς ἡ ζήτησις τῆς ἀληθείας, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἕτοιμα μᾶλλον τρέπονται.”—THUCYDIDES.

"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind, only staves off our IGNORANCE a little longer; as, perhaps, the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind, serves only to discover larger portions of it."-DAVID HUME.

"WITH BRAINS, SIR"

PRAY, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix your colours with?" said a brisk dilettante student to the great painter. With Brains, Sir," was the gruff reply and the right one. It did not give much of what we call information; it did not expound the principles and rules of the art; but, if the inquirer had the commodity referred to, it would awaken him; it would set him a-going, a-thinking, and a-painting to good purpose. If he had not the wherewithal, as was likely enough, the less he had to do with colours and their mixture the better. Many other artists, when asked such a question, would have either set about detailing the mechanical composition of such and such colours, in such and such proportions, rubbed up so and so; or perhaps they would (and so much the better, but not the best) have shown him how they laid them on; but even this would leave him at the critical point. Opie preferred going to the quick and the heart of the matter: With Brains,

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Sir.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it over with a keen and careful but favourable eye. Capital composition; correct drawing; the colour, tone, chiaroscuro excellent; but-but-it wants, hang it, it wants-That!" snapping his fingers; and, wanting "that," though it had everything else, it was worth nothing.

Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of the Royal Academy, having been preceded by a clever, talkative, scientific expounder of æsthetics, who delighted to tell the young men how everything was done, how to copy this, and how to express that. A student came up to the new master, “How should

I do this, Sir?" " Suppose you try." Another,