flowers of balmy fragrance and beau-
teous hue, keeping time with their
stealthy feet to the sylvan font, whose
numerous jets sport in playful ele-
gance. We rubbed our eyes, (ay,
smile if you please) we even bit our
thumb, and found "it was not all a
dream." The Swiss Cottage is a per-
fect unique, and we are informed it is
strictly correct. You see from it the
Alps itself-nature-beautiful nature
in her sternest grandeur. The foaming
cataract, bounding from rock to rock,
the leafless boughs, the quartered trees,
all throw a wildness round the scene that
stamps it to be the land "no foreign
foe could quell."

MR. MARSDEN's clever Picture of SAINT PAUL pleading before AGRIPPA, attracted our attention on returning from this terrestrial Elysium. On entering the Saloon, the spectator must be forcibly struck by the favourable situation in which the picture is placed for scenic effect. The light thrown upon it, the steps, the drapery, the stillness that prevails-in fact, the coup d'œil is highly imposing. The colours throughout are rich and vivid, and the picture is well filled up. The principal figure, as may be supposed, is St. Paul; the light is admirably thrown upon him, his dress too is very appropriate, but he wants energy, dignity, a consciousness of the honourable "vo cation to which he had been called;" -he appears not a citizen of proud im perial Rome, he appears not free born. He is not fired with the narration and noble sentiments he is uttering-sentiments which called forth from Festus the accusation that St. Paul was mad sentiments which induced an unbeliever to be "almost a Christian.”

His countenance is not expressive of the man who "thrice had been beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice suffered shipwreck, a night and a day in the deep," and in fact had endured every misery and every privation "that flesh is heir to." The attitude of Agrippa is decidedly good. Every word that flows from the Apostle's lips seems to penetrate his soul: the position of his right hand is strongly indicative of the attention he is desirous of bestowing on the case. The costume of Bernice is grand in the extreme. The other characters are generally good. We could point out many minor faults, but as a whole Mr. Marsden has produced a highly creditable piece, and we sincerely trust it may prove equally profitable. We cannot close our notice, without observ

ing how admirably the saloon is suited for the exhibition of large paintings; and we would strongly recommend all artists to select it as the place for displaying their productions.

Landscape Illustrations of the Waverley Novels. C. Tilt.

66

The views in this number, taken upon a whole, are of the richest and most splendid description; the subjects are mostly well chosen, and consist of, first, Durham," a finely managed representation, by Robson, of the ancient city where the remains of St. Cuthbert repose.-An anecdote is told of Henry III. connected with this city, which it may not be out of place to mention here, before we pass on to the next engraving; it runs thus :-The monarch just named being in the north, visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and whilst there at his devotions, he received intelligence from a courtier, that with the relics of the saint was secreted the immense wealth of the churchmen. The coffers of the king being somewhat low, the news was far from sounding displeasing to the royal ear; so cutting short his devout purpose, he gave instant orders for the opening of the tomb; when, lo, beneath appeared the welcome treasure. The information thus proving correct, Henry immediately set about devising means to possess himself of the wealth in that way which would be less likely to incense the ecclesiastics, who had deposited it with the relics of the saint for safe custody only. The means resorted to by royalty was a loan; but it might as well, says M. Paris, have been a gift, for his majesty wholly forgot to repay it.

The second illustration is a view of the "Tolbooth," by Nasmyth, whose excellence as a landscape painter must be familiar to our readers. It is a picture that at once conjures up afresh in our minds the scene described by Sir Walter Scott in the "Heart of Mid Lothian." To detail its beauties words are poor, it must be seen to be appreciated. Both drawing and engraving are of the highest merit. The ruinous "Castle of Caerlaverock" forms the third gem; the painting is by Roberts, in his best style, and nothing can be finer than the water surrounding this ancient structure; the sky is also singularly beautiful. To the last subject, "London from Highgate," we cannot award the same unqualified praise which we have done to the preceding ones,—it is an ineffective picture, and

less happy than any that have gone before it.

Nothwithstanding the little inequality noticed by us, we are free to confess that this part is decidedly of a higher character than its precursors; and the greatest praise is due to Messrs. Finden for their very able execution of the paintings intrusted to them. It may now be said with truth, that we are likely to possess a series of illustrations worthy of the novels of the "Author of Waverley."

The Naturalist.

OYSTERS.

The fishery for oysters is very extensive in many parts of Great Britain, but no where more so than at Colchester, which place has been celebrated for a remote period for this description of shell-fish. The authorities of this ancient borough have always considered their oysters an appropriate present to ministers of state, and other persons of eminence. We find them sent both to Leicester and Walsingham in the reign of Elizabeth. Those taken in a creek of the Colne water, called Pye-fleet, and from thence termed Pye-fleet oysters, are usually considered the best flavoured.

Dr. Spratt, a writer of the last century, informs us, that "in April and May, and again about Midsummer and Michaelmas, oysters cast their spawn, which the dredgers* call their spat it is like the drop of a candle, and about the bigness of a small spangle. This spat cleaves to stones, old oyster-shells, pieces of wood, and such like things at the bottom of the sea, and which they call cultch. It is probably conjectured, that the spat in twenty-four hours begins to have a shell. The oysters are sick after they have first spat, but in June and July they begin to mend, and in August are perfectly well. The male oyster is black-sick, as the fishermen term it, having a black substance in the fin; and the female white-sick, having a milky substance in the fin." (Another author, however, accounts the whitesickness to be the milky sperm of the male; and the other, the eggs of the female newly effused in the fins.)

In the Colne water, the dredgers are limited to a certain period of the year

* A dredger is one who uses a particular kind of net for taking oysters. The dredge is

a thick, strong net, fastened to three spills of iron, and drawn at the boat's stern, gathering

whatsoever it meets lying in the bottom.

As they take the oysters, they gently raise with a knife the small brood from the cultch, and return the latter to preserve the ground for the future; but if the fish are so newly spat, that they cannot be safely severed from the cultch, they are permitted to take the stone, shell, &c. the spat may be upon. The small oysters thus taken are placed in what are called their beds, or layers, in the channel; where they grow and fatten, and in two or three years become of the legal size; to determine which, a brass and silver oyster-size are kept by the water bailiff. After May, it is felony to take the cultch; and the wanton destruction of it, at any time, subjects the offending party to heavy penalties. The reason for which is said to be, that if the cultch is removed, the ouse increases, which encourages the breed of muscles and cockles rather than oysters, while the latter are also deprived of a substance whereon to lay their spat.

At the time Morant wrote, the oysters of Colchester were frequently distinguished by a green tinge, which the fishermen had the art of communicating to them. On this subject, the historian says: "All oysters are naturally white in the body, and brown in the fins. In order to green them, they put them into pits, about two feet deep, in the salt marshes, which are overflowed only at spring-tides, to which they have sluices and let out the salt water until it is about a foot and a half deep. These pits, from some quality in the soil, will become green, and communicate their colour to the oysters that are put in them in four or five days, though they commonly let them continue there six weeks or two months, in which time they will be of a dark green. It is very remarkable, that a pit within a foot of a greening pit will not green; and those that did green very well, will in time lose that quality. So that it is not done by copperas, or other greening stuffs, as some have imagined; nor is it more true, that they grow green by feeding upon a sort of crow-silk, as some authors have asserted."

There can be little doubt that the tinge was communicated through sowing the pits with the seed of some plant or weed, on which, when it sprung up, the oysters fed. But this distinction of Colchester from other oysters is rapidly wearing away; indeed, it may be said, that few or none of them are now ever

greened. The London fishmongers generally distinguish them as the Mersen

oysters, from the part of the Colne water at or near to which are the principal beds.

Select Biography.

MEMOIR OF THE DUKE OF
ORLEANS.

THIS Prince, whose history is one of the most curious "romances of real life," is the son of the famous Duke of Orleans who was the guest of the Prince of Wales, and took so hot and suspicious a part in the Revolution. His friends say that the father was much belied, and it is probable that he was so: his character for improvidence and debauchery tended to injure his reputation in every thing; but the man who was thus notorious, and who voted for the death of an amiable though unwise King, his near relation, is not likely to have had any very noble object in view. Louis Philip of Orleans, called in his father's life-time the Duke de Chartres, was born at Paris the 6th of October, 1773, and at nine years of age put under the care of the celebrated Madame de Genlis, who became, singular enough, his chief tutor, presiding over the whole of his education, till he was seventeen. The young Prince was trained well in body as well as mind; he practised gymnastic exercises; he learnt to swim, and to despise effeminacy; was taken to see and rejoice in the destruction of the Bastile; and encouraged, on every occasion, to estimate himself in proportion as he was a genuine fellow creature.

ant position in the battle of Valmy under Kellerman, afterwards Duke of that name, whose heart was lately deposited in the field there; and, about six weeks afterwards, was among the foremost and gallantest of the warriors at the famous battle of Gemappe. The year following, after a variety of other services, he became mixed up, in spite of his liberal opinions, with the troubles occasioned by his rank and family, was obliged to fly the country, and his resources being exhausted, actually became professor of mathematics in the college of the Crisons of Coire, under the name of Corby. His Highness was in this situation for the space of fifteen months; and is so proud of the recollection, that he has a painting descriptive of it in his palace, to which he delights to refer. This is the man for a King. The author of his life, in the Biographie_nouvelle des Contemporains, says, he was at the college eight months; but the editor of Madame de Genlis' Memoirs, who probably had more immediate information, says fifteen. "He taught," says the former, geography, history, mathematics, and the French and English languages. Nobody knew him; the simplicity of his manners did away all suspicion of his rank; it was to himself alone that he owed the regards of his employers, and the gratitude of those whom he instructed.' The Duke has an honourable certificate of his services in this capacity. He left college to act, in the same country, as aide-de-camp to his friend General de Montesquieu,-still under his assumed name; but his secret being in danger, was again compelled to betake himself to a wandering life.

In 1788, during a tour with Madame de Genlis and his sister, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, into Normandy, he assisted at the destruction of the Prisoner's His friends furnished him with a litCage at Mount St. Michael, in which tle money, which he luckily knew how a Dutch Gazetter had been shut up to economise. He went to Copenhagen; seventeen years for writing against saw Elsinore and the Garden of Hamlet Louis XIV. In 1791, he entered the (of whom he had doubtless read); passnational service as Colonel of the re-ed into Sweden and Norway; visited giment which he had nominally commanded as a Prince; and had the good fortune of saving the life of a non-juring priest, who was accused of having derided a procession headed by a constitutional priest. Some time after he saved a man from drowning, and was decreed a civic crown for his courage and humanity by the city of Vendome. It was on this occasion he wrote a let ter to Madame de Genlis, thanking her for his having been taught to swim.Next year he saw active service against the Austrians; had charge of an import

the Mahlstrom or Great Whirlpool, in spite of the dangers attending its approach; travelled in Lapland, partly on foot, to within 13 degrees of the pole; traversed Finland, but did not choose to trust himself in the hands of Catherine; turned again into Sweden, and, after a variety of turnings and wanderings, always refusing to join in arms against his country, but still persecuted by the French authorities, was persuaded by his mother to aid the quiet of the family by going to America. He went immediately. "By the time," said he, in