This was probably the feeling of Raffaelle; and it must have been with a somewhat similar pride that our excellent artist, Mr. Leslie, accomplished his portrait of Sir Walter Scott, which the reader will have already admired in this volume. It is surely a perfect work. No one, who has once seen the great author, can forget that strange and peculiar look (so full of meaning, and shrewd and cautious observation--so entirely characteristic, in short, of the mind within) which Mr. Leslie has succeeded in catching. One may gaze on it for ever, and contemplate an exhaustless subject--all that the capacious imagination has produced and is producing,--the populous, endless world of fancy. Let the reader look, and be assured that _there_ is the strange spirit that has discovered and wrought all the fine shapes that he has been accustomed to look upon with wonder--Claverhouse, and Burley, and Bothwell,--Meg Merrilies and Elspeth--the high and the low--the fierce and the fair--Cavaliers and Covenanters, and the rest--presenting an assemblage of character that is absolutely unequalled, except in the pages of Shakspeare alone. There is no other writer, be he Greek, or Goth, or Roman, who has ever astonished the world by creations so infinitely diversified. The mind of the author appears so free from egotism, so large and serene, so clear of all images of self, that it receives, as in a lucid mirror, all the varieties of nature. * * * * * ON A GIRL SLEEPING. Thou liv'st! yet how profoundly deep The silence of thy tranquil sleep! Like death it almost seems: So all unbroke the sighs which flow From thy calm breast of spotless snow, Like music heard in dreams. Thy soul is filled with gentle thought, Unto its shrine by angels brought From Heaven's supreme abode; Thy dreams are not of earthly things, But, borne upon Religion's wings, They lift thee up to God. _Blackwood's Magazine._ * * * * * A species of _fames canina_ is to be met with amongst schoolboys, which affects the _juveniles_ most when most in health. We remember a gentleman offering a wager, that a boy taken promiscuously from any of the public charity-schools, should, five minutes after his dinner, eat a pound of beef-steaks.--_Brande's Jour._ * * * * * THE GIPSY'S MALISON.