OLD MORTALITY. [See Plate.] THIS picture is the joint production of the brothers Barraud, and represents an incident in Sir Walter Scott's celebrated novel. It is another instance of that growing attachment to the beautiful so characteristic of the age, and may be considered the painter's best production. There is a quietness of tone and simplicity of treatment peculiarly adapted to the subject, and the principal character is so thoroughly individualized that, having read the novel, we recognize him at a glance. Among our readers, however, there may be some who have forgotten the incident referred to, and for the benefit of such we transcribe the passage: "One summer evening, as, in a stroll such as I have described, I approached this deserted mansion of the dead, I was somewhat surprised to hear sounds dis tinct from those which usually soothe its solitude-the gentle chiding, namely, of the brook, and the sighing of the wind in the boughs of three gigantic ash-trees, which mark the cemetery. The clink of a hammer was on this occasion distinctly heard; and I entertained some alarm that a march-dike, long meditated by the two proprietors whose estates were divided by my favorite brook, was about to be drawn up the glen, in order to substitute its rectilinear deformity for the graceful winding of the natural boundary. As I approached, I was agreeably undeceived. An old man was seated upon the monument of the slaughtered Presbyterians, and busily employed in deepening with his chisel the letters of the inscription, which, announcing in scriptural language the promised blessings of futurity to be the lot of the slain, anathematized the murderers with corresponding violence. A blue bonnet of unusual dimensions covered the gray hairs of the pious workman. His dress was a large old-fashioned coat of the coarse cloth called hoddin-gray, usually worn by the elder peasants, with waistcoat and breeches of the same; and the whole suit, though still in decent repair, had obviously seen a train of long service. Strong clouted shoes, studded with hob-nails, and gramoches or leggins, made of thick black cloth, completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves a pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hair tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvas pouch hung around the neck of the animal,-for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and anything else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognizing a religious itinerant, whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by the title of Old Mortality. "Where this man was born, or what was his real name, I have never been able to learn; nor are the adopt the erratic mode of life which he pursued, motives which made him desert his home, and known to me except very generally. According to the belief of most people, he was a native of either the county of Dumfries or Galloway, and lineally descended from some of those champions of the Covenant, whose deeds and sufferings were his favorite theme. He is said to have held, at one period of his life, a small moorland farm; but whether from pecuniary losses, or domestic misfortune, he ing. In the language of Scripture, he left his house, had long renounced that and every other gainful callhis home, and his kindred, and wandered about until the day of his death-a period of nearly thirty years. "During this long pilgrimage, the pious enthusiast regulated his circuit so as annually to visit the graves of the unfortnate Covenanters who suffered by the sword, or by the executioner, during the reigns of the two last monarchs of the Stuart line. These are most numerous in the western districts of Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries; but they are also to be found in other parts of Scotland, wherever the fugitives had fought or fallen, or suffered by military or civil execution. Their tombs are often apart from all human habitation, in the remote moors and wilds to which the wanderers had fled for concealment. But wherever they existed, Old Mortality was sure to visit them when his annual round brought them within his reach. In the most lonely recesses of the mountains, the moor-fowl shooter has been often surprised to find him busied in cleaning the moss from the gray stones, renewing with his chisel the half-defaced inscriptions, and repairing the emblems of death with which these simple monuments are usually adorned. Motives of the most sincere, though fanciful devotion, induced the old man to dedicate so many years of existence to perform this tribute to the memory of the deceased warriors of the church. He considered himself as fulfilling a sacred duty, while renewing to the eyes of posterity the decaying emblems of the zeal and sufferings of their forefathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, the beacon-light which was to warn future generations to defend their religion even unto blood. "In all his wanderings, the old pilgrim never seemed to need, or was known to accept, pecuniary assistance. It is true, his wants were very few; for wherever he went, he found ready quarters in the house of some Cameronian of his own sect, or of some other religious person. The hospitality which was reverentially paid to him, he always acknowledged by repairing the gravestones (if there existed any) belonging to the family or ancestors of his host. As the wanderer was usually to be seen bent on this pious task within the precincts of some country churchyard, or reclined on the solitary tombstone among the heath, disturbing the plover and the blackcock with the clink of his chisel and mallet, with his old white pony grazing by his side, he acquired from his converse among the dead, the popular appellation of Old Mortality." From Bentley's Miscellany. PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF GEORGE THE THIRD WITH BISHOP HURD. FROM 1776 TO 1805. RICHARD HURD, Bishop of Worcester, was a very considerable man in his day. The friend and follower of Warburton, he could read this passage in a letter of his master, "of this Johnson, you, and I, I believe, think much alike," and not feel ashamed of the imputation of contemning so illustrious a man as the author of the English Dictionary. But the world," which knows not how to spare," has long ago decided which was the greater man of the two; and accordingly, while every man is familiar with all that befell Johnson, the life of Hurd is known comparatively to few; for which reason we subjoin a short account of him. Richard Hurd was born on the 13th January, 1720, at Congreve, in the parish of Penkrich, Staffordshire. He was the second son of John and Hannah Hurd, who, he has himself told us, were 66 plain, honest, and good people,-farmers, but of a turn of mind that might have honored any rank and any condition." These worthy people were solicitous to give their son the best and most liberal education, and sent him to the grammar school at Brerewood. In 1733 he was admitted of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but he did not go to reside there until a year or two afterward. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1739, and that of Master in 1742; in which year he was elected a fellow, and ordained deacon in St. Paul's Cathedral, London; and in 1744 he was admitted into priest's orders at Cambridge. Dr. Hurd's first literary production was, Remarks on Weston's " Inquiry into the Rejection of the Christian Miracles by the Heathens," published in 1746; and in 1748, on the conclusion of the peace of Aixla-Chapelle, he contributed some verses to the University collection for 1749. In the same year he took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, and published his "Commentary on the Ars Poetica of Horace," in which he endeavored to prove that the Roman poet has treated his subject with systematic order and the strictest method; an idea which has been strenuously combated by several eminent writers. In the preface to this Com、 mentary, he took occasion to compliment Warburton, in a manner which won him the favor of that learned dogmatist, and procured for him a return in kind in the Bishop's edition of "Pope's Works," where Hurd's Commentary is spoken of in terms of the highest commendation. This exchange of flattery gave rise to an intimacy between these persons, which continued unbroken during their lives, and is supposed to have exercised considerable influence over the opinions of Hurd, who was long considered as the first scholar in what has been termed the Warburton school. The "Commentary" was reprinted in 1757, with the addition of two dissertations, one on the drama, the other on poetical imitation, and a letter to Mr. Mason on the marks of imitation. In 1765, a fourth edition, corrected and enlarged, was published in three volumes octavo, with a third dissertation on the idea of universal poetry; and the whole was again reprinted in 1776. This work fully established the reputation of Hurd as an elegant and acute, if not always a sound and judicious, critic. In May, 1750, he was appointed by Sherlock, Bishop of London, one of the Whitehall preachers. About this time he entered warmly into a controversy respecting the jurisdiction of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, which had been appealed against by some contumacious members of that University; but it is hardly necessrry to relate the particulars of the contest. In 1751 he published a Commentary on the Epistle to Augustus; and in 1753 a new edition of both Commentaries, with a dedication to Warburton. The friendship he had formed with Warburton continued to increase [Nov. by mutual good offices; and in 1755, Hurd | is vindicated from all the objections of the eagerly embraced an opportunity which learned author of the Dissertation." This, offered itself of owning the warmth of his with Hurd's other controversial tracts, has attachment. Dr. Jortin having, in his Dis- been republished in the eighth volume of the sertations, spoken of Warburton with less de- authorized edition of his works, where we ference and submission than the exactions of find prefixed to it, by way of advertisement, an overbearing and insolent superiority could the following lines, written by the author not easily tolerate, Hurd wrote a bitter satire, long before his death : entitled "The Delicacy of Friendship, a Seventh Dissertation, addressed to the author of the Sixth;" a production in which he was betrayed into too close an imitation of his master's style; and displayed a degree of warmth-also borrowed from Warburtonfar beyond anything that the supposed of fence could either call for or justify. Hurd, accordingly, took pains to suppress the pamphlet; but in 1788 it was republished in a volume, entitled "Tracts of Warburton and a Warburtonian.' Hurd continued to reside at Cambridge until 1756, when, on the death of Dr. Arnold, he succeeded, as senior fellow of Emmanuel College, to the rectory of Thurcaston, to which he was instituted in 1757, and where, having entered into residence, he continued to prosecute his studies, which were principally confined to subjects of elegant literature. The remarks on Hume's "Essay on the Natural History of Religion" appeared soon afterward. But Warburton appears to have had the chief hand in the composition of this part, which we find republished by Hurd in the quarto edition of that prelate's works, and enumerated in the list of them. It appears to have occasioned some uneasiness to Hume, who, in the account of his own life, notices it with a degree of acrimony quite unusual to that impassive philosopher. In 1759, Hurd published a volume of "Dialogues on Sincerity, Retirement, the Golden Age of Elizabeth, and the Constitution of the English Government;" and this was followed by his "Letters on Chivalry and Romance;" which, with his "Dialogue on Foreign Travel," are republished in the year 1765, with the author's name, and a preface on dialogue writing. In the preceding year he had published another of those zealous tracts in vindication of Warburton which has added little to his fame as a writer, and procured him the reputation of an illiberal and unmannerly polemic. It was entitled, "A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Thomas Leland, in which his late dissertation on the principles of human eloquence is criticised, and the Bishop of Gloucester's idea of the nature and character of an inspired language, as delivered in his lordship's doctrine of grace, this volume were written and published by The controversial tracts which make up nvited, or occasion required. Some sharpthe author at different times, as opportunity ness of style may be objected to them, in regard to which he apologizes for himself in the words of the poet : 6 Me quoque pectoris Nunc ego mitibus makes the original offence the greater. The This is a very miserable apology, and words of the poet might have suggested to him the propriety, while he had the pen in his hand, of castigating these performances. old age, of his tracts. The plea has little "Pleasant, but wrong," thought Hurd, in his penitence in it. In 1762 the sinecure rectory of Folkton Northington; in 1765 he was chosen preacher was conferred on him by Lord Chancellor of Lincoln's Inn; and in August, 1767, he ter by Bishop Warburton. In July, 1768, was collated to the archdeaconry of Glouceshe was admitted doctor of divinity at Cambridge; the same day he was appointed to open the lecture founded by Warburton for Twelve Discourses which he preached there the illustration of the prophecies; and the introduction to the study of the prophecies were published in 1772, under the title of an concerning the Christian church, and in particular concerning the church of Papal Rome. Abraham Cowley, with a preface and notes, In 1769, he published the select works of condemned as interfering with the integrity in 5 vols. 8vo., an edition which has been of Cowley's works, and which certainly is not the most judicious of Hurd's undertakings. In 1775, he was, by the recommendation of Lord Mansfield, promoted to the Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, and consecrated early in that year; and soon after entering to the clergy of the diocese, as well as a Fast on the episcopal office, he delivered a charge sermon for "the American rebellion," which was preached before the House of Lords. In May, 1781, Bishop Hurd received a gracious message from his Majesty, George III., conveying to him an offer of the see of Worcester, with the clerkship of the closet, both of which he accepted. Nor did his Majesty's kindness stop here. For on the death of Dr. Cornwallis, in 1783, he was offered the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, with many gracious expressions, and was even pressed to accept it; but he humbly begged leave to decline it, "as a charge not suited to his temper and talents, and much too heavy for him to sustain in these times," alluding, we presume, to the distractions arising from the conflict of political parties. In 1788, Hurd published a complete edition of the works of Warburton, in 7 vols. 4to.; but the life did not appear till 1795, when it came forth under the title of a discourse by way of general preface to the 4to edition of Bishop Warburton's works, containing some account of the life, writings, and character of the author. This work excited considerable attention, and the style is equally remarkable for its purity and elegance; but the stream of panegyric is too uniform not to subject the author to the suspicion of long-confirmed prejudices. Even the admirers of Warburton would have been content with less laborious efforts to magnify him at the expense of all his contemporaries. They conceived that age and reflection should have abated, if not wholly extinguished, the unworthy animosities of times gone by. But in this they were disappointed. Hurd was a true disciple of the great dogmatist; and hence it was with regret that they observed the worst characteristic of Warburton-his inveterate dislike, his fierce contempt, and his sneering sarcasm-still employed to perpetuate his personal antipathies, and employed, too, against such men as Secker and Lowth. If these were the feelings of those who venerated Warburton and esteemed Hurd, others, who never had much attachment for the Bishop of Gloucester or his school, found little difficulty in accumulating against his biographer charges of gross partiality and illiberal abuses. The remainder of Hurd's life was spent in the discharge of his episcopal duties, and in studious retirement. He died on the 28th of May, 1808, being then in his eighty-ninth year. As a writer, his taste, learning, and talents have been universally acknowledged; and though, like his master, contemptuous and intolerant, he was, nevertheless, shrewd, In his private ingenious, and original. character he was in all respects amiable; nor were the relations in life in any degree im bittered by the gall and wormwood which so frequently flowed from his pen; an assertion which the following letters will abundantly prove; for they show that he was regarded with the warmest affection by the royal family who addressed them to him. The first letter requires a brief explanation. In the Gazette of June 8th, 1776, we find the following:- St. James's. The king has been pleased to appoint his Grace George Duke of Montagu to be governor; Richard, Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to be preceptor; Lieutenant-Colonel George Hotham, sub-governor, and the Rev. William Arnold, B.D., sub-preceptor, to their Royal Highnesses, George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, and to Prince Frederick, Bishop of Osnaburg" (the Duke of York). Queen's House, June 2nd, 1776. MY LORD, I have persuaded the Duke of Montagu to accept of the office his brother has declined. His worth is equal to that of the good man we both this day so much regretted. I hope this will also heal a mind I am certain much hurt at being the cause of much pain to me. I am now going to Kew to notify the change to my sons, and desire you will be here at ten this night, when I will introduce you to the Duke. this change not material even to you. The similarity of the brothers will, I trust, make GEORGE R. To the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. The next letter is from the young Duke of York, and shows, in its kindness and good humor, that the child was "father of the man.” Kew, August 5th, 1776. MY DEAR LORD,-I hope you are now arrived safe at Eccleshall, and that you are now quite recovered of your fatigues. With this letter I send you the translation of the Speech of Virginius to the Soldiers in the Camp after the death of his Daughter. I hope you will excuse the writing of the letter and translation, as I fell down yesterday while I was playing with Mr. Arnold in the garden. and sprained and bruised my second finger on my right hand very much. We hope to finish the first Book of Xenophon on Wednesday. I hope, as you love hot weather, that your climate has been like ours; last Friday, at two o'clock, our thermometer was eighty-seven. It is time for walking, so I will not detain you any longer. Therefore I am, Your affectionate friend, FREDERICK. P. S. Since I wrote this letter, I have seen Mr. Hawkins, who found that I had put out my finger, and has set it again for me. Good bye. To the Right Reverend Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Eccleshall, Staffordshire. And now follows a letter from the Prince of Wales (afterward George IV.,) by which it appears that he had not got far into the first book of Livy. His lesson seems to have been a teaser; for Romulus does not prate away at a fine rate-if by that expression he meant a long rate-neither does he argue with the Sabine women, to whom he gives as sensible advice as possible, under the awkward circumstances of the case. Kew, August 6th, 1776. MY DEAR LORD,-I am afraid that the enclosed translation will not prove so delicious a morsel as your Lordship expected to receive. However, I have tried to give it as good a relish as possible; but the author is very difficult, and I not at all versed in translation, as your Lordship knows. Euclid goes on very well, for we are in the middle of the third book; and as to Livy, I have just left Romulus prating away for marriage at a fine rate, though I think he has the best of the argument. We are in hopes of having a most glorious day at Windsor on Monday next. I have a new mare, which, without boasting, I may say is at least as good as your Lordship's. We all long to see you again at Kew, and I am, With the truest and sincerest affection, yours, GEORGE P. To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry Eccleshall, Staffordshire. It would seem, from the following, that Arnold, the sub-preceptor, had made great way in the regard of the king. Windsor Castle, August 24th, 1777. MY LORD,--I cannot refrain from exercising the great comfort the human mind is capable of --the communicating pleasure to those it esteems. Mr. Arnold has gained the greatest applause from the excellence of his sermon he has just delivered, which could have been equaled by nothing but the decency and modesty of his deportment; indeed, this able, as well as valuable man, does the greatest justice to the propriety of your choice, and shows that your discernment into the characters of men is as conspicuous as your other great and amiable qualities. GEORGE R. To the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. We would now draw attention to a letter from Queen Charlotte, which, bearing in mind that she is writing in a language foreign to her, displays a very lively ability. MY LORD,--It will be difficult to decide whose conduct deserves the most to be criticised, my eldest daughter's in sending you a present of a young lady, or mine in encouraging her to do so? Suppose, then, I plead guilty! will that satisfy you? think it will, for you remember well that last Wednesday we agreed that to acknowledge our MY GOOD LORD,-I have this instant received the account of the death of my very worthy and much esteemed friend the Bishop of Winchester. To an heart like yours it is easy to conceive that the news could not reach me without causing some emotion, though reason convinces me that for him it is a most welcome event. I therefore lose no time in acquainting you that I cannot think of any person so proper to succeed him as clerk of my closet as yourself; and, indeed, I trust that any opportunity that brings you nearer to my person cannot be unpleasing to you. Relying on this, I have acquainted the Lord Chamberlain to notify this appointment to you, but I thought any mark of my regard would best be conveyed by myself. I trust, therefore, that this letter will reach you before any intimation from him. I have also directed Lord North to acquaint you that I propose to translate you to the See of Worcester. With all the partiality natural to the county of Stafford, I should hope you will allow Hartlebury to be a better summer residence than Eccleshall, and I flatter myself that hereafter you will not object to a situation that may not require so long a journey every year as either of these places. Believe me, at all times, My good Lord, your very sincere friend, GEORGE R. To the Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. The Dr. Balguy referred to by the King in the letter we are about to present, was the son of a more eminent divine, who presented him the rectory of North Stoke, near Grantham, in Licolnshire. He afterward obtained from Bishop Hoadly a prebend at Winchester; became later Archdeacon of Salisbury, and subsequently was made Archdeacon of Winchester. He owed all his preferments to Bishop Hoadly. In 1775, he preached the sermon on the consecration of Hurd, as |