nature, are traced upon a piece of this stone, and the whole afterwards wetted, it is clear that so long as the stone is damp, if a roller covered with a greasy ink be applied to its face, this greasy ink will have more affinity for the fat lines, previously traced on the stone, than for those parts of the surface which are wet, and not greasy.

2. The possibility of obtaining a series of impressions depends thus, merely, on the application of grease to the surface of a substance always ready to receive and retain it with avidity. If a part of the stone has received grease, as two, will retain in that spot the power of receiving, from a greasy roller, grease, as two, and preserve that property (in good printing at least) for a great length of time; those parts which have received in the first instance grease, as ten, will receive, and transmit it as ten, &c. "3. Thus a portion of grease, or greasy dirt, however small, applied to any part of the surface of the stone, will continue to transmit impressions, the intensity of which, will be proportionate to the quantity of grease previously applied. Let this axiom be well remembered, and laid in store by all those who wish to be successful in drawing upon stone; for if they always bear this law in mind, while they are making a drawing, they cannot fail to produce a plate which will print well.

4. The process of printing from stone, is now so generally known, and understood, that it may appear useless to repeat what I have said above; but I think that I cannot lay sufficient stress on that fundamental principle of lithography, for, well as these rules are known, they are still continually forgotten by artists, who think that, provided the drawing they have executed looks well to the eye, they have done all which is necessary, and that the printer must, and can, do the rest; forgetting that the face of the stone has, perhaps, been soiled during the execution of the drawing, either by chalk cuttings, by rubbing with paper kept under the hand, by perspiring fingers, and many other causes of failure, which we shall mention hereafter, several of which occasion spots, that disappear the moment they have soiled the stone, to re-appear again, infallibly, in the printing. The artist is, of course, surprised at seeing all those spots come forth, and accuses the printer of that, which proceeds entirely from his own want of care. 5. It is clear that, were it not for the black contained in the chalk, an almost invisible drawing might be made on stone, which would come forth only in the course of printing; and this is the case with those spots which do not form part of the drawing, and have taken place from negligence; as they do not shew, the artist considers them of small im portance, and entirely taken up with the drawing he is executing, he hopes, and thinks, that nothing will print, but what he intends should print. I must therefore again repeat, and enforce, this plain truth, that a lithographic stone absorbs, with avidity, any grease applied to its surface, and consequently that any dirt or grease, so applied, will come forth in the printing, as well as that grease which is intended to constitute the drawing."

Want of space obliges us to quit this subject abruptly -we shall mention it in our next. Several valuable contributions are postponed from the same cause.

REVIEWS.

Italy and the Italians in the Nineteenth Century. By
A. VIEUSSEUX. London: C. Knight, 2 vols, 8vo. 1824.

(Continued from p. 281.)

THAT portion of this work which relates to modern Italian literature, we now proceed to notice, and it is

to us a matter of regret that we cannot award to it so
much praise as the rest of the volumes deserve. It is
dry, meagre, and but for the quotations would be
For this Mr. Vieusseux has
strangely uninteresting.
no excuse, since his talents and acquirements are abun-
dantly equal to the composition of a much superior
dissertation. In spite of Mr. Hobhouse's essay, the
translations of Bouterweck and Sismondi, and the oc-
casional critiques in periodical works, it is surprising
how very little should be known of the contemporary
literature of Italy. Few even amongst professed lite-
rary men know any thing beyond a catalogue of names,
and perhaps three or four of the more notorious classics.
It is no answer to say that Italy has not produced much
in our days; the less she has produced, the less is our
excuse for being unacquainted with it, since her living
authors and their works are the evidences of the na-
tional mind. But the truth is, that the Italian litera-
ture of the present period, is by no means contempti-
ble. Their authors are few, but some of them are men
of genius. In one respect they deserve attentive con-
sideration, and that is, in their palpable leaning to the
English and German schools.

Mr. Vieusseux after a brief sketch of the vicissitudes
of Italian literature, and an enumeration of those
bright stars whose radiance illustrates the 17th and
18th centuries, enters upon a survey of its existing
conditions. It is not consistent with our purpose to
notice his enquiry into the improvement of the drama,
under the guiding heads of Goldoni and Gozzi. De
Rossi is a living author, and has contributed essentially
to revive the taste for national elegant comedy. His
wit is extremely brilliant, his satire uncommonly
severe, and "his productions," to use the language of
Sismondi, "discover greater power of imagination,
wit, and truth, than those of any other comic writer of
Italy."-Giraud, who is likewise a Roman, has suc-
cessfully followed in the same path, and Nota, the
high and well merited
Genoese advocate, enjoys
reputation. His plays are well written and moral, but
somewhat deficient in comic power. His pictures of
fashionable manners are lively and effective.

In tragedy the Italians are by no means deficient. Monti, Pellico, and Manzoni are very considerable names. Foscolo, (but he is a Greek,) has written some which are distinguished by a cold correctness.

Cesarotti is an author who is better known amongst us than the others :

"Cesarotti is perhaps, as Forsyth justly observes, of all the Italian poets of the last century the one who has shown powers equal to an original epic; he, however, with the idea of shaking the classic yoke and of opening a new school, instead of choosing his own subject, employed his genius to give the Italians a free translation of Ossian's poems. His object was to show that Homer was not the only, nor the most perfect, model of epic composition. In so doing, however, Cesarotti fell into the opposite extreme from that which he wished to expose, the too great veneration for the ancient models; he sinned by too great license, and also he did not render sufficient justice to the Greek bard. Ugoni

are not mere topographical surveys: they abound with sensible and pertinent observations upon almost every subject. He interrupts a description in order to praise the adoption or censure the rejection of some manifest improvement, to advance some principle, refute some paradox, or illustrate some theory; pouring forth the rich stores of a well informed mind upon a subject which has for many years been familiar to him.

The Doctor excels in description of natural scenery. His sensibility to that kind of beauty seems to be very great, and there is much fluency and warmth in his language. We give the following, not as being the best, but as the most manageable extract we find:

can

landscape, wonderful as it is, receives a great accession of splendour and magnificence, by admitting, on one side, a distant view of the richly ornamented country which extends from the foot of the Ochills to the Forth; the water minating in the hazy forms and long, retiring, hilly range of the opposite shore. But it would be vain to attempt to felicity of composition admirably adapted to its powers, describe scenes fitted only for the pencil, and by a singular even where, from occupying so high a point of view, the landscapes might be expected to lie beyond its scope and from all points, a characteristic foreground is never wantmeans. With a perfect unity and balance of composition ing; while without breach of perspective, all the objects follow each other in that succession, from the very nearest foreground to the remotest distance, which is so rarely found in this class of elevated landscape, and which is so essential to a perfect composition. There is nothing base"But it is for Castle Campbell that I have brought you less, nothing tottering, nothing of that obliquity of line, here; not for scenes among which days and weeks might and defective balance, and violent contrast between the be occupied without thinking them long. The general nearer grounds and the distance, which form so general a glimpse of this place, as it is seen from the village of Dol- || character of elevated landscape, and which so commonly lar, is sufficiently striking; but those who are satisfied render them unfit for painting, however striking or grand with this superficial view, will form a very inadequate they may be in nature. idea indeed of the grandeur and variety of this extraordinary scenery. In advancing towards the ravine, the importance and interest of this first picture becomes materially increased; as the castle is now more distinctly seen, perched on its lofty conical hill, and embosomed deep in the surrounding mountains that appear to overhang it, shadowing it with a perpetual gloom; continuous woods sweeping up the steep acclivities on each hand, and the wild river bursting out from the deep and mysterious ravine, amidst overhanging trees and rocks, as if it had suddenly sprung from the centre of the earth. Many magnificent landscapes of this strange and wonderful spot may be procured from different stations at the bottom of the valley, and by changing from one side to the other of the river; the essential parts of the picture continuing the same, while the lofty side screens of wood alter their form and position, and the features become varied by new trees and banks and rocks, and by the changes in the aspect of this picturesque and winding river. But in every position, it maintains its gloomy and solemn character: a depth and a breadth of shadow, at all hours of the day, in singular || harmony with the noble sweep of the woods, the towering majesty of the mountains, and the bold and simple form of the hill which rises with inaccessible steepness from below, crowned with its romantic castle, a mountain in itself, yet overtopped by the vast amphitheatre around, which, lifting itself to the sky, impends over it in all the sublimity of shadowy twilight and repose.

"But whatever grandeur or variety Castle Campbell may present from below, these are far excelled by the views from above, which offer scenes of magnificence and sublimity not surpassed in Scotland, and possibly not surpassed any where. It adds no small interest to this scenery, that it bears not the slightest resemblance to any thing in the country, nor to any thing that an imagination, however conversant with Scottish landscape, could have conceived. Various as are the pictures from different positions, one general character pervades the whole. The eye, from whatever point, here takes in the whole sweep of this noble amphitheatre of hill and wood, plunging in inaccessible steepness beneath our feet, down to the invisible depths below, in one sheet of wild forest, and towering aloft and overhead, a range of simple and majestic mountain summits. In the midst arises the conical mountain now seen below us, and bearing its romantic fortress, insulated in the deep hollow; its inaccessible sides being lost to the eye as they tend downwards to the dark depths of the surrounding chasms beneath, where the river struggles amid its rocks and woods, unseen and unheard. From some points this

There is access to the castle at the only point where its hill is connected with the surrounding mountains; where some ancient and noble sycamores, the remains of an avenue, add much to the picturesque effect of the building. While its extent is such as to be adequate to the grandeur of the landscape by which it is surrounded, its forms are picturesque in a high degree; and it is in that precise state of ruin which is sufficient to add to its beauty and interest, without destroying its importance. From the very narrow area around it, the views are fearfully sublime; while it is also impossible to quit its walls but for a few yards, without the risk of being hurled into the unknown depths of the surrounding valley. So steep is the declivity all round, that the eye sees not the slope of the ground on which it is standing; looking down on a dark and interminable chasm between the opposing woods, and striving in vain to penetrate those deep recesses which even the light of day reaches not. A frightful chasm in the hill itself, guarded by an outwork, appears once to have served the purpose of giving access to the water below. It is called Kemp's Score, and still bears some marks of a staircase. It is said that Castle Campbell was originally called the Castle of Gloom, and that these lands were given by a Bishop of St. Andrew's to an Earl of Argyll, as a reward for his assistance in a dispute respecting precedency with the See of Glasgow. The date of the building is, however, uncertain, though the estate was possessed by the Campbells in 1465. In 1644 or 5, it was burnt by Montrose; since which it has remained a ruin."

We should be ashamed of giving such copious quotations, were it not, that the very nature of the work forbids analysis, and the author's style is so lively that it will be read with far greater interest than any thing we could say. The following amusing sketch of a Highland inn will serve as our excuse :—

"When you hear Peggy called, as if the first vowel was just about to thaw, like Sir John Mandeville's story, and when you hear Peggy answer, co-ming, you must not prepare to be impatient, but recollect that motion cannot be performed without time. If you are wet, the fire will be lighted by the time you are dry,—at least if the peat is not wet too. The smoke of wet peat is wholesome; and if you are not used to it, they are, which is the same thing. There is neither poker nor tongs; you can stir it with your umbrella: nor bellows; you can blow it, unless you are asthmatic: or what is better still, Peggy will fan it with her

petticoat."Peggy, is the supper coming?" In time comes mutton, called chops, then mustard, by and bye a knife and fork; successively, a plate, a candle, and salt. When the mutton is cold, the pepper arrives, and then the bread, and lastly the whisky. The water is reserved for the second course. It is good policy to place these various matters in all directions, because they conceal the defects of Mrs. Maclarty's tablecloth. By this time the fire is dying; Peggy waits till it is dead, and then the whole process of the peats and the petticoat is to be gone over again. It is all in vain. "Is the bed ready?" By the time you have fallen asleep once or twice, it is ready. When you enter, it is damp: but how should it be dry in such a climate? The blankets feel so heavy, that you expect to get warm in time. Not at all: they have the property of weight without warmth, though there is a fulling mill at Kilmahog. You awaken at two o'clock, very cold, and find that they have slipped over on the floor. You try to square them again, but such is their weight, that they fall on the other side; and at last, by dint of kicking and pulling, they become irremediably entangled, sheets and all, and sleep flies, whatever King Henry may think, to take refuge in other beds and other blankets.

It is vain to try again, and you get up at five. Water being so contemptibly common, it is probable that there is none present; or if there is, it has a delicious flavour of stale whisky; so that you may almost imagine the Highland rills to run grog. There is no soap in Mrs. Maclarty's house. It is prudent also to learn to shave without a looking-glass; because if there is one, it is so furrowed and striped and striated, either cross-wise, or perpendicularly, or diagonally, that in consequence of what Sir Isaac Newton might call its fits of irregular reflection and transmission, you cut your nose if it distorts you one way, and your ear if it protracts you in the opposite direction. The towel being either wet or dirty, or both, you wipe yourself in the moreen curtains, unless you prefer the sheets. When you || return to your sitting-room the table is covered with glasses and mugs, and circles of dried whisky and porter. The fire-place is full of white ashes; you labour to open a window, if it will open, that you may get a little of the morning air; and there being no sash-line, it falls on your fingers, as it did on Susanna's. Should you break a pane, it is of no consequence, as it will never be mended again. The clothes which you sent to be washed are brought up wet, and those which you sent to be dried, smoked.

"You now become impatient for the breakfast; and as it will not arrive, you go into the kitchen to assist in making the kettle boil. You will not accelerate this, but you will see the economy of Mrs. Maclarty's kitchen. The kettle, an inch thick, is hanging on a black crook in the smoke, not on the fire, likely to boil to-morrow. If you should be near a forest, there is a train of chips lying from the fire-place to the wood-corner, and the landlady is busy, not in separating the two, but in picking out any stray piece that seems likely to be lighted before its turn comes. You need not ask why the houses do not take fire, because it is all that the fire itself can do, with all its exertions. Round this fire are a few oat cakes, stuck on edge in the ashes to dry; perhaps a herring; and on the floor, at hand, are a heap or two of bed-clothes, a cat, a few melancholy fowls, a couple of black dogs, and perchance a pig, or more, with a pile of|| undescribables, consisting of horse collars, old shoes, petticoats, a few dirty plates and horn spoons, a kilt, possibly a bagpipe, a wooden beaker, an empty gill and a pint stoup, a water bucket, a greasy candlestick, a rake, a spinning wheel, two or three frowsy fleeces and a shepherd's plaid, || an iron pot full of potatoes, a never-washed milk-tub, some more potatoes, a griddle, a three-legged stool, and heaven and earth knows what more. All this time, two or three naked children are peeping at you out of some unintelligible recess, perchance contesting with the chickens and the dogs for the fire, while Peggy is sitting over it un

snooded, one hand in her head, and the other, no one knows where, as she is wondering when the kettle will not boil; while, if she had a third, it might be employed on the other two. But enough of Mrs. Maclarty and her generation; for I am sure you can have no inclination to partake with me of the breakfast, which will probably be ready in two hours."

We cannot give any passages from the elaborate dissertation on Highland dress It does not contain a great deal of information, but what it tells, it tells pleasantly. Whenever he comes to any of those places which the pen of Sir Walter Scott has rendered celebrated, he regularly launches out into a panegyric on Sir Walter, and a sarcasm on the Cockneys; that is, on all those who admire genius, and love to wander about the scenes which it has consecrated by its touch. This is bad taste in our friend, in spite of its being so cleverly done. He is talking of Aberfoyle:

"But whatever enchantment that pen of yours, whether wielded by yourself or your shadow, may have thrown over these scenes, there is a compensation of evil in it, to us who have lived in other years. In the early days when I wandered first among these wild and lovely regions, there was an old romance in every thing, in the lakes, in the hills, in the woods, and in the streams, as there was in the tales of former years, that were repeated in every house; a charm, gilding alike the present and the past, causing the heart to beat at the name of the clans and heroes of old, brightening every blue mountain and hoary rock, and breathing from every whispering birch, and from every billow that curled on the pebbly shore. But the mystic portal has been thrown open, and the mob has rushed in, dispersing all these fairy visions, and polluting every thing with its unhallowed touch. Barouches and gigs, cocknies and fishermen and poets, Glasgow weavers and travelling haberdashers, now swarm in every resting place, and meet us at every avenue. As Rob Roy now blusters at Coventgarden and the Lyceum, and as Aberfoyle is gone to Wapping, so Wapping and the Strand must also come to Aberfoyle. The green-coated fairies have packed up their alls and quitted the premises, and the Uriskins only caper now in your verses. If I have lived to see these changes, I must be thankful that I lived before them; and I may be thankful too that I have been able to wander where the sound of Cockayne, which has gone out into all lands, is yet unknown. But the circle of pollution is spreading fast, to the far north and the remote west; and as the old Highlander said when the law had come to Tain, I also may say, take care of yourselves to the north,' the troops of Cockayne are let loose and will soon be upon you. Time was, when strayed about these wild scenes, and, as I listened to the endless tales of Rob Roy and his Mac Gregors, could imagine myself glorying in past times, as if I also had been sprung from the children of the Mist. But now they have found their way to every circulating library, Brighton_and Margate flaunt in tartan, the citizen from Pudding Lane talks of Loch Hard; and recollections of Miss Stephens, Diana Vernon, and Liston, with the smell and smoke of gas lights, and cries of Music, Off, Off," confound the other senses, and recal base realities where there was once a delicious vision.

"These are among the things which prevent us, who have fallen upon these evil days, from now viewing ancient Highland manners, and listening to ancient Highland stories, and entering into all the spirit of clanship and romance, and wild chivalry, as many would fain flatter themselves they still do. We look to the dark backward and abyss of time, in search of all these illusions, in vain. The mist has rolled away; and the provoking rays of provoking

reason and truth display past images in all their native shapes and hues, even where they have not, as here, lost their magic, by intimacy and by the fatal effects of vulgar associations. Who can even hope to tell a Highland tale, in the teeth of such company as this. You talk of Rob Roy's cave, or of Inversnaid, or Ben Lomond, and your hearer immediately figures to himself a few feet of painted canvas and twenty-four fiddlers. You speak of a creagh, but the mysterious vague is over and past, and there arises to the eye, a drove of bullocks pricking into Smithfield market. So I must even strip poor Rob and his oppressed clan as naked as ever the law did, since I dare not pass over such important personages, and exhibit them to you in the style of the Newgate calendar."

such like things, one man with a knot on his shoulder, said, it is a pity to carry them to the inn, only to bring them down again; it is putting you to expense for nothing.' We should listen long for such a speech in London. But this is partly Highland and partly Lowland: and as I have now and then thrown a stone at your countrymen south of the Grampian chain,' it is but fair to give them the praise which is amply their due. There is a high point of honour among them, as among the Highlanders, which it is quite delightful to see; putting out of question the petty economy of our purses which it may favour: for it is not the paltry loss of a few miserable shillings which is the evil from which we ever suffer, but the odious and fraudulent spirit which accompanies the imposture."

As to the travelling in the western parts of the High

cularly objects to the gastronomical privations. But there his philosophy gets the better of his appetites, and he reconciles every thing with a reflection :—

After a historical sketch of the Macgregor clan, the Doctor indulges in a long essay upon the art of draw-lands it is by no means pleasant. The Doctor paitiing, as a sort of vindication for the frequency of his descriptions of scenery. With all the scientific and eulogistic parts of this essay, we fully agree; but we confess some of the jokes are a little too stale for our palates, and others a little too dull. As a specimen of the latter, we give the following of an old lady the Doctor once met at Bullock's Museum :

"Among other things, there was a bronze of the known wolf; and her companion, who was reading the catalogue, came to the names of Romulus and Remus. Romulus, said the old lady: Ah, I remember, he was Serjeant at arms in the time of Burdett's riots.' The good old gentlewoman had entangled her identities in no common manner; first confounding the Officer of the House with Sir Samuel Romilly, and then turning him into the Roman King."

"For indeed the gastronomy of this country is not comwaiter is but a substitute, at best; but what is that to a mendable: nor aught that is connected with it. A dumb deaf one. At Callander, you may ring the bell forty times in a quarter of an hour, or else for a quarter of an hour at one time: it is pretty much the same. At Luss, you wait well-four hours for your dinner, the cloth being laid; and if there be any bread, you have devoured it all before the dinner arrives. When it does, it consists of herrings which might have been cooked in ten minutes, and of mutton which was cooked yesterday. Unless, indeed, the time has been more justifiably expended in killing the sheep. At Broadford there is a picturesque dish of milk set on the table at four o'clock, with salt, mustard, and knives and forks. The problem is how to eat milk with a knife and fork; but, at five, a shoulder of mutton enters to apologize potatoes and the cheese; and when you have eaten the for them. In half an hour more, you have a plate full of cheese and said grace, you receive a dish of fish. At this very Kinloch Rannoch, you are promised kale, good mutton find a species of barley cabbage spangled with the glittering kale you mistake kale for cabbage, foolishly enough; and drops elicited from a few mutton bones, in which it is di cult to discover whether the meat or the bone is hardest.

Our author appears to entertain a favourable opinion of the Highland character. His opportunities for becoming acquainted with it were great, and there is no reason for questioning his impartiality. He prefers giving anecdotes of their habits, feelings and dispositions, to any generalized essay upon their character, and we think with great judgment. Some of these anecdotes are favourable, and others not so; for instance:

||

Supposing also that you travel in the mutton time of the year-for if you do not-the mutton is placed on the table. Do you prefer it roasted or boiled. Only wish, and "I was on an expedition to Sky. Loch Cateran lay in the thing is before you. If roasted, it has been so begravied my way; two young countrymen were in a boat: I asked with hot water that it is boiled: if boiled, it has been kept them to row me across; and this was done. I offered them so long at the fire, to wait for the salt, or the mustard, or half a crown, which was repulsed, with some indignation, || Peggy, that it is roasted. Then, what with dry potatoes, but politely expressed: They did not put me over for the dry oatcakes, and the water of the Tay and the Tumel, and like of that.' I imagine, however, that English communi- of all the rivers of the Highlands, of which you cannot cation has improved their manners of late; as this was not procure one drop, you are shortly in the condition of Panan adventure of yesterday. I arrived in due time in Sky.tagruel when he had breakfasted on Euphorbium. WhatI asked the same question on the shore of a strait of the same breadth. Aye, aye, we'll put ye across, but it's two guineas for the boat.' A Portsmouth wherry would have done as much for a shilling. Am I to say that a Highlander is generous, or must I call him an extortioner; here are ir-in mutton time; because then the hens are confined, as reconcileable facts for an hypothesis on national character. Montesquieu would say that it was because the climate of Sky differed from that of Loch Cateran.

"Then, to balance all this, I have had my watch repaired in Cromarty by an artist whom I could not induce to name a price or take a fee; my shoes have been mended on the same terms at Comrie, and my nether garments by the Shemus-na-snahdt who keeps the inn at Kinloch Rannoch. But what is this to Greenock; where your baggage is pulled || and hauled and carried about by boys and men, who seem never to trouble themselves whether they get a reward or not. Being somewhat bewildered once with trunks and

ever you do, beware of that thing called a mutton-chop. Boiled fowls you may know by the impossibility of eating them, any more than as you might eat oakum; and roasted ones, by the blackness of their skins. Eggs, there are none

the phrase is here: and the effect of confinement on hens is just the reverse of what it is upon our own females. If the salt is black, however, the table cloth is white. Thus censure delights in many words, and praise in few. Eat your dinner, prepare for it with Spartan sauce, drink your whisky, and above all keep your good humour; for after all what is a dinner when it is eaten. Would that life had nothing worse than the worst Highland dinner you and I shall ever be condemned to eat."

This must suffice for the present week,

(To be continued.)