M.L.B.

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FINE ARTS.

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COLONEL BATTY’S VIEWS OF EUROPEAN CITIES.—­NO.  IV.

Edinburgh.

“The Queen of the North” has contributed five majestic views to Colonel Batty’s important Series.  Each of them is engraved “in the first style of art,” as a prospectus would say, and there is no falling off in points of interest from the Parts of this work which have already been laudatorily noticed in the Mirror.

The Vignette of this Part is Edinburgh Castle, from the Grass Market, in which the fine old fortress is seen towering in all its picturesqueness and romantic beauty.  Here and there it has some of the indistinctness of hoar antiquity:  its fadings away are beautifully characteristic.  The houses in the Grass Market are boldly contrasted with the Castle, and the “spirit” inscriptions on the Stablers are as distinct as the most panting soul could wish them.  The Engraver is R. Brandard.

Edinburgh, from the Calton Hill, is the first view.  This is, as observed in the letter-press, “the most comprehensive view of Edinburgh, and we may add, one of the grandest and most remarkable scenes in any city of Europe.”  From this point of view, “both the New and Old Cities, with their communications, come at once under our observation; the neat and handsome modern edifices of the New Town on the right hand, contrast with the old grey piles of building on the left.  The bold slopes of the Pentland hills bound the distance on the left, while the more gently indulated Corstorphine hills close the horizon on the right.”  This description is correct in its shades.  The murkiness and smoking chimneys of the Old Town are admirably relieved by the splendid vistas of Princes-street and the New Town.  Upwards of twenty public buildings, most of them of great beauty, may be distinctly counted in this scene.  It is engraved in the best style of Mr. George Cooke, one of the best view engravers of the day.

The Calton Hill forms the second plate, showing those splendid tributes of Scottish patriotism—­the National Monument, Playfair’s Monument, and Nelson’s Monument.  Would that we had some such site in or near our metropolis, whereon we might offer up our tributes to departed genius.  What an honourable testimony of national gratitude is the monument to Nelson! and how emblematic of “the Modern Athens” are the fine classic columns of the National Monument.  Playfair and the Observatory Entrance remind us of Scotland’s meteor-like pride in modern science; and the beetling brows of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags over the lower portion of the Old City in the valley below are well contrasted with these stately embellishments of art.  The plate is well engraved by J.H.  Kernot.