CHAPTER X.

MODERN ART.

IN the centre of the north end of the Mound, with its main front to Prince's-street, stands the Royal Institution, one of the handsomest modern buildings in Edinburgh, and which has been mainly devoted to the requirements of the students of art in Scotland. Here the annual exhibition of the works of modern artists takes place, in the months of February, March, and April; and during the remainder of the year the suite of galleries affords space for a small, but very fine collection of the works of ancient masters-the nucleus, it is to be hoped, of a future national gallery for Scotland.

The incorporated body of Scottish artists, now established with a royal charter, under the name of the Royal Scottish Academy, have established a native school of art, amidst the greatest difficulties and discouragements, and already assume a position highly creditable to the country, and calculated to prove of the very highest value from its influence on the decorative arts and ornamental manufactures, on which prosperity so much depends. The

works of sir William Allan, the late president of the Academy, are known and admired for their high and varied excellence, not in this country only, but throughout Europe. And, since his decease, other painters of distinguished ability honourably co-operate in maintaining the rising reputation of the Scottish school of painting, while in sculpture also, the artists of Edinburgh claim a distinguished place.

It is to an earlier period, however, and to other sources than the proceedings of the Scottish Academy of Artists, that the development of the latent powers of Scottish artistic genius is due. After the last unfortunate rebellion of 1745, in which so many of the Scottish nobles and landed gentry risked their all in the vain struggle to restore the Stuart line to the throne of their royal ancestry, the forfeited estates were placed in charge of a body of trustees appointed by the crown, to be expended in the encouragement of Scottish manufactures and fisheries. Under the management of this board, a school was instituted for instruction in drawing and the arts of design; and the office of teacher, or director of the School of Design, as it is now termed, constituted the first government appointment directly contributing to the patronage of art in Scotland. It has been successively filled by Alexander Runciman, David Allan, sir William Allan, Thomas Duncan, and Robert Scott Lander; and has numbered among its pupils sir David Wilkie, sir

Henry Raeburn, John Burnet, David Roberts, David Scott, William Dyce, William Calder Marshall, and many others whose names are now honourably distinguished among the artists of Great Britain.

By the expenditure of the funds placed at the disposal of the Scottish Board of Trustees, a collection of casts from the antique, as well as of some of the finest examples of mediæval art, has been formed. There are also selections from the works of Michael Angelo, Lorenzo, Ghiberti, Benvenuto Cellini; and from Thorwaldsen, Canova, and Flaxman. Its collection of busts from the antique, including many of the finest historical portraits, is believed to be without a rival in the kingdom.

Another valuable collection is the Gallery of Paintings, derived from various sources, and already forming a national collection of such importance that government have been induced to co-operate with the board of trustees in providing more ample accommodation both for ancient and modern art; and accordingly a fine building, now in progress on the Earthen Mound, under the architectural superintendence of Playfair, is to constitute a National Gallery, divided, like that in Trafalgar-square, London, between the Royal Academy and the collection of ancient and modern masters.

This Scottish National Gallery includes pictures acquired for the purpose, and now secured to the nation, by a body of noblemen and gentlemen styled the Royal Institution for the

Encouragement of Arts; and also a small, but valuable collection, bequeathed to the University of Edinburgh by sir James Erskine of Tory. To these the Royal Scottish Association for the Encouragement of Arts have added several modern works.

One specimen of Scottish art, although not in this exhibition, is worthy of being specially referred to here. David Scott, a painter of great genius, which was marred in some degree by a certain amount of eccentricity in the practice of his art, produced various pictures, proving the possession of great artistic powers. He is in some degree known to the lovers of art by a series of highly vigorous illustrations to Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." He has also illustrated an edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress." But his chief work was a painting of colossal proportions, representing Vasco de Gama, the celebrated Portuguese navigator, passing the Cape. The traditions of his age represented him as opposed in his passage by the Spirit of the Cape, with all the fury of the tempests which procured for the southern promontory of Africa its older name of the "Cape of Storms." This the painter availed himself of; and the deck of Vasco de Gama's ship is seen in the midst of the tempest, with his crew quailing around him at the visible manifestation of the Spirit of the storm. This picture was purchased by public subscription, and placed in the Trinity House at Leith, where it now hangs. The last hours of the dying artist were cheered

(if the empty gratification of fame at such an hour can be said to deserve the name of consolation,) by learning, after a series of heavy discouragements, this evidence of the public appreciation of his work; but he was laid in his grave, in the beautiful Dean Cemetery, on the banks of the water of Leith, to the northwest of the city, before the purchase could be completed, and the transference of the picture to its destined resting-place effected.

In the same cemetery where the painter of the "Vasco de Gama" now lies, are also deposited the remains of lord Jeffrey, sir William Allan, and other distinguished citizens recently deceased; and that taste which distinguishes the modern cemetery from the old unsightly and weed-grown churchyard, is here greatly aided by the natural beauties of the Deanhaugh, a steep sloping bank, as its name imports, above the water of Leith, and covered with venerable trees, which once surrounded the fine old mansion of the Nisbets of the Dean, an ancient Scottish family now extinct. The beauty of this cemetery renders it a favourite resort in summer; and this circumstance has already co-operated with other causes to induce an attention to the tastefulness and architectural effect of sepulchral monuments, which had been nearly universally neglected for upwards of a century and a half.