the grace of God. I would rather you had the roughness of that man," said he, pointing to a bystander," than that the tempter should thus deceive you."

On one occasion, preaching in Philadelphia, Mr. Whitefield cried out, "I am going to turn merchant to-day; I have valuable commodities to offer for sale; but I say not as your merchants do, if you come up to my price I'll sell to you, but if you will come down to my price. for if you have a farthing to bring you cannot be a purchaser here." It is said, a man, distressed with his condition as a sinner, received encouragement from the remark, and departed rejoicing.

Mr. Whitefield used often to say, that Mr. Robert Eastburn. father of the Rev. Joseph Eastburn, of Philadelphia, was the first fruits of his ministry in America.

"I am going," said Mr. Whitefield, from a stage in Phildelphia, “I am going to set a woman to preach to you to-day.` While the people were all waiting to see a woman come forward, he cried out, she is a Samaritan; and she says, "Com see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?"

THE FINE ARTS.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

We had some time since occasion to remark in our life of Rembrandt, that we had not been able to procure a sketch from any of his paintings. This omission we are now able to repair, by presenting on the opposite page sketch from his picture of " Tobit and his family," &c.

TOBIT AND HIS FAMILY

PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE

THE ANGEL GABRIEL.

TOBIT, a pious man, of the tribe of Naphtali, becoming accidentally blind, sent his son to Ragès, in order to recover some money he had lent to Gabelus. The angel Raphael, under a human form accompanied the youth during his journey, and caused him to marry his cousin Sarah, the widow of seven husbands, whom the devil had destroyed. Tobit afterwards returned to his father's house, whose sight he restored by the scale of a fish, that had been indicated to him by the angel. At the P p

VOL. I.

moment when the two Israelites were desirous of loading him with presents, in testimony of their gratitude, he resumed his natural figure, and disappeared.

This is the moment, chosen by Rembrandt, for the subject of his picture. It presents the most striking beauties, and the greatest defects. The expression of the personages is correct; their attitudes skilfully denote surprise and admiration; the chiaroscuro is perfectly displayed; and the colouring possesses all that vigour and truth, which placed Rembrandt in the rank of the first painters. The drawing of the figures is, however, extremely incorrect. In regard to the drapery, one can scarcely imagine any thing more capricious; and it is almost superfluous to observe, in this part of his art, to what degree the painter has eired against all rule and propriety.

VARIETIES.

NEW ACCOUNT OF THE MANUSCRIPTS FOUND AT HERCULANEUM,

BY M. MORGENSTERN.

M. MORGENSTERN, professor at the university of Dorpat, has addressed to the royal society of science at Gottingen, a memoir on the Herculaneum manuscripts, extracted from a learned account of his travels in Italy, which he is about to publish. This memoir contains some curious and little known particulars, which will be read with much interest.

"The rolls of papyrus (says M. Morgenstern) which were discovered on the third of November, 1753, are placed in glass cases, and in the same room in which the process of unrolling them is carried on. Each of the shelves which contain them has a brass number. These half-burned rolls appear like rolls of tobacco. I saw a man at work unfolding them: he was sitting before the ingenious machine invented by father Antonio Piaggio, of which Winckelmann has given a description; it is also correctly described and represented in Bartel's Travels. On coming near these ancient manuscripts, we almost involuntarily hold the breath, for fear any bits of them should be blown away.

I soon perceived how many difficulties and inconveniences attended the process of unrolling them.,

"In proportion as the roll is opened, a designer faithfully copies each line: this labour is revised by a learned man, who translates it into Latin on the spot, and whatever passages can be made out, are engraved on copper. When I visited this establishment, they were employed in transcribing some new fragments of Philodemus. The celebrated philologist, CARLO RosSINI, bishop of Pozzuola, has undertaken to explain, comment upon, and publish them. The following are the words which they were then endeavouring to decypher.

σε Πολυσβαλε περι αλοίς παραφρονησεως οι δ' επιγράφουσι προς τους αλόγους καλοθρασυνόμενους των εν τοις πολλοις δοξαζομενων.

"The old government did much, but yet too little, respecting the manuscripts of Herculaneum; and M. Heinse was right in saying, that it was an unfortunate circumstance that this discovery was not made in the time of Robert, of Cosmo, or of Lorenzo de Medicis. What rewards would not those illustrious protec. tors of letters have granted to a Polizione, a Ficini, or a Lascarisse, for such praiseworthy labours; and what pleasure those learned Hellenists would have taken in accomplishing the views of such patrons.

"I was assured that the same saloon contained nearly seventeen hundred manuscripts, of which about three hundred had been unrolled. It is difficult to believe this last assertion, unless we comprise in the number, those, the development of which has been attempted without success. Most of these works are without the authors' names. The only known authors who have hitherto been met with amongst these masses are, Demetrius, Epicurus, Philodemus, and Polystratus, one of the disciples of Epicurus, whom Diogenes Laertius makes the immediate successor of Hermachos, or Hermarchos. He is the same whóm Valerius Maximus associates with the Epicurean Hippokleides, and he represents them as two models of friendship, exactly similar in their manners, sentiments, and also remarkable for the same period of birth and death.

"Besides the fourth book of Philodemus on music, which as appeared, we now see the first two of his work on rhetoric, Fearing this title, Dhodnov wigs palogins A. B., and another by the came author: περι κακίων και των αντικειμένων αβέλων. I did not hear the name of Kolotes mentioned. But they have mislaid the work nown by the name Davias, which Piaggio began to unrol in the year 1762, and which, in the opinion of the abbé Galiani, related to botany. It is probably lost. It would be desirable to know what were the contents of the ten rolls, that were presented to the prince of Wales?

"The learned world may congratulate itself on the efforts that are made to hasten the results of these labours. I had the advantage of seeing, at the last visit I paid to the establishment, the celebrated director of the library, Juan Andrès, who was born in Valentia, and the bishop of Pozzuoli, whom I lately mentioned. They informed me that the second volume of the text of the works of Epicurus, which contains his Natural Philosophy, was printed, and was only waiting for the Preface. They expressed their hopes that it would be published before the edition of the Commentaries upon it. M. Juan Andrès also showed me, at his house, the text of a Latin poem, the only one which has yet been discovered. It is printed on four sheets of large foHo, with this inscription. Geo. Batt. Malesci dis. Bart. oratü inc. The manuscript is in double columns: the capital letters are very well formed, and not so angular as they generally appear in inscriptions. The words are separated by simple points. This fragment will be an important acquisition for Latin palæography, as the only manuscripts we possess in that languauge are long posterior to the time of the destruction of Herculaneum. It will he easy, on seeing these manuscripts, to perceive the difference between the ordinary manner of writing, and that which was employed on monumental inscriptions. The impression is exactly similar to the original, and the dottings correctly point out the extent and form of each gap or hiatus. The passages which are icft, but which they have not been able to decypher, are underined. These verses are, unfortunately, so mutilated, that it is hardly possible to understand their meaning. The poem, how