connected with Art to most of the leading periodicals, particularly to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews.

"His first work, we believe, was the edition of Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from 1577 to 1603, which he contributed to the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs in 1830. This was followed by the Cartularium Comitatus de Levenax, ab initio seculi decimi tertii usque ad annum MCCCXCVIII, edited by Mr. Dennistoun, and printed for the Maitland Club by Mr. Campbell of Barnhill. In 1834 another illustration of Lennox history proceeded from Mr. Dennistoun's pen, in a reprint of The Lochlomond Expedition, with some Short Reflections on the Perth Manifesto, 1715. He also edited the volume of The Coltness Collections, 1608-1840, for the Maitland Club, in 1842. The Ranking of the Nobility, 1606, was printed, along with some other papers, in The Miscellany of the Maitland Club.

"A residence in Italy gave a new bent to his pursuits. One of the first-fruits of these Transalpine studies was a deeply interesting paper on The Stuarts in Italy, published in the Quarterly Review for December, 1846. But by far the most considerable result of Mr. Dennistoun's Italian sojourn was his Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, published in three volumes in 1852. This work is of great value, as illustrating the state of Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the portion devoted to the Arts of the period being particularly interesting; and it is to be regretted that from a delicacy carried perhaps too far, he has curtailed this important section—the one he could best handle—from fear, as he states in the preface, of trenching on ground entered on by his friend, Lord Lindsay.

"Mr. Dennistoun was the writer of the article on Mr. Barton's 'History of Scotland' in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1854; and also of the analysis lately given in the same periodical of the Report by the Commission on the National Gallery, which is very masterly, and, indeed, the only successful attempt yet made to grapple with that huge accumulation of facts and opinions of all kinds.

"He had just lived to complete another very interesting work, consisting of the Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, the excellent engraver, and of his brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden, secretary to the Stuart princes, and author of the Antiquities of Rome. Sir Robert Strange was the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Dennistoun. To that lady, Isabella-Katharina, eldest daughter of the Hon. James Wolfe Murray, Lord Cringletie, a Lord of Session, Mr. Dennistoun was married in 1835."

In the Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, published by order of the House of Commons in December, 1853, we find Dennistoun as one of the witnesses. His evidence appears to have been of some value, and the articles which he wrote for the Edinburgh Review, both before and after the Report was published, are excellent both in tone and substance.

"You are the possessor," he was asked, "of a small and, I may say, very choice collection of Italian pictures, are you not?"

"A collection of early Italian pictures," he answered. And, indeed, in his day such a collection must have been very rare in England, or, in fact, anywhere else. These pictures were sold with other works of art that had been in his possession, on Thursday, June 14, 1855, and by the courtesy of Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, of King Street, St. James's, I am able to print the catalogue they prepared for the sale, and the prices the pictures fetched.

E.H.

CATALOGUE

OF

THE HIGHLY INTERESTING COLLECTION

OF

PICTURES,

AND

OTHER WORKS OF ART,

Of that distinguished Amateur,

JAMES DENNISTOUN, OF DENNISTOUN, ESQ., DECEASED.

The PICTURES comprise choice Examples of the Italian School, commencing with the Works of some of the earliest Masters; also of the Spanish, German, Flemish, French, and English Schools.

The other WORKS OF ART include three very interesting early Paces, of Niello Work; Tryptics, of Ivory and Bone; a few Bronzes; Majolica Plates; Illuminated Miniatures; a Crucifix, in Boxwood, etc.

WHICH

Will be Sold by Auction, by

Messrs. CHRISTIE & MANSON,

AT THEIR GREAT ROOM,

8 KING STREET, ST. JAMES’S SQUARE,

On THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1855,

AT ONE O’CLOCK PRECISELY.

May be viewed Three days preceding, and Catalogues had, at Messrs. CHRISTIE and MANSON’S Offices, 8, King Street, St. James’s Square.

Note: The figures in brackets are the prices at which the works they refer to were bought in.

CATALOGUE

On THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1855

AT ONE O’CLOCK PRECISELY