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There was no separating his thoughts and expressions from his person, and looks, and voice. How perfectly we can at this moment recall him! Thundering, flaming, lightening in the pulpit; teaching, indoctrinating, drawing after him his students in his lecture-room; sitting among other public men, the most unconscious, the most king-like of them all, with that broad leonine countenance, that beaming, liberal smile; or on the way out to his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his throat muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards in an arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort of companion, and playmate, with which doubtless, he demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stupidities in men and things, in Church and State. His great look, large chest, large head, his amplitude every way; his broad, simple, childlike, inturned feet; his short, hurried impatient step; his erect, royal air; his look of general good-will; his kindling up into a warm but vague benignity when one he did not recognize spoke to him; the addition, for it was not a change, of keen specialty to his hearty recognition; the twinkle of his eyes; the immediately saying something very personal to set all to rights, and then the sending you off with some thought, some feeling, some remembrance, making your heart burn within you; his voice indescribable: his eye–that most peculiar feature–not vacant, but asleep–innocent, mild, and large; and his soul, its great inhabitant, not always at his window; but then, when he did awake, how close to you was that burning vehement soul! how it penetrated and overcame you! how mild, and affectionate, and genial its expression at his own fireside!

Of his portraits worth mentioning, there are Watson Gordon’s, Duncan’s–the Calotypes of Mr. Hill–Kenneth M’Leay’s miniatures–the Daguerreotype, and Steell’s bust. These are all good, and all give bits of him, some nearly the whole, but not one of them that {ti thermon}, that fiery particle–that inspired look–that “diviner mind”–the poco piu, or little more. Watson Gordon’s is too much of the mere clergyman–is a pleasant likeness, and has the shape of his mouth, and the setting of his feet very good. Duncan’s is a work of genius, and is the giant looking up, awakening, but not awakened–it is a very fine picture. Mr. Hill’s Calotypes we like better than all the rest; because what in them is true, is absolutely so, and they have some delicate renderings which are all but beyond the power of any human artist; for though man’s art is mighty, nature’s is mightier. The one of the Doctor sitting with his grandson “Tommy” is to us the best; we have the true grandeur of his form–his bulk. M’Leay’s is admirable-spirited–and has that look of shrewdness and vivacity and immediateness which he had when he was observing and speaking keenly; it is, moreover, a fine, manly bit of art. M’Leay is the Raeburn of miniature painters–he does a great deal with little. The Daguerreotype is, in its own way, excellent; it gives the externality of the man to perfection, but it is Dr. Chalmers at a stand-still–his mind and feelings “pulled up” for the second that it was taken. Steell’s is a noble bust–has a stern heroic expression and pathetic beauty about it, and from wanting color and shadow and the eyes, it relies upon a certain simplicity and grandeur;–in this it completely succeeds–the mouth is handled with extraordinary subtlety and sweetness, and the hair hangs over that huge brow like a glorious cloud. We think this head of Dr. Chalmers the artist’s greatest bust.

In reference to the assertion we have made as to bulk forming one primary element of a powerful mind, Dr. Chalmers used to say, when a man of activity and public mark was mentioned, “Has he wecht? he has promptitude–has he power? he has power–has he promptitude? and, moreover, has he a discerning spirit?”

These are great practical, universal truths. How few even of our greatest men have had all these three faculties large–fine, sound, and in “perfect diapason.” Your men of promptitude, without power or judgment, are common and are useful. But they are apt to run wild, to get needlessly brisk, unpleasantly incessant. A weasel is good or bad as the case may be,–good against vermin–bad to meddle with;–but inspired weasels, weasels on a mission, are terrible indeed, mischievous and fell, and swiftness making up for want of momentum by inveteracy; “fierce as wild bulls, untamable as flies.” Of such men we have nowadays too many. Men are too much in the way of supposing that doing is being; that theology and excogitation, and fierce dogmatic assertion of what they consider truth, is godliness; that obedience is merely an occasional great act, and not a series of acts, issuing from a state, like the stream of water from its well.