Tchartkoff became all the fashion. He drove out every day to dinner parties, escorted ladies to exhibitions and promenades, was a consummate puppy in his dress, and openly declared that an artist ought to be a man of the world; that it was his duty to maintain his dignity; that painters in general dressed like shoemakers; that their manners were excruciatingly vulgar, and that they were people of no education. His studio was a pattern of elegance; he kept a couple of magnificent footmen; took a number of dandified pupils; had his hair curled; dressed half-a-dozen times a-day in various fantastical costumes. He was perpetually rehearsing improvements in his way of receiving visitors; meditating on all possible means of beautifying his person, and of producing an agreeable impression on the ladies. In short, it soon became impossible to recognise in him the modest student who once laboured so fervently in his garret in the Vasilievskue Ostrov. Concerning art and artists he now rarely spoke; he asserted that the merit of the old masters had been outrageously overrated; that, before Raphael, their figures were rather like herrings than human beings; that it was the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them. Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided to his own pictures.

"I cannot conceive," he would say, "the obstinacy of people who drudge at their pictures. A fellow who hangs month after month over one piece of canvass is, in my opinion, an artisan, not an artist. Such a one has no genius, for genius creates boldly, rapidly. Now this portrait, for instance," he would say, "I painted in two days, this head in one day, this in a few hours, and that other in rather more than an hour. I don't call it art to go crawling on, line after line."

Thus he would chatter to his visitors, and the visitors would admire his dashing rapidity, and utter exclamations of wonder when they heard how quickly he worked; and then they would whisper to each other—"This is genius—real genius! How well he talks! What an extraordinary talent!"

Such praise as this the painter greedily drank in, and was as delighted as a child by the encomiums of the press, even when bought and paid for with his own money. His fame continued to spread, and his occupation to increase, till he grew weary of painting portraits and faces with the same tricks and attitudes that he knew by heart. Gradually he worked with less and less good-will, contenting himself with carelessly sketching in the head, and leaving all the rest to be finished by his pupils. Formerly he had taken trouble to seek new attitudes; to strike by novelty—by effect. Now he began to grow weary even of this labour. He entirely left off reflecting; he had neither power nor leisure for it. His dissipated mode of life, and the society in which he played the part of a man of fashion, severed him more and more from labour and from thought. His touch grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined himself to stale, commonplace, worn-out forms. The stiff, monotonous countenances of officers and civilians, in their graceless modern costumes, were not very attractive subjects for the pencil. He forgot all—his graceful draping, his easy attitudes, his power of representing the passions. As to skilful grouping or dramatic effect in painting, all that was quite out of the question. He had nothing before his eyes but the eternal uniform, corset, or dress-coat—objects chilling to the artist, and affording little scope to imagination. By and by even the most ordinary merits disappeared, one by one, from his productions; and they still enjoyed the highest reputation, though real judges and artists only shrugged their shoulders as they looked at the work of his hand.

These mute but significant criticisms of the discerning few never reached the ears of the artist, intoxicated as he was with vanity and false fame. He already too approached the period of maturity in age and intellect, and was rapidly acquiring a respectable corpulence. He now met in the journals with such expressions as these:—"Our respectable Andrei Petrovitch—our veteran of the pencil, Andrei Petrovitch." He now received many honorary appointments in public institutions; was frequently invited to examinations and to committees. He began, as people infallibly do on reaching a certain age, to stand up sturdily for the old masters, not from any profound conviction of their wonderful merits, but in order to throw their names in the teeth of young artists. He did not hesitate to fly in the face of the doctrines he had advocated some years previously. According to him, labour was every thing, inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should be subjected to the severest rules.

Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it. It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having deserved it. Tchartkoff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight, the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish, inaccessible to every thing but money—cold-hearted and penurious. He was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass which gave his whole moral being a terrible and awakening shock.

Returning home one day, Tchartkoff found lying on his table a letter, in which the Academy of Arts invited him, as one of its most distinguished members, to give his opinion of a new picture just arrived from Italy, the work of a Russian artist who had long studied there. The painter, who had been a schoolfellow of Tchartkoff's, imbued, even as a boy, with a fervent passion for art, had early torn himself from home and friends, from all the pleasures and habits of his age and country, to toil and study in the renowned Italian city, whose very name thrills the painter's heart. There he condemned himself to solitude and uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great masters, striving to penetrate their secrets. He never finished a picture without comparing it many times with the productions of those mighty teachers, and reading in their creations silent but eloquent counsel. He engaged in no arguments or disputes, but accorded to every school the honour it deserved; and after aiming at acquiring what was most meritorious in each, at length addicted himself to the study of the immortal Raphael; like a student of letters, who, after reading and rereading the works of a multitude of authors, at last confines himself to the writings of one whom he conceives to unite the chief beauties of all the others, superadding graces none of them possess. After many years of persevering application and gradual progress, the artist left the schools, possessing pure and elevated ideas of composition, great powers of conception, and an execution that charmed alike by its delicacy and force. But, with the modesty of true genius, he still allowed a considerable time to elapse before he ventured to submit a picture to the verdict of his countrymen.

On entering the exhibition-room, Tchartkoff found it thronged with visitors, grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and virgin bride was the noble production of genius that met his astonished gaze. With wonder and admiration he recognised the work of a pencil that revived the glories of ancient art. A profound study of Raphael was manifest in the noble elevation of the attitudes; there was a something Correggian in the skilful handling and careful finish. But there was no servile imitation of any painter; the artist had sought and found in his own soul the divine spark that gave life to his creation. Not an object in the picture, however trifling, but had been the subject of a profound study; the law of its constitution had been analysed, and its internal organism investigated. And the painter had caught that flowing roundness of line which pervades all nature, but which no eye ever sees save that of the creator-artist—that roundness which the mere copyist degrades into points and angles. He had poetised, whilst faithfully representing, the commonest objects of external nature. A feeling of awe mingled with the admiration that kept the crowd profoundly silent. Not a whisper was heard, not a rustle or a sound, for some time after the arrival of Tchartkoff. All were absorbed in contemplation of the masterpiece; and in the eyes of the more enthusiastic tears of delight were seen to glisten. Tchartkoff himself stood open-mouthed and motionless before the wonderful painting, whose merits and beauties the spectators at last began to discuss. He was roused from abstraction by being appealed to for his opinion. In vain did he strive to resume his dignified air, and to give utterance to the musty commonplace of criticism. The contemptuous smile was chased from his features by the workings of emotion; his breast heaved with a convulsive sob, and after a moment's violent but ineffectual struggle, he burst into tears and rushed wildly from the hall.

A few minutes later he stood motionless, almost paralysed, in his own magnificent studio. The bandage had fallen from his eyes. He saw how he had squandered the best years of his youth; how he had trampled and stifled the spark of that fire once burning within him, which might have been fanned till it blazed up into grandeur and glory, and extorted tears of gratitude and admiration from a wondering world. All this he had sacrificed and thrown away, heedlessly, madly, brutally. There suddenly revived in his soul those enthusiastic aspirations he once had known. He caught up a pencil and approached a canvass. The sweat of eagerness stood upon his brow; his soul was filled with one passionate desire—one solitary thought burned in his brain. The zeal for art, the thirst for fame he once so strongly felt, had suddenly returned, evoked from their lurking-place by the mute voice of another's genius. And why, Tchartkoff thought, should not he also excel? His hand trembled with feverish impatience till he could scarcely hold the pencil. He took for his subject a fallen angel. The idea was in accordance with his frame of mind. But, alas! how soon he was convinced of the vanity of his efforts! His hand and imagination had been too long confined to one line and limit, and his fierce but impotent endeavour to overleap the barrier, to break his self-imposed fetters, had no result. He had despised and neglected the fundamental condition of future greatness—the long and fatiguing ladder of study and reflection. Maddened by disappointment, furious at the conviction of impotency, he ignominiously dismissed from his studio all his later and most esteemed productions, to which places of honour had been accorded—all his lifeless, senseless, fashionable portraits of hussars, ladies of fashion, and privy councillors. He then shut himself up, denied himself to all visitors, and sat down to work, patient and eager as a young student. For a while he laboured day and night. But how unsatisfactory, how cruelly ungrateful was all that grew under his pencil! Each moment he found himself checked and repulsed in the new path he fain would have trodden by the wretched mechanical tricks to which he had so long habituated himself. They stood on his road, an impassable barrier. In spite of himself he recurred to the old commonplace forms; the arms would arrange themselves in one graceless position; the head assume the old hackneyed attitude; the folds of dress refused to drape themselves otherwise than they had so long been wont to do in his hands. All this the unhappy artist plainly felt and saw. His eyes were opened to his heinous faults, but he lacked the power to correct them.

"Surely I had ability!" said he to himself; "or was it mere delusion? Could I not, under any circumstances, have done better than I have? Did the whispers of youthful vanity mislead me?" And, to settle this doubt, he hunted out some of his early pictures, which lay neglected in a corner of his painting-room—pictures he had laboured at long ago, when his heart was pure from avarice, and he dwelt in his poor garret in the lonely Vasilievskue Ostrov, far from the world, from luxury and covetousness. He examined them attentively, and the conviction forced itself upon him with irresistible strength, that he had sacrificed genius at the altar of Mammon. "I had it in me!" was his agonised exclamation. "Every where, in all of these, I behold traces and proofs of the power I have recklessly frittered away."

Covering his face with his hands, Tchartkoff stood silent, full of bitter thoughts, rapidly but minutely reviewing the whole of his past life. When he removed his hands he started, and a thrill passed over him, for he suddenly encountered the gaze of two piercing eyes glittering with a sombre lustre, and seeming to watch and enjoy his despair. A second glance showed him they belonged to the strange portrait which he had bought, many years before, in the Stchukin Dvor. It had remained forgotten and concealed amidst a mass of old pictures, and he had long since forgotten its existence. Now that the gaudy, fashionable pictures and portraits had been removed from the studio, there it was, peering grimly out from amongst his early productions. Tchartkoff remembered that, in a certain sense, this hideous portrait had been the origin of the useless life he had so long led and now so deeply deplored; that the hoard of gold discovered in its frame had developed and fostered in him those worldly passions, that sensuality and love of luxury, which had been the bane of his genius. Calling his servants, he ordered the hateful picture to be taken from the room, and bestowed where he should never again behold it. Its departure, however, was insufficient to calm his agitation and quell the storm that raged within him. He was a prey to that rare moral torture sometimes witnessed when a feeble talent wrestles unsuccessfully to attain a development above its capacity—a furious endeavour which often conducts young and vigorous minds to great achievements, but whose result to old and enervated ones is more frequently despair and insanity. Tchartkoff, when convinced of the futility of his efforts, became possessed by the demon of envy, who soon monopolised and made him all his own. His complexion assumed a bilious yellow tint; he could not bear to hear an artist praised, or look with patience at any work of art that bore the impress of genius. On beholding such he would grind his teeth with fury, and the expression of his face became that of a maniac.

At last he conceived one of the most execrable projects the human mind ever engendered; and with an eagerness approaching to frenzy, he hastened to put it into execution. He bought up all the best pictures he could find in St Petersburg, and whose owners could be induced to part with them. The prices he gave to tempt sellers were often most extravagant. As soon as he had purchased a picture, and got it safely home, he would set upon it with demoniac fury, tearing, scratching, even biting it; and, when it was utterly defaced and rent into the smallest possible fragments, he would dance and trample on it, laughing like a fiend. The enormous fortune he had accumulated during his long and successful career as a fashionable portrait-painter, enabled him largely to indulge this infernal monomania. To this abominable end he, Tchartkoff, but a short time before so avaricious, became reckless in his expenditure. For this he untied the strings of his bags of gold, and scattered his rubles with lavish hand. All were surprised at the change, and at the rapidity with which he squandered his fortune, in his zeal, as it was supposed, to form a gallery of the noblest works of art. In the auction room, none cared to oppose him, for all were certain to be outbid. He was held to be mad, and certainly his conduct and appearance justified the presumption. His countenance, of a jaundiced hue, grew haggard and wrinkled; misanthropy and hatred of the world were plainly legible upon it. He resembled that horrid demon whom Pushkin has so ably conceived and portrayed. Save all occasional sarcasm, venomous and bitter, no word ever passed his lips, and at last he became universally avoided. His acquaintances, and even his oldest friends, shunned his presence, and would go a mile round to escape meeting him in the street. The mere sight of him, they said, was enough to cloud their whole day.

Fortunately for society and for art, such an unnatural and agitated existence as this could not long endure. Tchartkoff's mental excitement was too violent for his physical strength. A burning fever and furious delirium ravaged his frame, and in a few days he was but the ghost of his former self. The delirium augmented, and became a permanent and incurable mania, in some of whose paroxysms it was necessary to bind him to his couch. He fancied he saw continually before him the singular old portrait from the Stchukin Dvor! This was the more strange, because since the day he had turned it out of his studio, it had never once met his sight. But now he raved of its terrible living eyes, which haunted him unceasingly, and when this fancy came over him, his madness was something terrific. All the persons who approached his bed he imagined to be horrible portraits; copies, repeated again and again, of the old man with the fiendish eyes. The image multiplied itself perpetually; the ceiling, the walls, the floor, were all covered with portraits, staring sternly and fixedly at him with living eyes. The room extended and stretched out to a vast and interminable gallery, to afford room for millions of repetitions of the ghastly picture. In vain did numerous physicians seek to discover, with a view to the alleviation of the poor wretch's sufferings, some secret connexion between the incidents of his past life and the strange phantom that thus eternally haunted him. No explanation or clue could be obtained from the patient, who continued to apostrophise the portrait in disconnected phrase, and to utter howls of agony and lamentation. At last his existence terminated in one last horrible paroxysm. His corpse was frightful to behold; of his once comely form, a yellow shrivelled skeleton was all that remained. A few thousand rubles were the sole residue of his wealth; and his disappointed heirs, beholding numerous drawers and closets full of torn fragments that had once composed noble pictures, understood and cursed the odious use to which their relative had applied his princely fortune.

CHAPTER II

A number of carriages, caleches, and drojkis were drawn up in the vicinity of a handsome mansion in one of the best quarters of St Petersburg. It had been the residence of a rich virtuoso, lately deceased, and whose pictures, furniture, and curiosities, were now selling by auction. The large drawing-room was filled with the most distinguished amateurs of art in St Petersburg, mingled with brokers and dealers on the look-out for bargains, and with a large sprinkling of those idlers who, without intending to purchase, frequent auctions to kill a morning. The sale was in full activity, and there was eager competition for the lot then up. The biddings succeeded each other so rapidly, that the auctioneer was scarcely able to repeat them. The object so many were eager to possess, was a portrait, which could hardly fail to attract the attention even of persons who know nothing of pictures. This painting, which possessed a very considerable amount of artistical merit, and had apparently been more than once restored, repaired, and cleaned, represented the tawny features of an Oriental, attired in a loose costume. The expression of the face was singular, and by no means pleasant. Its most striking feature was the extraordinary and unaccountable look of the eyes, which, by some trick of the artist, seemed to follow the spectator wherever he went. Every one of the persons there assembled was ready to swear that the eyes looked straight at him; and, what was yet more unaccountable, the effect was the same whether the beholder stood on the right, or on the left, or in front of the picture. This peculiarity it was that had made so many anxious to possess a portrait whose subject and painter were alike unknown. Gradually, however, many of the amateurs ceased their biddings, for the price had become extravagant, and at last only two continued to compete—two rich noblemen, both enthusiastic lovers of the eccentric in art. These still continued the contest, grew heated with their rivalry, and were in a fair way to raise the price to something positively absurd, when a by-stander stepped forward and addressed them. "Before this contest goes farther," he said, "permit me to say a few words. Of all here present, it is I, I believe, who have the best right to the portrait in dispute."

All eyes were turned towards the speaker. He was a tall, handsome man, of about thirty-five, with a pleasant, cheerful countenance, a careless style of dress, and long black curls flowing down his neck. He was personally known to many present, and the name of B——, the artist, was circulated through the room.

"Extraordinary as my words may appear to you," he resumed, perceiving he had fixed the general attention, "I can explain them if you are disposed to give me five minutes' audience. I have every reason to believe that this portrait is one I have long sought in vain."

Curiosity was expressed on every countenance; the auctioneer stood open-mouthed and with uplifted hammer; all entreated B—— to tell his tale. The artist at once complied.

"You are all acquainted," he said, "with the quarter of St Petersburg known as the Kolomna, and aware that it is chiefly occupied by persons either in poverty, or whose resources are exceedingly limited, many of whom, compelled by unforeseen circumstances to outstrip their limited income, frequently find themselves in want of immediate and temporary assistance; compelled, in short, to apply to money-lenders. In consequence of this, there has settled amongst them a particular class of usurers, who supply petty sums on satisfactory pledges, and at enormous interest. These pawnbrokers on a small scale are generally far more pitiless than the aristocratic usurer, whose customers drive to his door in their carriages. Compunction, humanity, a feeling of pity for the unfortunates upon whose need they fatten, never by any chance enter their breast. Amongst these callous extortioners there was one who, at a certain period of the last century, under the reign of the Empress Catherine II., had been settled for some years in the Kolomna. He was an extraordinary and enigmatical personage, of whom none knew any thing; he wore a flowing Asiatic dress, his complexion was swarthy as an Arab; but to what nation he really belonged, whether Hindoo, or Greek, or Persian, none could decide. His tall stature, his tawny, withered, wiry face, with its tint of greenish bronze, his large eyes full of sullen fire, shadowed by thick and overhanging brows; every point in his appearance, in short, made a strong and marked distinction between him and the other inhabitants of the quarter. His very dwelling was quite unlike the little wooden houses which surrounded it. It was a large brick building, in the style of those often constructed by the Genoese merchants, with windows of different sizes disposed at irregular distances, with iron shutters and hasps. This usurer was distinguished from all others by the circumstance that he could always supply any sum of money required, and would accommodate alike the needy groom and the extravagant noble. At his door were often to be seen brilliant equipages, through whose windows might sometimes be discerned the head of a luxurious and fashionable lady. Rumour said that his iron chests teemed with countless heaps of money, plate, diamonds, and all kinds of valuable pledges, but nevertheless he was reported less greedy than the other money-lenders. He made no difficulty, people said, to lend, and was apparently far from oppressive in fixing the terms of payment. But on the day of reckoning, it was observed, that by some extraordinary arithmetical calculation, he made the interest mount up to an enormous sum: such, at least, was the popular report. The strangest thing about him, however, and which struck every body, was the fatality that seemed to attach to his loans; all who borrowed of him finished their lives in an unhappy manner. Whether this was a mere popular notion, a stupid superstitious gossip, or a rumour intentionally disseminated, has ever remained a mystery. But it is a fact that many things occurred to give it validity, and that within a comparatively short period of time. Amongst the aristocracy of the day, there was one young man who particularly attracted the attention of society. He was of ancient descent and noble blood; had very early distinguished himself in the service of the empire, as a warm protector of every thing honourable and elevated, and as a passionate lover of art and genius. He was soon distinguished by the personal notice of the Empress, who confided to him the duties of an office peculiarly adapted to his tastes and talents—an office which gave him power to be of the greatest service not only to science, but to humanity itself. The young noble surrounded himself with artists, poets, scholars, and men of learning. To all of them he promised employment, patronage, protection. He undertook, at his own expense, a number of important publications, gave a multitude of orders to artists, founded prizes for excellence, spent enormous sums in this unselfish manner, and at length got into difficulties. Full, however, of generous enthusiasm, and unwilling to leave his work half finished, he borrowed money in all directions, and at length found his way to the famous usurer in the Kolomna. Having obtained from this man a very extensive loan, the young noble all at once underwent a complete transformation. He became, as by enchantment, the enemy of rising intellect and talent, the persecutor of all he had previously protected. It was just then that the French Revolution broke out. This event gave him a handle for suspicion. In every thing he detected some revolutionary tendency; in every word, in every expressed opinion, he saw a dangerous hint or perfidious insinuation. The disease gained on him till he almost began to suspect himself. He laid false informations, fabricated the foulest charges, and caused the ruin of numbers of innocent people. At first, his guilty manoeuvres were undetected, and, when found out, they were thought to proceed from insanity. Report was made to the Empress, who deprived him of his office. But his severest sentence was the contempt he read in the faces of his countrymen. I need not describe the sufferings of this vain and insolent spirit, the tortures he endured from crushed pride, defeated ambition, ruined expectations. At last his monomania—for such it must surely have been—aggravated by regret and chagrin, became insanity, and in a frightful paroxysm the unhappy maniac committed suicide.

"Not less remarkable than the fate of this wretched young man was that of a lady who passed at that time for the most beautiful woman in St Petersburg. My father has often assured me, that he never beheld any thing to be compared to her. Possessing, besides her beauty, the not less fascinating charms of wit, intellect, wealth, and high rank, she was of course surrounded by a swarm of admirers. The most remarkable of these was Prince R., the flower of all the young nobles of that day, and to whom the palm was universally conceded, not only for beauty of person, but for high qualities and chivalry of character. He was well qualified for a hero of romance, or a woman's beau-ideal. Deeply and passionately enamoured of the young countess, his affection met with as pure and ardent a return. But her relations disapproved the match. The prince's paternal estates had passed out of his hands,—his family was in disgrace at court, and the derangement of his finances was no secret to any body. Suddenly he left the capital, apparently for the purpose of putting his affairs in order; and, after a brief absence, reappeared and commenced a life of splendid extravagance. His balls and entertainments were so magnificent as to attract the notice of the court, and, it was rumoured, to mollify imperial displeasure. The countess's father became suddenly gracious, and soon nothing was talked of in St Petersburg but the marriage of the two lovers. Of the origin of the enormous fortune of the bridegroom, to which this change in the sentiments of his future father-in-law was unquestionably to be attributed, nobody could give a distinct account, though it was pretty generally whispered that he had entered into a compact with the mysterious money-lender of the Kolomna, and from him obtained a large loan. Be this as it may, the wedding formed the whole talk of the town. Bride and bridegroom were the object of universal envy. Every body had heard of their beauty and virtues, of their ardent and constant love; and all rejoiced that the obstacles to their union were removed. Numerous were the prophetic pictures drawn of the blissful existence the young couple were certain to enjoy. The event proved very different. In one twelvemonth a total and terrible change took place in the character of the prince. Hitherto noble, generous, and confiding, he became, on a sudden, jealous, suspicious, impatient, and capricious. He was the tyrant and tormentor of his wife; and, to the unbounded astonishment of every body who had known him before his marriage, treated her with inhuman brutality, and was even known to strike her! In one year the beautiful and dazzling girl, who was followed by a crowd of obedient adorers, could not be recognised in the careworn and unhappy wife. At length, unable longer to support the cruel yoke of such a marriage, she sought a separation. At the first notification of this step, the prince gave way to the most uncontrolled fury,—burst into her chamber, and would infallibly have stabbed her, had he not been seized and removed by force. Mad with rage, he turned his weapon upon himself, and lay a corpse at the feet of his horror-stricken friends. Besides these two incidents, which attracted great notice in the higher circles, a number of other instances were cited as having occurred amongst the lower classes, where the loans of the mysterious usurer had brought misfortune in their train. One man, previously a sober and honest artisan, had become a confirmed drunkard, and died in the hospital; a shopman had robbed his master; an izvoztchik, for years noted for his honesty, had cut the throat of a customer in order to rob him of an insignificant sum. All these persons, and many others, who sank into misery and crime, or perished by violent deaths, had been customers of the mysterious Asiatic, of whom these stories, related, as they often were, with additions and exaggerations, inspired the quiet and peaceable inhabitants of the Kolomna with an involuntary horror. Nobody doubted the real presence of the evil spirit in this man. They said that he exacted conditions which made one's very hair stand on end, and which none of his unhappy clients dared disclose; that his money had a mysterious property of attraction; that the coins were marked with strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is most remarkable is, that this population of Kolomna, made up of pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who met him in the street hurried by with an uneasy sensation, making way for him with anxious submissiveness, and looking long over their shoulders at the tall lean figure as it lost itself in the distance. His singular frame might well have been the receptacle of a supernatural and unholy spirit. The wild and deeply-cut features had something different from humanity; the extraordinary thickness of the shaggy eyebrows; the bronzed glow of the countenance; the frightful eyes, with their steady unsupportable glare; even the broad folds of the Oriental dress were, each in turn, the subject of uneasy and suspicious comment. My father told me, that when he met him he could not avoid stopping to gaze at him; and it invariably occurred to him that he had never seen, either in painting or life, a face that so completely came up to his notion of a demon. But I must make you, as briefly as possible, acquainted with my father, who is the real hero of my tale. He was a remarkable man, a self-taught painter, seeking principles in his own mind, and elaborating, without master or school, rules and laws of art, led onward by the mere thirst for excellence, and advancing, under the influence of causes which he himself, perhaps, could not have defined, along a path marked out for him only in his own mind. He was one of those children of genius whom contemporaries so often stigmatise as ignorant, because they have struck out a track for themselves, and whose ardour is to be chilled neither by censure nor failures; whence, on the contrary, they derive fresh vigour and courage. Aided only by his own lofty instincts, he attained to the true understanding of what historical painting should be. Scriptural subjects, the last and loftiest step of high art, chiefly occupied his pencil. Free from the feverish irritable vanity and paltry envy so common amongst artists, he was a firm, upright, honourable man, a little rough and unpolished in externals—the husk rather rugged—and with a share of honest pride and independent feeling which sometimes imparted to his manner an air of mingled bluntness and condescension. 'I care nothing for your fine folks,' he would say. 'I don't work for them. I don't paint drawing-room pictures. Those who understand my work best reward me for it. I do not blame fashionable people for not understanding art: how should they? They understand their cards; they are judges of wine and horses. 'Tis enough. When they do pick up a crude notion or two on the subject of painting, they become intolerable by their assumption. I prefer, a thousand times, the man who honestly confesses he knows nothing about art, to your ignoramus who comes in with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge, talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued with a fervent and profound sense of religion, it was that, perhaps, which enabled him to communicate to the faces he painted an elevation of religious sentiment that the most brilliant pencils often fall to give. In course of time, and aided by obstinate industry and unflinching perseverance, his talent attracted the attention and commanded the respect even of those who had at first sneered at him as a home-made artist. He received numerous orders for altar-pieces and other church pictures, and laboured incessantly. One picture, in particular, engaged his closest attention. The subject I forget, but I know that the great enemy of mankind was to be introduced. Long did my father meditate on this figure; he desired to embody in the countenance the expression of every evil passion that afflicts fallen humanity. Whilst reflecting on the subject, and conjuring up horrible countenances in his imagination, the strange features of the mysterious money-lender frequently recurred to him; and, as often as they did so, he said to himself, 'The usurer would be a fine model for my Devil.' One day, whilst he was busy planning his great work, and making sketches, with which he had difficulty in pleasing himself, there was a knock at his studio door, and the next instant, to his infinite astonishment, the usurer entered the room. My father has since told me that on beholding him he felt an inexplicable chill and shudder come over his whole frame.

"'You are an artist?' said the intruder, abruptly.

"'I am,' replied my father, and wondered what was coming next.

"'I want my portrait painted. I have not long to live. I have no children, and I do not wish to die altogether. Can you paint a portrait of me that shall be exactly like life?"

"My father reflected for a moment. 'Nothing could be more opportune,' thought he to himself; 'he comes of his own accord to sit to me for my Devil.' And he at once agreed to satisfy his singular visitor. Hour and price were stipulated, and the next day, my father, bearing palette and brushes, repaired to the abode of his new sitter. The gloomy court-yard, surrounded by high walls; the watch-dogs; the iron doors and shutters; the arched windows; the huge coffers, covered with strange, outlandish-looking carpets; and, above all, the grim, gloomy visage of the master of the house, seated immoveable before him,—all these conspired to produce a strong impression on his mind. The windows were closed and darkened; a single pane in the upper part of one of them admitted a strong ray of light. My father forgot the strange repute of his sitter in zeal for his art. 'How splendidly the fellow's face is lighted up!' he thought to himself, and set to work with furious eagerness, as though fearful of losing the favourable moment. 'What vigour! what light and shade!' he exclaimed, inaudibly. 'If I can get him in only half as vigorously as he sits there, the portrait will beat every thing I have done: he will walk out of the canvass. What extraordinary features; what depth in the lines and furrows! he repeated to himself, redoubling his fervour at every stroke, as he observed trait after trait rapidly transferring itself to the canvass. But, whilst proceeding with his work, he insensibly became aware of a strange feeling of oppression and uneasiness that crept over him, he knew not how or wherefore. Disregarding it, he persisted in following, with the strictest fidelity and most scrupulous care, every line, and tone, and shade in the extraordinary countenance of his model. To the eyes he gave his chief attention. At first they nearly made him despair. So peculiar and penetrating was their expression, so unlike were they to any eyes he had ever encountered, that it seemed an almost hopeless task to attempt to render them in a picture. Nevertheless he persevered, resolved, at whatever cost of pains and time, to follow them in their minute details, and thus to penetrate, if possible, the mystery and secret of their expression. But whilst engaged in this work, whilst diving, as it were, with his pencil, into the recesses of those mysterious orbs, the uneasiness he had before felt rapidly increased, and there arose in his soul such an inexplicable loathing, such an overpowering sensation of vague horror, that he was several times obliged to suspend his work, and it was only by a violent effort he could bring himself to resume it. At last this unaccountable feeling fairly mastered him; he could no longer bear to look upon those horrible eyes, whose demon-like gaze filled him with dismay. He closed the sitting. But the next day, and the one after that, the same thing occurred; after painting for a short time he invariably became agitated, excited, and unable to proceed. Each day these sensations increased in strength, until they became positive torture, and at last my father threw down his brush, declaring he would paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties, and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the picture, saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very existence. And then he threw out dark and confused hints of supernatural agency, by which, if his living features were once faithfully represented, his soul would be in some sort transferred to the portrait, and be saved from complete annihilation, or a yet worse doom. Terror-stricken at these strange and fearful words, my father threw down pencil and palette and rushed from the house. He could not sleep that night for meditating on this occurrence. The next morning he received back the unfinished portrait, brought to his house by an old woman, the only human being who lived with the usurer. She left also a message, that her master returned the portrait, because he did not want and would not pay for it. A few hours afterwards, on going out, my father learned that the usurer of the Kolomna had died that morning. There was a mystery in all this which my father neither was able nor desired to solve.

"Dating from that day, a perceptible and unfavourable change took place in my father's character. Without apparent cause he became irritable, restless, and unhappy, and a very short time elapsed before he became guilty of an act of which none supposed him capable. About this period, the works of one of his pupils had attracted the attention of a small circle of judges and amateurs of art. My father from the first had perceived and appreciated this young man's talent, and had shown himself particularly well-disposed towards him. Suddenly, as if by a spell, envy and hatred were generated in his mind. The general interest excited by the pupil became intolerable to the master, who could not hear with patience the name of the rising genius. At length, to fill up the measure of his mortification, he learned that the young man had been preferred to paint a picture for a splendid church then just completed. This drove my father frantic. Previously the most upright and honourable of men, he now condescended to the pettiest intrigues and manoeuvres—he who, up to that time, had regarded with horror and contempt all that bore the semblance of intrigue. By dint of caballing, he succeeded in obtaining an open competition for the work in question; whoever chose, was at liberty to send in his picture, and the best would obtain the preference. Having brought this about, he secluded himself in his studio and applied himself to the task with intense ardour, summoning up all his great energy, skill, and experience of art. As was to be expected, the result was one of his very finest pictures. As a work of art, it was unquestionably the best. When my father saw it placed beside those of the other competitors, a smile of triumph curled his lip, and he entertained no doubt that his would be the picture chosen to adorn the altar. The committee appointed to decide arrived, and cast approving glances at my father's painting. Before giving their verdict, however, they proceeded to examine it minutely, and at last, one of the members—an ecclesiastic of high rank, if I remember rightly—waved his hand to secure the attention of his fellow-judges, and spoke thus: 'The picture presented by this artist,' he said, 'has undoubtedly very high merit as a mere work of art; but it is unsuited to the place and purpose for which it was designed. Those countenances have nothing sacred or holy in their expression. On the contrary, you may discern in every one of them, and especially in the eyes, the traces, more or less modified, of some evil passion, a something unhallowed and almost fiendish.' Struck by this observation, all present looked at the picture: it was impossible to deny the justice of the criticism. My father rushed furiously forward eager to deny and disprove the unfavourable judgment. But he saw for the first time, with feelings of intense horror, that he had given to almost all his countenances the eyes of the money-lender. They all looked out of the canvass with such a devilish and abominable stare, that he himself could scarcely help shuddering. The picture was rejected, and, with unspeakable rage and envy, he heard the prize awarded to his former pupil. He returned home in a state of mind worthy of a demon. He abused and even ill-treated my poor mother, who sought to console him for his disappointment, drove his children brutally from him, broke his easel and brushes, tore down from the wall the portrait of the money-lender, called for a knife, and ordered a fire to be instantly lighted, intending to cut up the picture and burn it. In this mood he was found by a friend, a painter like himself, a careless, jovial dog, always in good-humour, untroubled with ambition, working gaily at whatever he could get to do, and loving a good dinner and merry company.

"'What the deuce are you at? what are you about to burn?' said he, going up to the portrait. 'Why, are you mad? This is one of your very best pictures! The old money-lender, I declare. By Jove! an exquisite thing! Admirably hit off! you have caught the old fellow's eyes to perfection. One would almost swear you had transplanted them from the head to the picture. They look out of the canvass.'

"'We'll see how they look in the fire,' said my father surlily, making a movement to thrust the picture into the grate.

"'Stop, stop!' cried his friend, checking his arm. 'Give it me, rather than burn it.' My father was at first unwilling, but at last consented; and the jolly old painter, enchanted with his acquisition, carried off the portrait.

"The picture gone, my father felt himself more tranquil. 'It seemed,' he said, 'as if its departure had taken a load off his heart.' He was astonished at his recent conduct, at the malice and envy that had filled his soul. The more he reflected, the stronger became his sorrow and repentance. 'Yes,' he at last exclaimed, with sincere self-reproach, 'God has punished me for my sins; my picture was really a shameful and abominable thing. It was inspired by the wicked hope of injuring a fellow-man, and a brother artist. Hatred and envy guided my pencil; what better feelings could I expect it to portray?' Without a moment's delay he went in search of his former pupil, embraced him affectionately, entreated his forgiveness, and did all in his power to efface from the young man's mind the remembrance of his offence. Once more his days glided on in peaceful and contented toll, although his face had assumed a pensive and melancholy expression, previously a stranger to it. He prayed more frequently and fervently, was more often silent, and spoke less bluntly and roughly to others; the rugged suffice of his character was smoothed and softened.

"A long time had elapsed without his seeing or hearing any thing of the friend to whom he had given the portrait, and he was one day about to go out and inquire after him, when the man himself entered the room. But his former joviality of manner was gone. He looked worn and melancholy, his checks were hollow, his complexion pale, and his clothes hung loosely upon him. My father was struck with the change, and inquired what ailed him.

"'Nothing now,' was the reply: 'nothing since I got rid of that infernal portrait. I was wrong, my friend, not to let you burn it. The devil fly away with the thing, say I! I am no believer in witchcraft and the like, but I am more than half persuaded some evil spirit is lodged in the portrait of the usurer.'

"'What makes you think so?' said my father.

"'The simple fact, that from the very first day it entered my house, I, formerly so gay and joyous, became the most anxious melancholy dog that ever whined under a gallows. I was irritable, ill-tempered, disposed to cut my own throat, and every body else's. My whole life through, I had never known what it was to sleep badly. Well, my sleep left me, and when I did get any, it was broken by dreams. Good Heavens! such horrible dreams; I could not bring myself to believe they were mere dreams, ordinary nightmares. I was sometimes nearly stifled in my sleep; and eternally, my good sir, the old man, that accursed old man, flitted about me. In short, I was in a pitiable state, lost flesh and appetite, and cursed the hour I was born. I crawled about, as if drunk or stupid, tormented with a vague incessant fear, a dread, and anticipation of something frightful about to happen, of some uncommon danger besetting me at every turn. At last, I bethought me of the portrait, and gave it away to a nephew of mine, who had taken a great fancy to it. Since then I have been much relieved; I feel as if a great stone had been rolled off my heart; I can sleep and eat, and am recovering my former spirits. It was a rare devil you cooked up there, my boy!'

"My father listened to his friend's confession with the closest attention.

"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last inquired.

"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got it off his hands.'

"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries, which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture, which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after, the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees, lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus—the profound and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe—the solemn silence and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet—the holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work—the combined impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son, and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'

"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of being sent to Italy—the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out, exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my guidance in art—precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him; on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life, especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments, when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it; you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee, and thy days be long in the land.'

"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised, and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success, until to-day—at this auction."

Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who, looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the throng.

"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears, drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand furniture, old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap commodities, are exposed for sale in small open booths.

[25] A personage who figures, like two or three others afterwards alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of Russia.

[26] Twenty-five rubles.

[27] A silver coin, about the size of a shilling, the quarter of a silver ruble (und e nomen) worth ninepence.

[28] The officer commanding the police of the quarter.

[29] The Russian house-spirit. This "lubber fiend" is frequently the popular name of the nightmare.

[30] The "was-ist-das," a single pane of glass fixed in a frame, to admit of its being opened, very necessary in a climate where double casements are fixed during eight months out of the year.



HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME.

ENGLISH KENNEL.

"The Dog-Star rages!"—POPE.

To do at Rome as the Romans do, is an adage which we English can no longer apply to our proceedings in that city; we now reverse this, and carrying thither our games, field-sports, and other whimsies, not only practise these ourselves, but would impose them upon her senate and people; for a senate she still has, and the Romans take a strange pleasure in exhibiting, on state occasions, the well-known letters, which tell of formerly allied, but long since departed glories. What would her ancient senate, the stern descendants of the wolf-nursed twins—

"Curius quid sentit, et ambo Scipiadae?—"

have said to the subserviency of their present mis-representatives, who go forth, not to give races, but to witness the feats of barbarian jockeyship, on a turf that once resounded only to the hoofs of their own favourite racers;

"Whose easy triumph and transcendant speed Palm after palm proclaimed; whilst Victory, In the horse circus, stood exulting by."[31]

If the senator Damisippus once received such a castigation at the hands of the bard of Aquinum, for merely driving his own phaeton at noon, and for nodding varmintly to a friend as he passed, how would that poet's indignation or muse—

"Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum—"

have dealt with you, Princes Borghese and Cesarini, Doria and Colonna, who, changing your long robes for the scarlet jacket, (worse than any Trechidipna), have learned to vie with each other in acquiring a field-note, of which Alaric had been proud, to strive for precedence in a fox-hunt, and to glory more in winning his brush, than ever did your ancestors on wresting a trophy from the Sicambri. But, thanks to Popes who have wisely prohibited satirists and satire, ye are free to follow, unscathed by the Iambic muse, this or any other pastime you please, however unsuited in character to the dignity of your descent. To one merely paying a transitory visit to Rome in the grand tour of twenty years ago, it might not have occurred as a likely contingency that a pack of English fox-hounds should be one day kennelled close up to her gates; but to him who witnessed the sporting monomania of some of our countrymen, and the difficulty they found (having nothing else to kill) in killing time, it would never have seemed improbable. The enthusiasm which every one, gets up for the Coliseum, or the Arch of Titus, generally expends itself on the spot, and is not afterwards to be resuscitated. This leads many during a six weeks' sojourn in the eternal city, (which seems to them already an eternity), to ask themselves, with Fabricius, their business there; while some, following his example still farther, leave it in disgust. Till certain very recent arrangements had been completed for his equipment, no one's position was more to be compassionated—if you adopted his own view of it—than that of the English sportsman; it was really lamentable to hear him describe, while it would occasionally prompt a smile to see his expedients, to relieve it. Finding little that was congenial to his tastes or his talents in the arts or the society of the place, he would sometimes seek to abridge the tedium and length of his stay at Rome, by episodes of lark-shooting at Subiaco, or by looking after wild-boars at Ostia; and some, to whom hunting was indispensable, would hire dogs and make them chase each other, while they harked on the ragged pack, on the best hacks they could procure for the purpose. This, however, which might have proved excellent sport had the dogs always chosen to run properly, was oft-times tried and relinquished, in consequence of a practical difficulty, originating in the pack itself, which refused to supply from its ranks the necessary quota of amateur hares required by the riders. By this token, it was high time something should be done! At length the auspicious day dawned when the sporting world (already on the alert to contrive less unturf-like proceedings than the last mentioned) was agreeably saved from the embarrassment of further thought on the subject, by a spirited announcement, noticed with becoming gratitude in Galignani, from Lord C—— that he had actually sent for his dogs from England. No time was lost; the groom, despatched in haste with the necessary instructions, returned within six weeks, leaving the kennel and canaille that accompanied it only a few days behind on the road. One morning, shortly after, it was announced at the Vatican, that a pack of hungry hounds was at the Popolo Gate, barking for admittance, and apparently threatening to eat up the whole Apostolic Doganieri if they kept them much longer. The matter pressed: a deputation of Englishmen waited on the governor, requesting permission for the establishment of a kennel in a spot already fixed upon for the purpose, (it was somewhere about the site where Constantine's mother was buried, and where, by tradition, Nero's ghost is supposed to brood, beyond the Pons Nomentana, and the Sacred mount); and having obtained the desired leave, the dogs were at once established in their new settlement. When they had recovered the fatigues of their journey, a notice was posted up, advertising the first "throw off" for the next day. On this occasion they hunted an old fox round the Claudian Aqueduct, into the body of which, on getting over his surprise, he scoured a retreat, thus baffling the pursuers. The next field-day his successor was not so fortunate, losing both brush and life at the end of a long run. The third was distinguished by the feat of a Roman prince, who contrived to be in at the death, and received the brush for his encouragement. After this the weekly obituary of foxes increased permanently in number. Meanwhile a few dogs disappeared in subterranean mystery, awkward falls occurred, wrists and ankles were dislocated; but no brains spilt. At last forty persons, having nothing better to do with themselves, agree to meet regularly twice a-week and to set up a subscription. While it is yet early in the winter, dogs come dropping in by couples, from various well-wishers in England; while large orders in the shape of scarlet coats and hunting-caps, duly executed and forwarded, are stopped at the Dogana Apostolica, and after a suitable demur on account of the Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These liveries at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped their hands and cried, "Guardi! Guardi!" When they trotted out to cover, the delighted swine-herd whistled to his pigs to make way for them to pass; while the mounted buffalo-driver, from some crag above the road, would point them out with his long-spiked pole, to the man in the sheepskin who was on foot. We do not know what comments these might make, but those of the Roman townsfolk were by no means in keeping with the flattering admiration they expressed. "What a gay livery!" said a Roman citizen, emerging from the Salara Gate, as a detachment of the "red-coats" was turning in. "Cazzo! how well they ride, and what a number too!" "Yes," said his friend at our elbow; "to whom do they belong—a chi appartengono?" "'Tis the livery of a Russian prince who came last week to Rome, and has put up at Serny's," said the other, affecting to know all about it. "Well, to my mind, they beat Prince Torlonia's postilions out-and-out." "Altro—I agree with you there; ma abbia pazienza—wait a bit, and depend on it our Prince, when he has seen them, will not be long in taking the hint!" We hope he will; for, however we may elsewhere admire a mounted field, here it shocks every notion of propriety. That fox-hunters should have their meeting where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied, with no other reference than to runs; and Veii be scared in her lofty citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with the slang of the London mews, is something still worse.

"Quoi! Venue d'un peuple roi, Toi, reine encore du monde!"

Thou who hast taken the lead by turns, in legislature, literature, and the fine arts, doomed at last to become the sovereign seat for hunting—the Melton Mowbray of the South! May thy genius loci forbid it; may thy goddess of fever visit the hounds in one of her ugliest types; loimos or limos destroy them; old Tiber rise with his yellow waves to drown, catacombs yawn to ingulf, and aqueducts fall to crush them! Or, should inanimate nature disregard our row, two other hopes remain: the one, that the foxes, made aware by this time of the love with which the Roman princes contemplate il loro brush, will send them a yearly tribute of a certain number of these appendages, on condition that they forthwith dismiss the dogs; the other, that the Dominicans, who are well known to be jealous of our movements, will come to regard hunting as an heretical sport, especially as here practised by Protestant dogs and riders—and in Lent, too, against orthodox foxes—and persuade the Pope to abolish it!

THE STEEPLE-CHASE.

In that grassy month of the Campagna, ere the sun has seared the standing herbage into hay—when anemones, cyclamens, crocuses, and Roman hyacinths, as prescient of the coming heat, lose no time in quickening, and burst out suddenly in myriads to cover the plain with their loveliness; while the towering ferula conceals the sandy rock whence it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays; and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas, how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked by unusual sounds in the street. These proceeded from the young Romans vociferating to their friends to bestir themselves to procure places at the steeple-chase programmed for this 14th of March. An hour before Aurora had opened her porte cochere to Phoebus, and those sleek piebald coursers whose portraits are to be seen in the Ludovisi and Ruspigliosi palaces, all the vetturini and cabmen of Rome had already opened theirs; and while some were adjusting misfitting harness to every specimen of horseflesh that could be procured for the occasion, others were trundling out from their black recesses in stable and coach-house, every mis-shapen vehicle that permitted of being fastened to their backs, in order to proceed out of the Porta Salara betimes. By six all Rome was awake, and by seven, in motion towards the race-course. On that memorable morning artists forewent their studies, the Sapienza its wisdom, the Roman college its theology; shopkeepers kept their windows closed; Italian masters barouched with their pupils, mouthed Ariosto, and seemed highly delighted; while the professions of law and physic sent as many of their members as public safety could spare. In short, it had been long ago settled that all the world would be present; and all the world was present, sure enough, and long before the time. It was a lively and a pleasing spectacle, to which novelty lent another charm, when, about two miles beyond the Salara gate, we looked from our double-lined procession of Broughams and Britskas, fore and aft, and saw, for miles, scattered over that usually deserted plain, groups of peasants in the gay costumes of the adjacent villages, now animating it in every direction; some emerging from under the arches of aqueducts, or the screen of ruined columbaria, alternately lost to sight and again rising above those abrupt dips in which the ground abounds, all tending in one direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity; sometimes watching the wheeling of those sporting characters, the Peregrine Hawks overhead, now listening to the warbling of the loudest lark music we ever remember to have heard; then exchanging a few words with some roadside acquaintance, and anon giving ourselves up exclusively to the silent enjoyment of the weather. We were kept long enough in all conscience, waiting till even the quietly expectant Romans, drilled by their church into habits of great forbearance, at length began to murmur aloud disapprobation, and we could hear one coachman ask another "Quando quel benidetto stippel-chess" was to be; while the respondent, shrugging his shoulders, growled out for answer a "Chi lo sa!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the Genius loci or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won. Some little buzz there is about unfairness and jockeyship, when we catch, from the mouth of our Anglo-Roman livery-stable-man, who chanced to be near, that "the osses is a-saddling." It took long to saddle; long to mount; and some time still before they started, during which interval

"The jockeys keep their horses on the fret, And each gay Spencer prompts the noisy bet, Till drops the signal; then, without demur, Ten horses start,—ten riders whip and spur; At first a line an easy gallop keep, Then forward press, to take th' approaching leap: Abreast go red and yellow; after these Two more succeed; one's down upon his knees; The sixth o'ertops it; clattering go two more, And two decline; now swells the general roar."

And every horse on the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head, and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,—four close together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap, not far from the last, and no refusals! Over and on again. Another! and this time three favourites are abreast, the fourth is a second behind, but may still be in, for he has cleared the fence and is coming up with the others; the motion appears smoother as they recede; the riders, diminished to the size of birds, are still seen gliding on—on:—

"No longer soon their colours can we trace, Lost in the mazy distance of the race Till at Salara's far-off bridge descried, Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide; Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course, Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse; Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray, They swerve, and back retrace their airy way."

At this point of the contest we cross the road—and there far away, two dots, a yellow and a blue one, are seen with increasing distinctness every second; which may be in advance of the other we cannot say, notwithstanding the clearness of the air; they seem, from where we stand, in the same line of distance; the coloured dots disappear momentarily behind a slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper; and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "Guardi il Verde;" "Per me guadagna il Giallo." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the Mill." "Done." "Who's riding the bay-mare?" "Mr A. for Lord G. and a pretty mess he's making of it." "Das ist wunderbar, nicht wahr?" "Ya, gut!" "Les Anglais savent manier leurs chevaux, parbleu!" "I'll be blowed if Lord G. don't win after all!" "Well, Miss Smith, I shall call for my gloves to-morrow." "Bravi tutti quanti!" "Cazzo! che cavalli!" "Forwartz! Forwartz." "Allons, Messieurs! avancez." "Allez! Allez!" "Guardi! Guardi!" And here a distant shout, fleeter in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards, reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last leap, the blue hesitates—the red springs into the air, drops d'aplomb, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to him, is near, nearer still; comes up—

"Then anxious silence breaks in deafening cries, His whip and spur each desperate rider plies; The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl, Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal; True to their blood, and frantic still to win, Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in; Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain In rival speed, a single inch to gain. Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad, Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load Just at the goal—one spur and it is done! The rowel'd Red starts forward, and has won!"

After this exploit, the red, green, and yellow liveries could have done what they would with the uninitiated Romans. Captain Cooke's arrival at Otaheite; the first steamer seen on the Nile; the introduction of gun and gunpowder amongst people hitherto hunting or making war with bow and arrow,—are only parallel cases of that enthusiasm mixed with awe, with which the Romans viewed the English gentleman jockeys on this day. They would have been delighted to have it over again six times, but had to learn that races (unlike songs) are never encored.

ROMAN DOGS.

A "dog's life" has become a synonym for suffering; nor does the associating him with another domestic animal (if a second proverbial expression may be trusted) appear to mend his condition; but ill as he may fare with the cat, his position is less enviable when man is co-partner in the menage, against whose kicks and hard usage should he venture upon the lowest remonstrative growl, he is sure to receive a double portion of both for his pains; and thus it has ever been, for the condition of a dog cannot have changed materially since the creation. Being naturally domestic in his habits, he was born to that contumely "which patient merit from the unworthy takes," and can never have known a golden age. "Croyez-vous," (demanda quelqu'un a Candide,) "que les hommes ont toujours ete rans?" "Croyez-vous," (repliqua Candide,) "que les eperviers ont toujours mange les pigeons." We entertain no more doubt of the one than of the other, and must therefore applaud the sagacity of Esop's wolf, who, when sufficiently tamed by hunger to think of offering himself as a volunteer dog, speedily changed his mind, on hearing the uses of a collar first fully expounded to him by Trusty. Not that every dog is ill-used; no; for every rule has its exception, and every tyrant his favourite. Man's selfishness here proves a safer ally than his humanity, and oft-times interposes to rescue the dog from those sufferings to which the race is subject. Thus in savage countries, where his strength may be turned to account, size and sinew recommend him to public notice and respect;

"——animalia muta Quis generosa putat nisi fortia"

while among civilised nations, eccentricity, beauty, cleverness, or love of sport, may establish him a lady's pet or a sportsman's companion. Happy indeed the dog born in the kennel of a park; no canister for his tail, no halter for his neck; physiologists shall try no experiments on his eighth pair of nerves; his wants are liberally supplied; a Tartar might envy him his rations of horseflesh, shut up with congenial and select associates with whom he courses twice a-week,

"Unites his bark with theirs; and through the vale, Pursues in triumph, as he snuffs the gale."

He enjoys himself thoroughly while in health, and when he is sick a veterinary surgeon feels his pulse, and prescribes for him in dog-Latin! Benign too the star, albeit the "dog star," under which are born those equal rivals in their mistress' heart, the silky-eared spaniel and the black-nosed pug, who sleep at opposite ends of a costly muff, lie on the sofa, bow-wow strangers round the drawing-room, and take their daily airing in the park! Nor are the several lots of the spotted dog from Denmark, who adds importance to his master's equipage; of the ferocious bull-dog, the Frenchman's and the butcher's friend; or of the quick-witted terrier from Skye, less enviable. But where caprice or interest do not plead for the dog, his condition is universally such as fully to justify the terms in which men speak of it. To see this exemplified, observe the misery of his life and death, in a country where he is neither petted nor employed. Throughout Italy, and particularly in Rome, (where we now introduce him to the reader,) he lives "to find abuse his only use;" to be hunted, and not to hunt; now dropping from starvation without the gates, and now the victim of poison within. Ye unkennelled scavengers of the Pincian Hill,—ye that have no master to propitiate the good Saint Anthony, on his birth-day, to bless, nor priest to asperse you with holy water, (in consequence of which omissions, no doubt, your plagues multiply upon you)—poor friendless wanderers, who come up to every lonely pedestrian, at once to remind him that it is not good for man to be alone, and to alleviate his solitude with your company; good-natured, rough, ill-favoured dogs, with whom our acquaintance has been extensive, dull indeed would the Pincian appear, were it deprived of your grotesque forms and awkward but well-meant gambols! The life of a Campagna sheep-dog, kept half starved in the sight of mutton which he dare not touch, is hard enough, but that of the members of this large, unowned republic more so. Hungry and gaunt as she-wolves, but with none of their fierceness, these poor animals seek the city gates, and, molesting nobody, find a foul and precarious subsistence from the Immondezze of the streets; but when their condition and appearance are improved, and they are beginning to think of an establishment, the fatal edict goes forth; nux vomica is triturated with liver, and the treacherous bocconi are strewn upon the dirt-heaps where they resort; the unsuspecting animals greedily devour the only meal provided for them by the State, and in a few hours experience the anguish of the slowly killing poison; an intense thirst urges them to the fountains, but the water only serves to dilute and render it more potent: their bodies swell, they totter, fall, try to recover their feet, but cannot; then piteously howling are carried off in the height of a titanic convulsion. Often on returning at this season from an evening party, we discern dark receding forms and hear voices too, "visae canes ululare per umbras," as they glide moaning away and are lost in the obscurity of the off streets. Occasionally they anticipate their doom, by premature madness, when the authorities issue orders to use steel, and sometimes fifty will perish in a single night. It is remarkable that notwithstanding these summary proceedings, the canine ranks, as Easter comes round again, are renewed for fresh destruction. Some few dogs of superior cunning contrive from year to year to elude these "Editti fulminanti," which make such havoc among their companions; these, by securing the favour and protection of the soldiers and galley-slaves of the district, obtain besides an occasional meal from the canteens, and plenary indulgence for themselves, and for an unsightly progeny, which they screen from public remark, and bring up amidst the latebrae of the brushwood; but aware at the same time of the precarious tenure by which such clandestine concessions must be held, they seek to keep alive the interest, exerted in their behalf, by the exhibition of many strange antics, evidently got up for the occasion, by affecting an extraordinary interest in man and his affairs, which they cannot feel, and by the display of a most obsequious gentleness, humouring, while they play with your favourite dog, and though his superior in strength, lying under on purpose to give him the advantage; but above all, they seek to make interest with the Pincian bonnes, whom they readily conciliate by withdrawing the attention of the children from any collateral object of interest which may engage theirs. Petted and patted by many little hands, which bongre malgre must give up their buns to his voracity, the large quadruped, in return for these snatched courtesies, follows the small urchin, who is learning to trundle his hoop, barking for it to proceed, and stopping when it stops. Any one observing their clever gambols and extreme docility, wishes straightway that their forms were less uncouth, and might next be tempted, as we were, to overlook external disadvantages, and to adopt one of the ragged pack in consideration of mental endowments; the experiment would fail if he made it; these animals resemble the uneducated negro, who shows to most advantage in difficulties—well housed, well fed, caressed, and cared for, both forget their master and the part he has taken in securing their prosperity. Stand forth, ungrateful Frate, while, for the reader's caution, and your own misconduct, we rehearse your history.

We met Frate at the end of the fever season upon the unhealthy heights of Otricoli; a poor lean beast, with a penetrating gray eye, rough brown coat, a tail with no grace in its rigid half curl, and an untidy grizzly white beard. We had halted to bait the horses, and finding nothing for ourselves, preceded the carriage, and were winding down the steep hill, when he came suddenly upon us through a break in the hedge, and having first looked all around and satisfied himself that no fellow town-dog was in sight, raised his ill-shaped head, barked an unmistakable "bon giorno;" then, turning tail on the city of his birth, ran on gambolling a few yards in front, to look back, bark again, and encourage us to proceed. "What an ugly brute! what a hideous dog!" but as he engages the attention of our party, these expressions become modified, and before reaching the bottom of the hill, nobody cares about the remains of Otricoli, nor looks any longer at the yellow reaches of the pestiferous Tiber, that was winding far along the plain; the dog alone occupies every thought. "Such a discerning creature! What clever eyes he has! See how well he understands what we are saying about him; suppose we take him on to Rome? We might get his grizzly beard shaved; his rough coat would become sleek after a month's good feeding, his legs could be clipped below the knees. Oh! he is full of capabilities. See! he is now acting Sphinx, and looking up at us, as if he could delve into what is passing in our minds, and would turn these vague suggestions to account." Suddenly he sprang to his feet, barked, and seemed much agitated; in a minute we, too, hear the sound of wheels, which his more acute ear had already caught; as the carriage approached, his excitement increased; at first he only barked back as if to entreat it not to come on so quickly, but as it plainly did not heed his civil remonstrance, the bow-wow became still more earnest in its expostulatory accents. Bōw (long) wŏw (short). "Why such haste?" Then he tried his eloquence upon us; and while reiterating his canine accidente in his own way at the horses now close at hand, his voice assumes an elegiac whine as he turns to supplicate, in a tone that none accustomed to Italian beggars can mistake; "non abbandonatemi," being plainly the purport of its most dolorous and plaintive accents. We hesitate, the carriage draws up, down go the steps, and lo! in a twinkling, our new friend has darted in before us, taken possession, and there he sits ready to kiss our hand. Such audacity was sure to succeed, so, letting him gently down from the steps we left him to follow if he chose. Follow! trust him for that! he bounded along the Appian way, barking to encourage the horses, coquetting with a favourite pony, and winning over our Joseph, by the time we had arrived at Civita Castellana, to let him remain in their company for the night. Next morning he starts betimes, nor permits the carriage to overtake him, till all fear of being sent back is removed, by our near approach to Rome. Arrived there, he at once finds his way to the livery stables, and establishes himself permanently with the horses. Throughout the winter, we take with good humour the flippant comments of flaneurs and over-fastidious friends, touching the bestowal of our patronage upon such an ill-favoured cur, while we thought ourselves the objects of his gratitude and affection; but Frate's character (we gave him this name from the length of his beard, the colour of his coat, and because he had lived upon alms) did not improve upon acquaintance. One bad trait soon showed itself, he refused to hold communication with the less-favoured dogs of the Pincian, turning a deaf ear to their advances, or if they yet persevered, meeting them with set teeth and an unamiable growl; as he filled out, his regard for his patrons diminished perceptibly; attentions bestowed on a smaller colleague excited his jealousy; and we began to believe the truth of a report circulated to his prejudice, that Frate was really on the look-out for a place where no other dog was kept, and where he might have it all his own way. No longer proud of notice, he seldom sought our society, but was glad to slink off whenever this could be done without observation. Toward the close of the winter, indeed, we were deceived by some renewed advances into the belief of a return of affection, which determined us, when we left Rome, to take him once more in our suite; we soon, however, found out our mistake. Already unprincipled in no ordinary degree, the society of the cafes and table-d'hotes at Lucca completed his corruption. His misconduct at last became town-talk, and his misdeeds were in every body's mouth; so, when he had lamed half-a-dozen labourers, scared the whole neighbourhood like a second Dragon of Wantley, and fought sundry battles with dogs as ugly, for Helens scarce better-looking than himself, we yielded to public remonstrance, and removing our protective collar from his unworthy neck, consigned him to a village sportsman, who hoped to turn his fierceness to account in attacking the wild-boar. With him Frate remained for about six weeks, by which time, tiring of the Cacciatore's rough handling, he had the temerity, two days before our departure, to present himself again at our door. Too much disgusted to receive him after what had passed, we showed him a whip from an open window, which to a dog of his sagacity was enough; in one instant he was on his legs, and in the next out of sight, but whether to return to the sportsman, or the mountain, or to seek and find a new master to cozen, we never heard, as this was our last visit to Lucca. The lesson inculcated by Frate's misconduct has not been lost upon us; so whenever any queer canine scarecrow now meets us on the Pincian, and by his dejected looks seeks to enlist our sympathy, we cut short the appeal, stare him in the face, and then utter the word "never" with sufficient emphasis to send him off shaking his head, as if a brace of fleas, or a "fulminating edict" from the governor were ringing in both ears.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Badham's Juvenal, Sat. 8.



SONG,

FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, AT EDINBURGH, 14th SEPTEMBER 1847, BEFORE HIS PROCEEDING TO INDIA AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

BY DELTA.

I.

Long, long ere the thistle was twined with the rose, And the firmest of friends now were fiercest of foes, The flag of Dalwolsey aye foremost was seen; Through the night of oppression it glitter'd afar, To the patriot's eye 'twas a ne'er-setting star, And with Bruce and with Wallace it flash'd through the fray, When "Freedom or Death" was the shout of the day, For the thistle of Scotland shall ever be green!

II.

A long line of chieftains! from father to son, They lived for their country—their purpose was one— In heart they were fearless—in hand they were clean; From the hero of yore, who, in Gorton's grim caves, Kept watch with the band who disdain'd to be slaves, Down to him, with the Hopetoun and Lynedoch that vied, Who should shine like a twin star by Wellington's side, That the thistle of Scotland might ever be green!

III.

Then a bumper to him in whose bosom combine All the virtues that proudly ennoble his line, As dear to his country, as stanch to his Queen; Nor less that Dalhousie a patriot we find, Whose field is the senate, whose sword is the mind, And whose object the strife of the world to compose, That the shamrock may bloom by the side of the rose, And the thistle of Scotland for ever be green!

IV.

It is not alone for his bearing and birth, It is not alone for his wisdom and worth, At this board that our good and our noble convene; But a faith in the blessings which India may draw From science, from commerce, religion, and law; And that all who obey Britain's sceptre may see That knowledge is power—that the truth makes us free; For rose, thistle, and shamrock, shall ever be green!

V.

A hail and farewell! it is pledged to the brim, And drain'd to the bottom in honour of him Who a glory to Scotland shall be and hath been: Untired in the cause of his country and crown, May his path be a long one of spotless renown; Till the course nobly rounded, the goal proudly won, Fame, smiling on Scotland, shall point to her son, For the thistle—Her thistle!—shall ever be green!



MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN.

"And you will positively marry her, if she will have you?"

"Not a doubt of either. Before this day fortnight she shall be Madame Van Haubitz."

"You will make her your wife without acquainting her with your true position?"

"Indeed will I. My very position requires it. There's no room for a scruple. She expects to live on my fortune; thinks to make a great catch of the rich Dutchman. Instead of that I shall spend her salary. The old story; going out for wool and returning shorn."

The conversation of which this is the concluding fragment, occurred in the public room of the Hotel de Hesse, in the village of Homburg on the Hill—an insignificant handful of houses, officiating as capital of the important landgravate of Hesse-Homburg. The table-d'hote had been over some time; the guests had departed to repose in their apartments until the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent band of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the brunnens of more or less nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and complexion bronzed by a tropical sun, entitled him to pass for a native of southern Europe, or even of some more ardent clime. Nevertheless he answered to the very Dutch patronymic of Van Haubitz, and was a native of Holland, in whose principal city his father was a banker of considerable wealth and financial influence.

It was towards the close of a glorious August, and for two months I had been wandering in Rhine-land. Not after the fashion of deluded Cockneys, who fancy they have seen the Rhine when they have careered from Cologne to Mannheim astride of a steam-engine, gaping at objects passed as soon as perceived; drinking and paying for indifferent vinegar as Steinberger-Cabinet, eating vile dinners on the decks of steamers, and excellent ones in the capital hotels which British cash and patronage have raised upon the banks of the flower of German streams. On the contrary, I had early dispensed with the aid of