utterly unbecoming the character it professes to represent. But I will say no more about it. The Bath of Seneca is one of Luca Jordano's best performances, and has considerable interest and effect. Among other historical designs, there is one of Jacob's Dream, with the angels ascending and descending on a kind of stairs. The conception is very answerable to the subject; but the execution is not in any high degree spirited or graceful. The mind goes away no gainer from the picture. Rembrandt alone perhaps could add any thing to this subject. Of him it might be said that "his light shone in darkness!"-The wreaths of flowers and foliage carved in wood on the wainscots and cieling of many of the rooms, by the celebrated Grinling Gibbons in Charles the Second's time, shew a wonderful lightness and facility of hand, and give pleasure to the eye. The other ornaments and curiosities I need not mention, as they are carefully pointed out by the housekeeper to the admiring visitor. There are two heads, however, (one of them happens to have a screen placed before it) which I would by no means wish any one to pass over, who is an artist, or feels the slightest interest in the art. They are, I should suppose unquestionably, the original studies by Raphael of the heads of the Virgin and Joseph in his famous picture of the Madonna of the Crown. The Virgin is particularly beautiful, and in the finest preservation,

as indeed are all his genuine pictures. The canvas is not quite covered in some places; the colours are as fresh as if newly laid on, and the execution is as firm and vigorous as if his hand had just left it. It shews us how this artist wrought. The head is, no doubt, a highlyfinished study from nature, done for a particular purpose, and worked up according to the painter's conception, but still retaining all the force and truth of individuality. He got all he could from Nature, and gave all he could to her in return. If Raphael had merely sketched this divine face on the canvas from the idea in his own mind, why not stamp it on the larger composition at once? He could work it up and refine upon it there just as well, and it would almost necessarily undergo some alteration in being transferred thither afterwards. But if it was done as a careful copy from Nature in the first instance, the present was the only way in which he could proceed, or indeed by which he could arrive at such consummate excellence. The head of the Joseph (leaning on the hand and looking down) is fine, but neither so fine as the companion to it, nor is it by any means so elaborately worked up in the sketch before us.

I am no teller of stories; but there is one belonging to Burleigh-House, of which I happen to know some of the particulars. The late Earl of Exeter had been divorced from his first wife, a woman of fashion, and of somewhat more

gaiety of manners than "lords who love their ladies like." He determined to seek out a second wife in an humbler sphere of life, and that it should be one who, having no knowledge of his rank, should love him for himself alone. For this purpose, he went and settled incognito (under the name of Mr. Jones) at Hodnet, an obscure village in Shropshire. He made overtures to one or two damsels in the neighbourhood, but they were too knowing to be taken in by him. His manners were not boorish, his mode of life was retired, it was odd how he got his livelihood, and at last, he began to be taken for a highwayman. In this dilemma he turned to Miss Hoggins, the eldest daughter of a small farmer, at whose house he lodged. Miss Hoggins, it might seem, had not been used to romp with the clowns; there was something in the manners of their quiet, but eccentric guest that she liked. As he found that he had inspired her with that kind of regard which he wished for, he made honourable proposals to her, and at the end of some months, they were married, without his letting her know who he was. They set off in a post-chaise from her father's house, and travelled homewards across the country. In this manner they arrived at Stamford, and passed through the town without stopping, till they came to the entrance of Burleigh-Park, which is on the outside of it. The gates flew open, the chaise entered, and drove up the

long avenue of trees that leads up to the front of this fine old mansion. As they drew nearer to it, and she seemed a little surprised where they were going, he said, "Well, my dear, this is Burleigh-House; it is the home I have promised to bring you to, and you are the Countess of Exeter!" It is said, the shock of this discovery was too much for this young creature, and that she never recovered it. It was a sensation worth dying for. The world we live in was worth making, had it been only for this. Ye Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments! hide your diminished heads! I never wish to have been a lord, but when I think of this story.

PICTURES

AT

OXFORD AND BLENHEIM.

ROME has been called the "Sacred City:"might not our Oxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the "hill of ages ;" and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze from afar, "with glistening spires and pinnacles adorned," that shine with an eternal light as with the lustre of setting suns ; and a dream and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought, conscious of the weight of yearnings innumerable after the past, of loftiest aspirations for the future: Isis babbles of the Muse, its waters are from the springs of

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