SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Lucretia, or the Children of Night By the Author of "Menai," Eme.. &c. In three volumes Saunders ar.d 011sg. TuAvias, Travels In Lyda, Milyas, and the Cibyratts, in company with the late Rev. E. r. Daniell. By Lieutenant T. A. B. Sprat, R.N., F.G.S., of the Mediterranean Hydro. graphical Survey ; and Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S., of King's College, Loudon, and the Geological Survey, late Naturalist to H. M. Surveying-ship Beacon. In two volumes van voorsr.

The Sikhs and Afghans, in connexion with India and Persia, immediately before and after the Death of Runjeet Singh. From the Journal of an Expedition to Kabul, through the Punjaub and the Khaibar Pass. By Shahamat All, Persian Secretarr with the Mission of Lientenant-Colonel Sir C. M. Wade, C.B., to Peshawr, in l839,

&c Murray.

MISCELLANEOUS LITEIATURE,

Characteristics of Men ot Genius; a Series of Biographical, Historical, and Critical Essays, selected, by permission, chiefly from the North American Review. In two volumes Chapman, Brothers-.

SIR BULWRR LYTTON'S LUCRETIA.

THE rarity of those objects which may be considered as perfect in their kind is not only singular in itself, but curious as regards the apparent slightness of the causes which prevent the perfection. A spot in the marble, a flaw in the gem, destroys the value; many men, confidently expected to achieve greatness, never make the attempt from weakness of resolution, or, making it, fall short or fail from a deficiency of some- thing only found out when brought to the touchstone. Even those who have the sustained vigour and will to undertake great works and to carry them to a conclusion, and who display that peculiar force and vivacity of mind which we call genius, frequently mar the effects of their powers by what is held to be want of judgment, but is truly a. flaw, or an unhealthy state of mind—the poet's "lurking principle of death," which, growing with their growth and strengthening with their strength, destroys them for purposes of permanent fame. In depth and abstract justness of thought, in force of diction, and in the tangible parts of poetry—similes, imagery, metaphors, and that elevation of style which separates poetry from prose—Shakspere was equalled by some of his contemporaries ; in pure poetry, apart from its connexion with the events of life and the characters of men, perhaps he was excelled by Beaumont and Fletcher : but these writers, "wanting the truth and modesty of nature," and the appropriateness of the ideas to the concomi • tant circumstances, are "nowhere "now in the race of dramatic immor- tality, however popular in their own day. In a mistaken search after variety and interest, they took crime and vice, often of a most revolting kind, for their subjects ; their dramatis personae, partly as a consequence of this choice, partly as a continuation of the same mistaken principle, were of a like peculiar and extreme description. The writers may exhibitgreat skill in the morbid anatomy of the mind; grantipg all the circumstances to the poet, the persons and the events may be natural enough ; but they are only natural as deformity is natural. They have no general type in nature; they are exceptions, not rules ; and when the flush of novelty is over, and time has changed the fashion of the day, such pro- ductions stand rather as a warning than an example, if warning could have any power over native disposition. Of all that galaxy of genius which shone upon the close of Elizabeth's reign and upon the advent of the first Stuart., Ben Jonson is the best preserved: for although inferior to several of his rivals in poetry, animation, flexibility, and grace, his dramas are more broad and general ; the results of observation on life, albeit chiefly occupied on temporary customs, or of the learned and ac- curate though rather cumbrous embodiment of some of the great events of history.

Resembling several of the Elizabethan poets in the nature if not in the extent of genius,—brilliant, animated, gay, and wishing to please, rather than actually genial,—Sir Bulwer Lytton has the same species of moral:. unhealthiness of mind, so far as the age permits it to be developed. In a certain disposition for the extreme and exaggerated, for startling effects, and a theatrical manner of originating the incidents which are to in- fluence the conduct of his story, Sir Bulwer Lytton has companions enough ; but he stands alone, we think, in modern English literature, for an endeavour to produce high interest by means of revolting crime. In the first sketch of Pelham his catastrophe was brought about by the adminis- tration of drugs "with a view," and so forth : in the finished Pelham, one of the more serious parts of the action originates in a rape : Eugene Aram, though in point of composition among the ablest and most sustained of his works, was an endeavour to raise a murderer for money into an in- teresting philosopher; and more or less of a similar taint pervades many of his other productions. To such an extent does this morbid principle operate, that it affects his critical judgment. Alluding in his preface to the unnatural felonies which form the staple subjects of Lucretia or the Children of Night, and adding that the warning they contain may not seem to concern the reader, he goes on to intimate a parallel between these subjects and those of "Othello" and "Macbeth." But where is the pos- sible resemblance? In Lucretia, we have several poisonings, with a. "horrible murder" in the reporter's style, besides other smaller villanies ; the highest motive being a demoniacal spirit of revenge coupled with &- pecuniary object, which last alone animates all the rest. What has such businesslike and bloody crime in common with the lofty objects and "Su- pernatural soliciting" of Macbeth, or the necessity, though of his own creation, (wherein lies the moral) which impels lago to perpetrate crimes that he never intended at starting? The greater contains the less, but it can only contain things of its own nature. In Macbeth we have the moral of a guilty and indirect ambition, and (which was needed for the seventeenth ceniury) the danger of tampering with forbidden arts; but Othello, remote as it may look, has a wider sweep. Wherever there is a keen and worldly intellect, unrestrained by a sense of religion or of honour, recklessly pursuing its interests and gradually deepening in guilt till it falls into its own meshes—wherever there is an unequal connexion, whether ' of love or other intimacy, producing evils according to the circumstances and characters—wherever there is seemingly innocent deceit around the domestic hearth, laying up future grounds of distrust even with those in whose favour it may be exercised—(" She did deceive her father, marrying you")—there are to be found germs or fragments of some of the morals of Othello. The only moral contained in a felony is for felons ; and in such cases as those in the Causes Celebres or the collec- tions of Feuerbach, the "precept teaching by example" is very limited, because the criminals are mostly exceptions to the mass of their tribe, and rarely impelled into crime by the pressure of poverty, the influence of associates, or the necessities of a low profligate. Such are the persons in the book before us (two of them are said in the preface to be realities) —criminals by blood ; without sufficient motives for the crimes that they commit, beyond the impulses of a bad nature. The preface states that Sir Bulwer's intention was to point a moral against the prevalent impa- tience of the age and it love of money. But immoveable patience is the characteristic of Dalibard, the most elevated villain of the book ; and Lucretia's revenges are spread over some thirty years. Neither do we see that the age wants to be specially warned against murdering for money: we should rather point to mercantile gambling, reckless specula- tion, or fraudulent adventure.

The story of Lucretia consists of two divisions. A Frenchman, Dali- bard, appears as the hero of the first section ; his illegitimate son, Varney, of' the second ; but Lucretia, the heroine, figures through both. Dalibard is, luckily for society, not a common character, nor perhaps very likely to exist at all, in his gratuitous villany, his utter want of human feeling, his profound, searching, and patient intellect, his complete possession of mo- ral and his entire want of physical courage. But as a metaphysical crea- tion, he is delineated with considerable skill—a coherent moral monster, painted with clearness of outline, strength of features, and conjoint power and delicacy of touch. Engaged in the Reign of Terror, and quitting France on the death of Robespierre, Dalibard becomes librarian to an old English baronet, and tutor to his niece and adopted heiress, Lucretia ; a mind, it would seem, superior in power and penetration to his own, since ahe fathoms his designs upon her heart and fortune, and to some ex- tent uses him as her instrument. As much care has been bestowed upon Lucretia as upon Dalibard, but without the same success. Her preco- cious worldliness and hardness of heart—the want of feminine delicacy in a young woman making love to the handsome weak-minded Mainwaring- the coolness with which she contemplates her uncle's death, and does not even shrink from the idea of his murder—are alike revolting and unna- tural: and though Sir Bulwer says he has founded his character on fact, we must take leave to doubt it ; for the original was a Frenchwoman ; and neither English circunastances nor, we think, English blood, would he likely to produce a modern English gentlewoman capable of Lucretia's simes, though the records of jurisprudence may show that foreign women are. However, she is baffled by fortune and the arts of Dalibard. Through his secret agency, her treacherously clandestine correspondence with Mainwaring is discovered ; her uncle cuts her off with a legacy and only a third succession to the estate; through Dalibard's means, she dis- covers that Mainwaring has weakly submitted to her fascinations, not yielded her his love, which is given to her younger sister ; and, defeated and solitary, she gives her hand to Dalibard. After the marriage, they go to France; Dalibard intending to push his way under Bonaparte, then First Consul: but little use is made of that singular state of French society. Having treacherously detected the plot of Cadoudal, Dalibard seems, on the high road to fortune : his actions, however, are confined to poisoning a rich relation ha order to inherit his wealth; and, having per- petrated the crime without reaping its fruit, he attempts to poison Lucre- tia, in order to marry the relation's widow. Warned, however, by master Varney of his amiable papa's designs, Lucretia forestalls the mur- derer, by betraying her husband to a devoted follower of Cadoudal, who has sworn revenge. There is some relief to these transplanted horrors of the modern French romance in pictures of a more natural and healthy kind. Sir Miles St. John is a good portrait of the old English gentleman ; whom the French Revolution rather hardened than changed in his regard for birth, less as a pride than as a family duty, and whose kindness of heart and high sense of honour were rather incrusted than destroyed by his prejudices. His nephew, Vernon—a rake of the Prince of Wales's school, but with his feelings unscathed and his honour untarnished—is a finished sketch of another phase of the English gentleman, interesting in itself, and furnish- ing a relief much needed to the pure villanies of Lucretia and Dalibard; though both persons are less an imitation of nature than a combination of what the author has observed, with his own notions of the natural super- added. The lesser characters, if not very striking, are at least probable and healthy ; and the composition is matured. There seems to be greater effect produced with less straining than in Sir Bulwer's earlier works— the outline more decided, the touch more clear; though in one or two places he falls into the habit of writing, and would seem to have imitated Mr. Dickens's artifices of composition. The "curtain drops" on the first part with the murder of Dalibard. More than a quarter of a century has elapsed when it rises again ; and the objects proposed by Lucretia and her confederate Varney, now a middle- aged artist, parasite, profligate, and sharper, are to murder Vernon's son and Lucretia's sister's daughter, in order to get possession of the estate under the third entail. Lucretia has also a yearning to discover a son by a second marriage, who has been carried off in infancy,—a stale and hackneyed trick of the older novelists, which Sir Lytton has already imi- tated in Paul Clfiford ; and which son is found as a street-sweeper, under circumstances more improbable than is usual in the most extrava- gant fictions, just in time to denounce the crimes of his mother, be poisoned by her through the means of a ring, die at her feet at the mo- ment of recognition, and drive Lucretia mad by his death. To enter at leWlth itito a consideration of this second part, would be a misapplication of criticism. There is no keeping in the work. Lucretia, the proud, high-born, intellectual, and scholarly beauty, is represented marrying a fraudulent fanatic after Dalibanffs death, for no other reason than to bring about an exaggerated denouement. Varney, who is painted in the outset as an incarnation of cruelty and malice, becomes in the second part the pleasant, unprincipled, accommodating swindler and parasite, who at all times abounds among the professors of the lower and sensual fine arts ; the murderous disposition being stuck upon him. The lover and his mistress are insignificant, the other characters uninteresting ; the low scenes in St. Giles's mere fade repetitions of the extravagancies of Pel- ham, and the Cockney dialect of the sweeper pure caricature. The greater maturity of mind in the style here tells to disadvantage in contrast with the poverty, staleness, or extravagance of the matter ; and the pure rhetorical passages are forced. We miss alike the vivacity of youth and the sober strength of confirmed manhood. A species of novelty in structure is attained by giving to each part what the author calls a "prologue" and an " epilogue,"—a sort of opening and winding-up chapters. The first is a good introduction, which well touches the key-note of the piece. The reader is led to infer that young Varney is the son of a dancer, who is false to Dalibard in favour of a young noble who visits her in disguise ; while Dalibard, by his intimacy with Robespierre, brings both to the guillotine. As an ex- ample of rare effect, the author makes Dalibard carry his young son to see the execution of his mother ! The composition, however, is powerful . without effort. The bearing of the victims is thus described.

"The crowd now abruptly gave way. The tumbril was in sight. A man, young and handsome, standing erect and with folded arms in the fatal vehicle, looked along the mob with an eye of careless scorn. Though he wore the dress of a workman, the most unpractised glance could detect in his mien and bearing one of the hated noblesse, whose characteristics came out even more forcibly at the hourof death. On the lip was that smile of gay and insolent levity, on the brow that gallant if reckless contempt of physical danger, which had signalised the hero coxcombs of the old regime. Even the rude dress was wore with a certain air of foppery, and the bright hair was carefully adjusted as if for the holyday of the headsman. As the eyes of the young noble wandered over the fierce faces of that horrible assembly, while a roar of hideous triumph answered the look, in which for the last time the gentilhomme spoke his scorn of the canaille, the child's father lowered the collar of his cloak, and slowly raised his hat from his brow. The eye of the Marquis rested upon the countenance thus abruptly shown to hint, and which suddenly became individualized among the crowd: that eye instantly lost its calm contempt. A shudder passed visibly over his frame, and his cheek grew blanched with terror. The mob saw the change, but not the cause, and loud and louder rose their triumphant yell. The sound recalled the pride of the young noble; he started—lifted his crest erect, and sought again to meet the look which had appalled him. But he could no longer single it out among the crowd. Hat and cloak once more hid the face of the foe, and crowds of eager heads intercepted the view. Theyoung Marquis's lips muttered; he bent down; and then the crowd caught tight of his companion, who was being lifted up from the bottom of the tumbril, where she had firing herself in horror and despair. The crowd grew still in a moment, as the pale face of one, familiar to most of them, turned wildly from place to place is the dreadful scene, vainly and madly through its silence, im- ploring life and pity. How often had the sight of that face, not then pale and haggard, but wreathed with rosy smiles, sufficed to draw down the applause of the crowded theatre I how, then, had those breasts, now fevered by the thirst of blood, held hearts spell-bound by the airy movements of that exquisite form, writhing now in no stage-mime agony! Plaything of the city—minion to the light amusement of the hour—frail child Cytherea and the Graces—what relentless fate has conducted thee to the shambles? Butterfly of the summer, why Leonid a nation rise to break thee upon the wheel? A sense of the mockery of such an execution, of the horrible burlesque that would sacrifice to the necessities of a mighty people so slight an offering, made itself felt among the crowd. 'fliers was a low murmur of shame and indignation. The dangerous sympathy of the mob was perceived by the officer in attendance. Hastily he made the sign to the headsman; and, as he did so, a child's cry was beard in the English tongue- ' Mother—mother!' The father's hand grasped the child's arm with an iron pressure; the crowd swam before the boy's eyes; the air seemed to stifle him, and, become blood-red: only through the hum, and the tramp, and the roll of the drums, he heard a low voice hiss in his ear= Learn how they perish who betray' ' me!'

"As the father said these words, again his face was bare; and the woman whose ear, amidst the dull insanity of fear, had caught the cry of her child's voice, saw that face, and fell back insensible in the arms of the headsman."

We will give another example of the more intense parts—the situation of the married pair after young Varney has warned Lucretia.

"A few days more, and Gabriel is gone. Wife and husband are alone with each other. Lucretia has refused to depart. Then that mute coma of horror! that suspense of two foes in the conflict of death—for the subtle prying eye of Olivier Dalibard sees that he himself is suspected—further he shuns from sitting Glance fastens on glance, and then hurries smilingly away. From the cup grins. a skeleton—at thehoard warns a spectre. But how kind still the w rds, end bow gentle the tone! and they lie down side by aide in the marriage-bed—brain plot- ting against brain, heart loathing heart. It is a duel of life and death between those sworn through life and beyond death at the altar; but it is carried On with all the forms and courtesies of duel in the age of chivalry. No conjugal wrangling—no slip of the tongue; the oil is on the surface of the wave—the mon- sters in the hell of the abyss war invisibly below. At length a dull torpor creeps over the woman; she feels the taint in her veins—the slow victory is begun. What mattered all her vigilance and caution? Vainly glide from the fangs of the serpent—his very breath suffices to destroy ! Pare seems the drenght and wholesome the viand—that master of the science of murder needs not the means of the bungler! Then, keen and strong from the creeping lethargy started the fierce instinct of self and the ruthless impulse of revenge. Not too late yet to escape; for those subtile banes that are to defy all detection work but slowly to their end.

"One evening, a woman, closely mantled, stood at watch by the angle of a wall. The light came dim and muffled from the window of a call hard at band. the reflection slept amidst the shadows on the dark pavement, and, save a solitary lamp, swung at a distance in the vista over the centre of the narrow street, no other ray broke the gloom. The night was clouded and starless, the wind moaned in gusts, and the rain fell heavily: but the gloom and the loneliness did not appal the eye, and the wind did not chill the heart, and the rain fell unheeded on the head of the woman at her post. At times she paused in her slow sentry-like pace to and fro to look through the window of the cafe, and her gaze fell always on one figure seated apart from the rest. At length, her pulse beat more quickly, and the patient lips smiled sternly. The figure had risen to depart. A man came out, and walked quickly up the street: the woman approached; and when the man was under the mingle lamp swung aloft, he felt his arm touched; the woman was at his side, and looking steadily into his face--

"'You are Pierre Guillot, the Breton, the friend of George CadoudaL Will you be his avenger?' "The Chotian's first impulse bad been to place his hand in his vest; and some- thing shone bright in the lamplight, clasped in those iron fingers. The voice and the manner reassured him, and he answered readily, " • I am be whom you seek; and I only live to avenge.' "'Read, then, and act answered the woman; and she placed a paper in his bands."

The following scene, in a quieter and more natural style, will give a sample of Sir Miles St. John's character. His sister, the mother of Lu- cretia, has displeased him by a second marriage : on her husband's death, a clergyman, the benevolent machinery of the work, calls upon Sir Miles with the news, and to consult him on the future circumstances of the child.

"The next morning, Sir Miles took the priest's arm, and walked with him into the gardens. "'Mr. Fielden,' he said, with the air of a man who has chosen his course and deprecates all attempt to make him swerve from it, 'if I followed my own selfish wishes, I should take home this poor child. Stay, sir, and hear me: I am no hypocrite and I speak honestly. Hike young faces—I have no family of my own; I love Lucretia, and I am proud of her; but a girl brought up in adversity might be a better nurse, and a more docile companion—let that pass. I have re- flected, and I feel that I cannot set to Lucretia—set to children unborn —the example of indifference to a name degraded and a race adulterated: you may call this pride, or prejudice—I view it differently. There are duties due from an individual, duties due from a nation, duties due from a family: as my ancestors thought, so think I. They left me the charge of their name, as the fief-rent by which I hold their lands. 'Sdeath, sir !— pardon me the expletive—I was about to say, that if I am now a childless old man, it is because I have myself known temptation, and resisted. I loved, and denied myself what I believed my best chance of happiness, because the object of say attachment was not my equal: that was a bitter struggle—I triumphed; and I rejoice at it, though the result was to leave all thoughts of wedlock elsewhere odious and repugnant. These principles of action have made a part of my creed as gentleman, if not as Christian. Now to the point. I beseech you to find a fitting and reputable home for Miss—Miss Mivers (the lip slightly curled as the name was said)—I shall provide suitably for her maintenance. When she mar- ries, I will dower her, provided only, and always, that her choice full upon one who will not still further degrade her lineage on her mother's side—in a word, if she se- lect a gentleman. Mr. Fielden, on this subject I have no more to say.' "In vain the good clergyman, whose very conscience, as well as reason, was shocked by the deliberate and argumentative manner with which the baronet had treated the abandonment of his sister's child as an absolutely moral, almost re- ligious duty; in vain he exerted himself to repel such sophisms and put the mat- ter in its true light. It was easy for him to move Sir Miles's heart--that was ever gentle—that was moved already ; but the crotchet in his head was impregnable. The more touchingly he painted poor Susan's unfriended youth, her sweet character, and promising virtues, the more Sir Miles St. John considered himself a martyr to his pnnciples, and the more obstinate in the martyrdom he became. Poor thing ! poor child ! he said often and brushed a tear from his eyes; athousand pities! Well, well, I hope she will be happy ! Mind, money shall never stand in ;the way if she have a suitable offer ! "Ilia was all the worthy clergyman, after an hour's eloquence, could extract from him. Out of breath, and out of patience, hekgave in at last; and the baronet, still bolding his reluctant arm, led him back towards the house. After a prolonged pause, Sir Miles said abruptly, 'I have been thinking that I may have unwittingly injured this man—this Idiverswhile I deemed only that he injured me. As to reparation to his daughter, that is settled; and, after all, though I do not publicly acknowledge her, she is half my own niece.'

" ' Half '

"'Half—the father's side don't count, of course; and, rigidly speaking, the re- lationship is, perhaps, forfeited on the other. However, that half of it I grant. &eke, sir, I say, I grant it I—I beg you ten thousand pardons for my vehemence. To return: perhaps I can show at least that I bear no malice to this poor doctor. He has relations of his own—silk-mercers. Trade has reverses. How are they off?' " Perfectlyperplexed by this very contradictory and paradoxical, yet, to one better acquainted with Sir Miles, very characteristic benevolence, Fielden was some time before he answered. Those members of Dr. Myers's family who are in trade are sufficiently proaperous; they have paid his debts; they, Sir Miles, will receive his daughter.'

"

'By no means,' cried Sir Miles, quickly: then recovering himself, he added, sor if you think that advisable, of course all interference on my part is withdrawn.' " 'Festina lentel—not so quick, Sir Miles. I do not yet say that it is advi- sable: not because they are silk-mercers--the which, I humbly conceive, is no sin to exclude them from gratitude for their proffered kindness—but because Susan, poor child having been brought up in different habits, may feel a little strange, at least at first, with —'

"'Strange—yea; I should hope so!' interrupted Sir Miles, taking snuff with much energy."

The best parts of the book are dialogues like the above, where the story is carried out and the character developed at the same time; or incidental descriptions and remarks; or sketches of actual life in its extremes. Of this kind is the picture of the elder Varney, the artist, the brother of the actress and uncle of Dalibard's son ; whose fullest appearance is on this occasion.

"A painter stood at work at the easel, his human model before him. He was employed on a nymph—the nymph Galatea. The subject bad been taken before by Selvator; whose genius found all its elements in the wild rocks, gnarled fan- tastic trees, and gushing waterfalls of the landscape; in the huge ugliness of Poly- phemus the lover, in the grace and suavity and unconscious abandonment of the n ymph, sleeking her tresses dripping from the bath. The painter, on a larger canvass, (for Salvator'e picture, at least the one we have seen, is among the small sketches of the great artistic creator of the romantic and grotesque,) had trans- ferred the subject of the master; but he had left subordinate the landscape and the giant, to concentrate all his art on the person of the nymph. Middle-aged was the painter, in truth; but he looked old. His hair, though long, was grey and thin; his face was bloated by intemperance; and his band trembled much, though from habit no trace of the tremor was visible in his work.

".A boy, near at hand, was also employed on the same subject, with a rough chalk and a bold freedom of touch. He was sketching his design of a Galatea and Polyphemus on the wall: for the wall was only whitewashed, and covered already with the multiform vagaries whether of master or pupils; caricatures and demi- gods, hands and feet, torsos and monsters, and Venuses—the rude creations, all mutilated, jarring, and mingled, gave a cynical mocking, devil-may-care kind of aspect to the sanctum of art. It was like the dissection-room of the anatomist. The boy's sketch was more in harmony with the walls of the studio than the can- vas of the master. His nymph, accurately drawn from the undressed propor- tions of the model down to the waist, terminated in the scales of a fish. The forked branches of the trees stretched weird and imp-like as the hands of skele- tons. Polyphemus, peering over the rocks, had the leer of a demon; and in his gross features there was a certain distorted, hideous likeness of the grave and symmetrical lineaments of Olivier Dalibard "All around was slovenly, squalid, and poverty-stricken; riCkery, worn-out, rush-bottom chairs; unsold, unfinished pictures pell-mell in the corner, covered with dust; broken casts of plaster • a lay-figure 'battered in its basket-work arms, with its doll-like face, all smudged and besmeared: a pot of porter and a noggin of gin on a stained deal table, accompanied by two or three broken, smoke- blackened p'pes, some tattered song-books, and old numbers of the Covent Gar- den Magazine,' betrayed the tastes of the artist, and accounted for the shaking band and the bloated form. A jovial, disorderly, vagrant dog of a'painter, was Tom Varney ! a bachelor of course—humorous and droll—a boon companion, and a terrible borrower: clever enough in his calling; with pains and some method, he had easily gained subsistence and established a name; but he had one trick that soon ruined him in the business-part of his profession. He took a fourth his price in advance; and having once clutched the money, the poor customer might go hang for his picture! The only things Tom Varney ever fairly completed were those for which no order had been given; for in them, somehow or other, his fancy became interested, and on them he lavished the gusto which he really possessed. But the subjects were rarely saleable. Nymphs and deities undraperied, have few worshippers in England amongst the buyers of 'furniture pictures.' And, to say truth, nymph and deity had usually a very equivocal look; and if they came from the gods, you would swear it was the gods of the galleries of Drury. His most profitable performances were small paintings on ivory, which were caught at by jewellers, and sold, in snuff-boxes to elderly gentlemen. When Tom Varney sold a picture' he lived upon clover tilt the money was gone. Gay time for his models; for he had the weakness, unbecoming an artist, to fall in love with his Fornarinas; and as he had not the personal graces of Raffaelle, the Fornarinas were expensive bonnes fortunes. But the poorer and less steady alumni of the rising school, especially those at war with the Aeadeniy from which Varney was excluded, pitied, despised, yet liked and courted him withal. In addition to his good qualities of blithe song-singer, droll story-teller, and stanch Bacchanalian, Tom Varney was liberally goodnatiired in communica- ting instruction really valuable to those who knew how to avail themselves of a knowledge he had made almost worthless to himself. He was a shrewd, though ' goodnatured critic, had many little secrets of colouring and composition, which an invitation to supper, or the loan of ten shillings, was sufficient to bribe from him. Ragged, out of elbows, unshaven, and slipshod, he still had his set, amongst the gay and the young—a precious master, a profitable set, for his nephew, Mas- ter Honori Gabriel! But the poor rapscallion had a heart larger than many honest painstaking men. As soon as Gabriel had found him out, and entreated refuge from his fear of his father, the painter clasped him tight in his great slovenly arms, sold a Venus half-price, to buy him a bed and a wash-stand, and swore a tremendous oath, 'that the son of his poor guillotined sister should share the last shilling in his pocket—the last drop in his can.'"