ter, as a colourist is unquestionable; and in the parts wherein he excels, he is second to none. But as to his manner of treating allegories, he would have succeeded better, had he been more regular in his imitations of the ancients.

His taste in allegories plainly appears in a large work, all designed by himself, and published by Gevartius, consisting of a great variety of prints, most of which abound in imaginary figures. Among these are too many instances of his misrepresenting the allegorical persons of the ancients, and of his inventing others in an improper or confused

manner.

POUSSIN'S OLD AGE.

THE genius of Poussin seems to have gained vigour with age. Nearly his last works, which were begun in 1660, and sent to Paris 1664, were the four pictures allegorical of the seasons, which he painted for the Duc de Richelieu. He chose the terrestrial paradise, in all the freshness of creation, to designate spring. The beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth formed the subject of summer. Autumn was aptly pictured, in the two Israelites bearing the bunch of grapes from the Promised Land. But the master-piece was Winter, represented in the Deluge. This picture has been, perhaps, the most praised of all Poussin's works, A narrow space, and a very few persons have

sufficed him for this powerful representation of that great catastrophe. The sun's disk is darkened with clouds; the lightning shoots in forked flashes through the air: nothing but the roofs of the highest houses are visible above the distant water upon which the Ark floats, on a level with the highest mountains. Nearer, where the waters, pent in by rocks, form a cataract, a boat is forced down the fall, and the wretches who had sought safety in it are perishing: but the most pathetic incident is brought close to the spectator. A mother in a boat is holding up her infant to its father, who, though upon a high rock, is evidently not out of reach of the water, and is only protracting life a very little.

The long and honorable race of Poussin was now nearly run. Early in the following year, 1665, he was slightly affected by palsy, and the only picture of figures that he painted afterwards was the Samaritan Woman at the Well, which he sent to M. de Chantelou, with a note, in which he says,— "This is my last work; I have already one foot in the grave." Shortly afterwards he wrote the following letter to M. Felibien. "I could not answer the letter which your brother, M. le Prieur de St. Clementin, forwarded to me, a few days after his arrival in this city, sooner, my usual infirmities being increased by a very troublesome cold, which continues and annoys me very much. I must now

thank you not only for your remembrance, but for the kindness you have done me, by not reminding the prince of the wish he once expressed to possess some of my works. It is too late for him to be well served; I am become too infirm, and the palsy hinders me in working, so that I have given up the pencil for some time, and think only of preparing for death, which I feel bodily upon me. It is all

over with me."

CLAUDE LORRAINE'S EPITAPH.

CLAUDE LORRAINE is buried in the church of Trinita del Monte: his epitaph is as follows:D. O. M.

Claudio Gillee Lotharingo, ex loco de Champagna orto, Pictore eximio, qui ipsos orientis et occidentis solis radios in campestribus mirificè pingendis effinxit; hic, in urbe ubi artem coluit, summam laudem, inter magnates, consecutus est, obiit IX Kal. Decemb. 1682, ætatis suæ anno 82. Johannes et Josephus Gillee, Patrui carissimi, monumentum hoc sibi posterisque suis poni curarunt.

POUSSIN AND MENGS.

THE admirers of Raffaelle Mengs, jealous of Poussin's title of "the Painter of Philosophers," conferred on him the antithetical one of "the Philosopher of Painters;" and it cannot be denied that his writings and his pictures are learned. Yet he is a remarkable instance of the folly of learned

quackery: his reputation having now sunk as much below his deserts, as it was once raised above them.

THE BELVIDERE APOLLO.

(From the Oxford Prize Poems.)

NOTE.-The Apollo is in the act of watching the arrow with which he slew the serpent Python.

HEARD ye the arrow hurtle in the sky?

Heard ye the dragon monster's deathful cry?
In settled majesty of fierce disdain,

Proud of his might, yet scornful of the slain,
The heav'nly Archer stands-no human birth,
No perishable denizen of earth;

Youth blooms immortal in his beardless face,
A God in strength, with more than godlike grace;
All, all divine-no struggling muscle glows,
Through beaving vein no mantling life-blood flows,
But animate with deity alone,

In deathless glory lives the breathing stone.

Bright-kindling with a conqueror's stern delight,
His keen eye tracks the arrow's fateful flight;
Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire,
And his lip quivers with insulting ire:
Firm fix'd his tread, yet light, as when on high,
He walks th' impalpable and pathless sky:
The rich luxuriance of his hair, confin'd
In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind,
That lifts in sport his mantle's drooping fold,
Proud to display that form of faultless mould.
Mighty Ephesian!* with an eagle's flight
Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light,

Agasias of Ephesus,

View'd the bright conclave of Heav'n's blest abode,
And the cold marble leapt to life a God:
Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran,
And nations bow'd before the work of man.
For mild he seem'd, as in Elysian bowers,
Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours;
Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway
Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day;
Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep,
'Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.

Yet on that form, in wild delirious trance,
With more than rev'rence gaz'd the Maid of France.
Day after day the love-sick dreamer stood,

With him alone, nor thought it solitude;
To cherish grief, her last her dearest care,
Her one fond hope to perish of despair.
Oft as the shifting light her sight beguil❜d,
Blushing she shrunk, and thought the marble smil❜d:
Oft breathless list'ning heard, or seem'd to hear,
A voice of music melt upon her ear.

Slowly she wan'd, and cold and senseless grown,
Clos'd her dim eyes, herself benumb'd to stone.
Yet love in death a sickly strength supplied,
Once more she gaz'd, then feebly smil'd and died.

HENRY HART MILMAN,

Brazen-Nose College.

NOTE. The foregoing fact is related in the work of Mons. Pinel sur l'Insanité.

EDMUND BURKE AND A STUDENT IN ART.

THE following anecdote relative to the late Right Hon. Edmund Burke was communicated to the