lantly if not splendidly habited, and a motley gathering of the learned and the witty, the gay and the grave, who surrounded him. He was constantly accompanied in these walks on the Pincio by the most eminent virtuosi, poets, musicians, and cavaliers in Rome; all anxious to draw him out on a variety of subjects, when air, exercise, the desire of pleasing, and the consciousness of success, had wound him up to his highest pitch of excitement; while many, who could not appreciate, and some who did not approve, were still anxious to be seen in his train, merely that they might have to boast “nos quoque."

From the Pincio, Salvator Rosa was generally accompanied home by the most distinguished persons, both for talent and rank; and while the frugal and penurious Poussin was lighting out some reverend prelate or antiquarian with one sorry taper, Salvator, the prodigal Salvator, was passing the evening in his elegant gallery, in the midst of princes, nobles, and men of wit and science, where he made new claims on their admiration, both as an artist and as an improvisatore; for till within a few years of his death he continued to recite his own poetry, and sing his own compositions to the harpsichord or lute.

CURIOUS PICTURES BY ALBERT DÜRER.

THE Imperial Gallery at Vienna contains four

teen paintings by Dürer, in which it excels any other collection in number and beauty, viz. two sketches on gray paper, one of Samson's acts, the other of the Resurrection; an altar-piece representing the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus sitting on her knee, under a tree; two others of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus on her knee; the emperor, Maximilian I., taken in the year in which he died: a holy Virgin, with a naked Christ in her arms; and spiritual and emblematical representation of the universal adoration of the Trinity; Christian martyrs; an ancient portrait; a Virgin Mary, with the infant Jesus at her breast, a portrait of a fat, handsome man; also from the school of Dürer; the life, miracles, and sufferings of Christ, on eighty-five tablets, mostly painted on both sides; the adoration of the Magi; and a portrait of a young man.

ARCHITECTURE OF ST. PETERSBURG.

ST. PETERSBURG is distinguished by a fine irregularity, or rather by a varied regularity, which gives it a great charm. Its streets are wide and well lighted. The eye is not here fatigued by chilling and monotonous straight lines, where the vision is continually lost in perspective; each street is in itself straight and regular, but its junction with others is varied by angles of all kinds. Compared with Paris, or Berlin, St. Petersburg has few

grand squares; that of the Winter Palace is singularly fine; environed by a single colossal edifice of the finest and most noble architecture, its effect is magnificent and imposing. In the square of Peter the Great, which is but a prolongation of the square of Isaac, the eye is struck at once by the Palace of the Senate, the New Admiralty, which strikes with admiration, the superb statue of the Czar Peter I, executed in the finest style of the antique by Falconet, bearing this modest inscription-PETRO PRIMO, CATHARINA SECUNDA, the view of numerous brilliant edifices situated by the side of the river: the Field of Mars between the two summer gardens is very fine and spacious, but is neither paved nor surrounded by fine houses; the fine bronze statue of Suwarrow, and the majestic obelisk of Romanzoff, the conqueror of the Turks, form two of its most striking beauties.

DEATH OF TORRIGIANO.

TORRIGIANO, the Florentine, after enriching the cities of Andalusia with several pieces of sculpture not unworthy the disciple and rival of Michael Angelo, was condemned to death by the Inquisition, and expired in the prison of Seville, under the horrors of an approaching execution, in the year 1522. This eminent sculptor had undertaken to carve a Madona and child of the natural size, for a Spanish grandee; it was to be made after the model

of one which he had already executed, and promise was given him of a reward proportioned to the merit of his work. His employer was one of the first grandees in Spain, and Torrigiano, who conceived highly of his generosity, and well knew what his own talents could perform, was determined to out-do his former production. The ingenious artist with much pains and application completed it, and presented to his employer a matchless piece of sculpture, the utmost effort of his art. The grandee surveyed the striking performance with great delight and reverence; he applauded Torrigiano to the skies: and impatient to possess himself of the enchanting idol, forthwith sent to demand the delivery of it. At the same time, to display his generosity, he loaded two lacqueys with the money; the bulk at least was promising, but when Torrigiano examined the bags, and found the specie within nothing better than a parcel of brass maravedi, amounting only to the paltry sum of thirty ducats, vexation at this sudden disappointment of his hopes, and just resentment for what he considered as an insult to his merit, so fired him, that, snatching up his mallet in a rage, and not regarding the perfection, or (what to him was of more fatal consequence) the sacred character of the image he had made, he broke it suddenly in pieces, and dismissed the lacqueys with their load of farthings to tell the tale. They executed their errand too well. The

grandee, filled with shame, vexation and revenge, and assuming horror for the sacrilegious nature of the act, presented himself before the Court of Inquisition, and impeached the unhappy artist at that terrible tribunal. It was in vain that poor Torrigiano urged the right of an author over works of his own creation. Reason pleaded on his side, but superstition sat in judgment; the decree was death with torture; but the Holy Office lost its victim. Torrigiano expired under the horrors, not under the hands, of the executioner.

ALBERT DURER'S DRAWINGS.

AMONG the papers which Dürer left behind him, were many very valuable relics of his genius, and especially the drawings he executed with the pen, a method he was in the habit of using, to sketch his passing ideas, which he thus traced very happily and finely; and however intricate and involved the strokes might be, they seldom produced the least confusion. The heads are extremely beautiful, and here and there have dotted lines to express the folds of the skin. Whereas the folds of the drapery hang down straight as lines, close to each other, and a certain dry Gothic taste reigns throughout these parts, which are in general infallible marks whereby to know his works. More genius appears in his slight sketches than in his copper-plates, but both are in the same style. In