des Orfèvres. We proceeded immediately to her jeweller's. She mentioned what I wanted, the caution given me respecting the genuineness of the benediction, my being a heretic and therefore without discrimination in those things-all in that tone of delicate banter which French women can assume with so much tact and fascination. As we were leaving the shop with my assortment of holy relics in a small box, I noticed Sophie (for so my lovely friend was named) looking at a small watch, one of those usually worn by French women, suspended from the neck. I asked her to let me see it. She gave it to me, observing that her attention had been fixed by the painting of St. George, our patron, spearing the Dragon, on the cover. The painting was really pretty. I purchased the watch for a few Napoleons, and presented it to Sophie. She declined accepting it, and declared that she would have prevented my purchasing it, but that she thought I designed it for a present à ma bien-aimée in England. I urged her to give that proof of her confidence and esteem-which she no longer denied me. I perceived that she wore no chain, and asked the jeweller to produce some from which to choose. To this she objected in a decisive tone-desired the jeweller at the same time to let her see some chains of a particular workmanship and value-selected one the most costly and superb -passed it round her neck with the watch suspended from it-and looking at me with a smile significant of soul and sentiment beyond the power of language to express, hid the happy bauble in one of the loveliest bosoms in the world. I would make one remark here for the benefit of my countrymen: he who aspires to please French women must assume, if he has not, the virtue of generosity. They will receive" tokens of affection" from " a chosen friend," but without disenchanting the sex of its delicacy, or sentiment of its disinterestedness. Sophie was an epitome of all that is most charming in her countrywomen. I think I first loved her for a certain accordance of her character with her name, which, in Greek, conveys a sedate propriety of female demeanour that reminds one of Minerva,-relieved, however, in the demeanour of Sophie, by delightful alternations of French vivacity and playfulness. The thought struck me one evening in her society that she resembled Hebe acting the part of Minerva, for the entertainment of the court of Olympus. I addressed her a copy of verses, which turned upon this idea. Never were verses or poet in higher vogue. All the world met me with compliment and congratulation. But there is no glory without its alloy. Mine certainly was not. In the first place, the auditors scarcely understood a syllable of what they praised, and, even if they did, my unhappy verses were declaimed by a pigeon-headed voltigeur, who, after twenty-five years emigration passed in England, mangled our language into a jargon so whimsical as to convulse with laughter any person knowing English-excepting only the unfortunate author. But my greatest torture was the self-complacent grimace with which the Knight of St. Louis appealed to my candour, for the marvellous skill with which he had mastered the finesses of English pronunciation. The second mortification was still more grievous. My vogue lasted but three days. A cursed Prussian, maliciously introduced by one of my best friends, had the art of imitating, with his voice, the blowing of

a trumpet. His first blast blew all the world into an ecstasy, and me and my verses into utter oblivion. I could not help confiding my surprise (for so I called the vexation of my mortified conceit) to Sophie. "What!" said she, laughing outright in my face," not satisfied at Paris with a vogue of three days! Why even I, who love you, should have gone off with the Prussian, like the rest, if my vanity were not ranged on your side by the flattery of my charms-Ma foi, vous êtes bien exigeans, cous, Messieurs les Anglais." I perceived the justice of what she said, made an effort to laugh too, and, having bid her a sincerely affectionate farewell, left Paris that very day. By a somewhat curious opposition, the only stage at which I made any delay, on my way to the convent, was the residence of Voltaire. I verily believe the air breathed by the old sinner is still charged with contagious impiety. I have not the least taste for profaneness, of which I am indeed intolerant, from a sentiment that even wit cannot redeem it from the original sin of bad taste. Yet I passed the whole night previous to my intended visit to Ferney, composing, or rather dreaming profane compliments and impious epigrams, as the means of gaining admission to the presence of the "old patriarch," whom, in the capriciousness of my dreams, I imagined still living, and invisible to all but some fortunate few of the numberless pilgrims who visited his dwelling. Perhaps I may one day give them to the world as "psychological curiosities."

The reader (if what I write should ever meet a reader's eye) may now imagine me at the convent gate of Vallerosa. Diverging from the great road, and winding a half-circle round a jutting rock, the convent appears, to the traveller, embosomed in a valley beneath him, and "looking tranquillity." I rang the bell, and was immediately admitted to the parlour. The abbess addressed me in English with the politeness of one accustomed to the best society. She was the sister of a deceased Irish peer, whom a disappointment of the heart had, in her youth, driven from the world, which she was made to adorn. Upon receiving my letters, she retired for a few moments, and returned with the sister of my friend. I beheld her, not quite twelve months before, blooming and beautiful, and lovely as the morning rose-arrayed in the elegancies of a costly toilette, directed by the best taste-her heart light, her voice

* Empressé d'aller rendre ses homages à Voltaire, dont il était un des plus zélés disciples, M. de Guibert se présenta au chateau, où il fut très bien accueilli par Madame Denis; mais malgré ses instances et ses sollicitations, il ne put voir le Patriarche de Ferney, qui alors, accablé d'ans et d'infirmités, et jaloux de mettre à profit ce qui lui restait d'une vie si glorieusement employée à l'illustration de la France littéraire, refusait obstinément de se montrer à la foule d'illustres personnages que la célébrité de son nom attirait de tous les pays. M. de Guibert, après avoir attendu inutilement pendant plusieurs jours, se détermina enfin à partir. Mais avant de quitter le chateau, il voulut tenter un dernier effort; il le fallut vioJent pour réussir-aussi le fut-il. Il traça à la hâte, et au crayon, le distique suivant, et le fit porter a son hôte :

Je vous trouve, ô Voltaire! en tout semblable à Dieu,

Sans vous voir, on vous boit, on vous mange en ce lieu.

Cette saillie un peu impie produisit l'effet désiré. Le front du vieux philosophe se dérida, la consigne fut levée. M. de Guibert fut introduit; Voltaire se jetat dans ses bras, et le retint encore pendant plusieurs jours chez lui."-ANON.

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musical, her eyes radiant. I raised my eyes, and now beheld her cheek pale her eye bright as an icicle, and as cold, and half-dissolved with weeping-her lips meagre-her expression fled-the dimpled angles of her mouth relaxed-her person clad in the ungraceful, sordid simplicity of the convent costume. I fell back upon my chair speechless, powerless, and faint, as if my whole being were unstrung. Upon returning to life and consciousness, I found myself profusely sprinkled with perfumes, the tears gushing down my face, and the abbess alone standing over me with moistened eyes. She knew our story-the disastrous influence that divided, when all human wishes seemed conspiring to unite us--talked to me only of indifferent things, until I had fully recovered myself, and then invited me to return the following day. I accordingly did return; Adelaide shewed fresh traces of having passed through a painful scene. Never did human creature so cordially renounce the world, and embrace a life of privation and prayer. She told me there was one of the idle accomplishments which made her vain in the world, to which she still, without scruple, gave a portion of her time it was drawing. She then shewed me a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St. Luke in Greek, with a coloured picture of the Virgin." She was employed in copying the picture for the nuns. The father confessor of the convent pronounced the picture, as well as the handwriting, to be the work of the Saint himself, who had been a painter before he became an Evangelist. Upon seeing the painting, which was in a singular state of preservation, I could not help observing that it looked more like the Grecian Venus than the Virgin-the supposed cherubs being really Cupids, or perhaps "the Hours." She rejoined, that Saint Luke was a Greek, and had naturally given to the Virgin the Grecian contour-at the same time a gleam of red passed faintly over her cheek. Upon examining the manuscript, however, I discovered beyond all doubt, from some fragments of sentences, that it contained a profane narrative; and the confessor, not a little piqued at the discovery, acknowledged it with a bad grace. The condemned manuscript was readily abandoned to me. A reverend makes it a point of conscience not to let familiarities of this kind with an individual, or with the order, pass unrequited. Father Bernardo intimated strong doubts of the holiness of my Parisian relics, and I perceived that he made but too great an impression upon Adelaide; I gave every assurance on my part, and with perfect sincerity. The honest Father said, he knew a criterion which would determine whether they had really received the benediction ;—it was to try whether the touch of one of them would remove an inflammation of the eye, from which a servant of the convent was suffering severely. I trembled for the credit of my relics, but had no other alternative than joining this perilous issue. The Father gave me an under-look, half malice, half surprise. Poor Adelaide too looked surprise, but the surprise of pleasure, at my giving "signs of faith." The patient was called in-a fat blowzy peasant-girl, employed in the garden of the convent. Her eye, thick bandaged, to the utter exclusion of light and air, was really in a dreadful state of inflammation. The performance of the operation was assigned to Adelaide. She prayed for a few moments, entreating the Virgin to intercede with

her blessed Son, and holding in her hands a small crucifix (one of those I had brought), with a fervour of devotion that would have touched a heart of adamant. The patient now knelt beside her. I shall never, while I have memory on this side the grave, forget the heavenly abandonment and elevation of soul, the boundless hope and unclouded faith, which played upon the countenance of the innocent girl, whilst in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, she touched the inflamed eye three times with the crucifix. The ceremony over, the bandage was about to be restored, when I suggested that all human means should be discarded, and the cure left to Heaven only. This edifying discourse was much relished. I consented, however, to a light shade, which should prevent the sudden transition from giving pain to the organ. The denouement is now, no doubt, expected with curiosity. I solemnly declare that the girl's eye was perfectly cured in three days! The miracle of this cure is recorded in the annals of the convent, with (how could I refuse it?) my formal attestation as a witness of its truth, to be scoffed at, as doubtless I shall be, by the profane. Notwithstanding this signal triumph, however, I soon perceived that my reception at the convent was become somewhat cold. Father Bernardo had been suggesting scruples against the continuance of my visits, with but too much success; and thus my evil genius, in a monk's cowl, divided me once more from Adelaide. I took leave of her with a heart as heavy as if I had parted from her grave.

After a few days passed at Milan my mind had recovered its spring, and I bethought me of my manuscript. I easily ascertained that it contained a Grecian story, and my curiosity was not a little stimulated by discovering, at the very beginning of the manuscript, the words ÁПEAA** YПEPOON which I translate "The Gallery of Apelles," the genitive termination of the painter's name alone being illegible.

I fortunately had letters to the Abbate Angelo Maio, the indagator diligentissimus of the Ambrosian library, and communicated to him the precious acquisition I had made. By the application of chemical processes, and the aid of his sagacity and experience, I soon beheld with delight the effaced characters reproduced, with the exception only of a few places which I have marked in the translation. The picture was almost perfectly restored. It would be difficult to describe the satisfaction of the learned librarian, as the chemic applications gradually brought out the colours. "Ecco," said he, "the Melian white, the Attic ochre, the Pontic red, the common ink-those few simple colours, with which the divine Apelles produced Opera illa immortalia, as they are called by the elder Pliny-It is (said he) a copy of the Venus Anadyomene herself." I now applied myself to the translation of the manuscript, which runs as follows:

THE GALLERY OF APELLES. * **On the third day of the first decad of Thargelion, Megabyzus and Combabus landed on the island of Cos. "Where," said the young man eagerly, to the first person whom he met upon the beach, "where dwells Apelles, the glory of Greece and the admired of Asia?" "Hence, not quite twenty stadia,” replied the Coan. "Go," said Megabyzus, interrupting the dialogue commenced between the islander and Combabus, "go and bid Apelles prepare to receive

the cousin and counsellor of the great king, satrap of Bactria, Megabyzus, the most enlightened connoisseur and munificent patron of the age, who has deigned to visit him." "A Greek," said the Coan, "receives not the commands of a barbarian; and he whom the Goddess of beauty has honoured with her presence, as the only person capable of painting her immortal charms, may well disdain the visit even of the great king." "Insolent knave, begone," said Megabyzus. Then turning round to Combabus, "You," said he, "my young friend, who are instructed in the mysterious learning of these Greeks, do you believe the strange tale, that Venus has really appeared to this old man, for the purpose of having her portrait painted by him?" "The Goddesses of Greece," replied Combabus, "have, according to the divine Homer, frequently visited mortal men; and the appearance of Venus to Apelles is certified by the priests of the goddess, who never lie." Megabyzus and Combabus, rode at a quick pace in advance of their splendid retinue, and soon reached the dwelling of Apelles. They found the old man seated at his door and basking in the sun. He was clad in a purple peplus of the bright hue of Ecbatana. An ample violet-coloured chlaina of floscular cotton, garnished with the party-coloured furs of the wild animals of Scythia, hung, as if dropped loosely from his shoulders, upon the back and arms of his chair. It was the gift of Alexander. The son of Ammon did not disdain to guard the second childhood of the old man's age against the variable climate of his Grecian isle. The Scythian furs were an offering of the ambassadors of that noble savage race to the conqueror of the world. On his head he wore only a simple fillet or bandeau, wrought by the hands of the fair Campaspe-that exemplary beauty, who preferred the true passion of a man of genius, to the homage of the world's conqueror-and whom that first of conquerors and of heroes so generously resigned to his rival's humility and love. The fillet passed across his forehead, nearly shaded by the silver but still abundant curls of his hair. His sandals were of cerulean blue, laced round the ankles with bands of the same colour. At his feet, and seated on the ground, were boys employed in grinding his colours. They seemed proud of their ministry, and often looked up to the still bright expression of the old man's eye, for his directions or his com mendation. On either hand were beds of flowers, of every variety of class and hue, industriously placed there for the purposes of his art. It was from the studious contemplation of these chefs-d'œuvre of Nature's colouring, and of those beautiful island waves that ever fluctuated in his sight, and of the lovely Grecian sky above his head, that he caught the magic delicacies of outline, tint, and shade, for which he was unrivalled. Apelles received the magnificent stranger with dignity and ease; and Megabyzus, whether lessoned by the islander whom he had accosted on the beach, or subdued by the noble presence of the old man, saluted him with the respect due to his genius and his age. "You come, doubtless," said Apelles, "to behold me, not in this wasted and worthless body of flesh and blood and bone, which perhaps, before Phoebus Apollo shall have twice reposed him with the goddess of the western wave, will be reduced to ashes, and consigned to an urn, by the sons and daughters of Cos; but in my better and nobler self, those