expected that the crowd would have rushed in, but the people seemed completely chilled and disgusted. Only a few appeared. In about half an hour the obelisk was left alone in its solitude.

I spent the rest of the day with Madame de V, and returned home quite tired and depressed.

I understand this morning (Saturday) that the king has ordered a gratuity and dinner to be given to the disbanded soldiers. I hope it is true, King Louis! You ought at least to understand your metier de Roi better than to degrade the " pomp and circumstance of glorious war" in the eyes of your people, and make them feel for what a poor recompence they may fight, bleed, die-be made at once victims and executioners in the contests of royal and ambitious gamblers!

I saw to-day, at the house of the court banker, Eichtal, a most charming picture by the Baroness de Freyberg, the sister of my good friend, M. Stuntz. It is a Madonna and child-loveliest of subjects for a woman and a mother!-she is sure to put her heart into it, at least; but, in this particular picture, the surpassing delicacy of touch,

the softness and purity of the colouring, the masterly drawing in the hands of the Virgin, and the limbs of the child, equalled the feeling and the expression-and, in truth, surprised me. Madame de Freyberg gave this picture to her father, who is not rich, and, unhappily, blind. Of him, the present possessor purchased it for fifteen hundred florins, (about 1407.) and now values it at twice the sum. In the possession of her brother, I have seen others of her productions, and particularly a head of one of his children, of exceeding beauty, and very much in the old Italian style.

In the evening, a very lively and amusing soirée at the house of Dr. Martius. We had some very good music. Young Vieux-temps, a pupil of De Beriot, was well accompanied by an orchestra of amateurs. I met here also a young lady, of whom I had heard much-Josephine Lang, looking so gentle, so unpretending, so imperturbable, that no one would have accused or suspected her of being one of the Muses in disguise, until she sat down to the piano, and sang her own beautiful and original compositions, in a style peculiar to herself. She is a musician by nature, by

choice, and by profession, exercising her rare talent with as much modesty as good-nature. The painter Zimmermann, who has a magnificent bass voice, sung for me Mignon's song-"Kennst du das Land!" And, lastly, which was the most interesting amusement of the evening, Karl von Holtei read aloud the second act of Goethe's Tasso. He read most admirably, and with a voice which kept attention enchained, enchanted; still it was genuine reading. He kept equally clear of acting and of declamation.

Oct. 20th. Sunday. I went with M. Stuntz to hear a grand mass at the royal chapel.

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21st. It rained this morning: went to the gallery, and amused myself for two hours walking up and down the rooms, sometimes pausing upon my favourite pictures, sometimes abandoned to the reveries suggested by these glorious creations of the human intellect.

'Twas like the bright procession

Of skiey visions in a solemn dream,

From which men wake as from a paradise,

And draw fresh strength to tread the thorns of life!

While looking at the Castor and Pollux of

Rubens, I remembered what the biographers asserted of this most wonderful man--that he spoke fluently seven languages, besides being profoundly skilled in many sciences, and one of the most accomplished diplomatists of his time. Before he took up his palette in the morning, he was accustomed to read, or hear read, some fine passages out of the ancient poets; and thus releasing his soul from the trammels of low-thoughted care, he let her loose into the airy regions of imagination.

What Goethe says of poets, must needs be applicable to painters. He says, "If we look only at the principal productions of a poet, and neglect to study himself, his character, and the circumstances with which he had to contend, we fall into a sort of atheism, which forgets the Creator in his creation."

I think most people admire pictures in this sort of atheistical fashion; yet next to loving pictures, and all the pleasure they give, and revelling in all the feelings they awaken, all the new ideas with which they enrich our mental hoard-next to this, or equal with it, is the inexhaustible interest of studying the painter in his

VOL I

works. It is a lesson in human nature.

Almost every picture (which is the production of mind) has an individual character, reflecting the predominant temperament-nay, sometimes, the occasional mood of the artist, its creator. Even portrait painters, renowned for their exact adherence to nature, will be found to have stamped upon their portraits, a general and distinguishing character. There is, besides the physiognomy of the individual represented, the physiognomy, if I may so express myself, of the picture; detected at once, by the mere connoisseur, as a distinction of manner, style, execution: but of which the reflecting and philosophical observer might discover the key in the mind or life of the individual painter.

In the heads of Titian, what subtlety of intellect mixed with sentiment and passion! In those of Velasquez, what chivalrous grandeur, what high-hearted contemplation! When Ribera painted a head-what power of sufferance! In those of Giorgione, what profound feeling! In those of Guido, what elysian grace! In those of Rubens, what energy of intellect—what vigorous life! In those of Vandyke, what high-bred ele