hold upon another member of the same circle. Poor Pax! you and your wife, Bella, were an ill-matched pair. How came you to marry her?-it was like going to Donnybrook-fair in search of some New Harmony! The truth was, she would have him. She claimed him for her partner in waltz, galope, and quadrille seven times in one evening, and screamed him six bravuras between the dances. She talked him into fits, and assailed his nerves by means of the thundering double-knocks of postmen. The affair began to make a little noise-which he couldn't bear. Anything for a quiet life. It was easier to marry than to escape. He therefore quietly offered her his heart and hand, well knowing that as a wife she would neither want to dance with, nor to sing to him, to pour agreeable nothings in his ear incessantly, nor employ tyrant-postmen to batter at his peace. Pax had but a single idea, and a single mode of putting it in action; the idea of quiet, and the giving up everything-but one-in the wide world, to attain it. The one thing excepted was the one thing he should have given up first; but this he never thought of. It was his wife, Bella. He was as meek as a mouse, but with a soul so small that a mouse would have been ashamed to be caught in a good-sized trap with it. He would not have dared to nibble cheese, while there was a cat left in Christendom. He would have preferred dying, half a grain a day -anything for a quiet life. When he had put on his hat to go to his whist-club for the evening, he was desired to take it off again. Well, quiet was everything to him; so he sat down opposite his wife, to hear the maid-servant rung for every five minutes to be fresh scolded. When clad in a new sable suit, just ready to attend the remains of his relative to their last quiet home, he was desired to array himself again in his brown and drab, stay where he was, put some coals on, and keep his feet off the fender. Mrs. Pax "could never see, for her part, why a man should want to follow people to their graves, while he has a quiet home of his own." Well, compliance was easier than resistance; so down he sate, to be lectured in shrill tones, for the remainder of that day. But there is always one bright spoke in Fortune's Wheel, and it comes round now and then; in Pax's case the bright spoke consisted in this: his wife was sometimes sulky, and wouldn't speak to him for days. "How providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb !" he would cry. "What a blessing it is that even the best of wives has her sulky fit occasionally-one has such a quiet time of it then!" The life of Pax was, during many hours of the day, a cool and easy one, in a public office; his official duties were chiefly mechanical, and his mind was generally far away from his desk, deep buried in a monastic seclusion-dim, quiet, and monotonous. envied the old monks; their repose was true rapture. To do nothing, and be undisturbed, uninterrupted all the while, was an existence more glorious than that of the gods; unless we except the supreme felicity pictured in the line of Keats "There sate old Saturn quiet as a stone." He Quiet, in the mind of Pax, had long been associated with "a stone;" but Bella was not destined to be laid under it yet. So home he daily went, to a tranquil abode, situated between a boarding-school for young gentlemen, and the residence of a "thorough bass" at the Opera. This house Mrs. Pax always refused to quit, because it afforded her the full enjoyment of these two nuisances of which she approved when he complained, and complained (thus doubling the noisy evil) when he was silent. The thorough bass would have carried him off to the Opera on some occasions, but Bella opposed the proceeding, andanything for a quiet life-Pax always stayed at home to be soundly "rated." Plays of any kind pleased him but little. The comedies were too noisy; and the actors themselves laughed, instead of following the excellent example of the audience; while the tragedies were moving, and he liked everything quiet. Once, when the people applauded, the quiet little soul, not liking the noise, set up a "hish," which being mistaken for a hiss, provoked a desperate assault upon him by a theatrical enthusiast behind. By command of his wife, he had the enthusiast bound over to keep the peace. "Ah!" sighed Pax, "I wish his worship could bind me over, to keep it. Wouldn't I!" Of course he never attended a public meeting, except a Quaker's. Of every species of lusus naturæ, the Agitator was the most anomalous to him. How people could delight in excitement, turmoil, and contention, to the total sacrifice of a quiet life, was as mysterious as to hear of fish enjoying the butter they are fried in. Nothing puzzled him more than such political convulsions as the Polish insurrection. Why could not Poles, he wondered, "take things easy," and remain in peace and tranquillity. He conjectured that people lived very quietly in Siberia. To the Chinese war he was gently opposed, deeming it lamentable that a breach of the peace should have arisen out of the question of opium-a thing which, if taken in sufficient quantities, was calculated to make people extremely quiet. He gave himself no concern about the matter, but he used to wish, as he passed through the streets, that the mandarins in the grocers' shops would keep their heads still. His favourite story-book was "Robinson Crusoe;" although he thought it a pity that Friday should ever have escaped, to interrupt the course of the solitary's remarkably quiet life. His pet poem was the "Prisoner of Chillon," who passed his time-particularly when he had the dungeon all to himself-very quietly. It was Bella's pleasure, one day, that he should throw up his snug situation, and open a magnificent hotel at the terminus of a railway. Anything for a quiet life; and he ruined himself accordingly, with more expedition indeed than was strictly consonant with comfort. After spending a few weeks in the hot season at Margate, to get a little repose, he began to undergo the exertion of thinking that something must be done to recruit his finances-that some slow, steady, tranquil avocation had become eminently desirable. But what should it be! When a boy, he used to think how he should like to be a London watchman-the watchmen led such quiet lives. But these, to the very last of the roses, were faded and gone; and as cad to an omnibus-for one who along the "sequestered vale of life" would keep the "noiseless tenour of his way," there was small chance perhaps of uninterrupted felicity. Happily, in this dilemma, a patron in the post-office proffered a carriership, and Bella determined that it was the very thing. Burthened with a full-sized packet of penny missives, the devotee of quiet and ease went forth on his several daily rounds; but he had a tranquil little spirit, and a snail's pace-he had never hurried himself in his life, and hated loud knocks at the door-so he rapped with extreme gentleness, waited five minutes at every house, and then crept serenely on his way to deliver the next letter. A large quantity accumulating daily on his hands, for want of time to complete his rounds, Bella insisted that he should not think of delivering them at all-they should be burnt. He almost ventured to protest audibly against this step, and he did look reluctant, but-anything for a quiet life-they were burnt upon the spot. When he sneaked back into the noisy streets again, after his twelvemonth's imprisonment, the last month solitary, "Well," said he, in his small, calm way, "I must say I've had a very quiet time of it there. I'm so glad poor Bella got off!" Shortly after, with unexampled serenity, he took leave of these turbulent shores, to settle tranquilly, and secure a quiet life, in a fardistant colony-forgetting however to leave his direction with his amiable wife. It would have been of no service to her; for the ship foundered, and Pax quietly went down with her-in the Pacific Ocean. THE ADVENTURES OF A PICTURE. TRAVELLING many years ago in the South of France, I inquired at a small town, whose name has now escaped me, whether it contained any pictures, public or private. My host replied in the affirmative; and under the guidance of a ragged urchin, I found myself, after a walk of four miles through muddy lanes, at the gates of a château. From the account which the boy, who was communicator, gave of its owner, en route, I was led to suppose him either a misanthrope or a hypochondriac; and the pitiable condition of the house, and the long grass waving between the interstices of the flagstones that paved the court-yard, tended to confirm me in this opinion. I, therefore, to the sight of some Watteau, or Le Brun, or, perhaps, Karl de Jardin, or Mignard, or Greuse, expected to add that of a living curiosity. Great, however, was my surprise, on being ushered into the gallery, to recognise, in the "Seigneur de Village," a friend whom I had not seen or heard of for twenty years; he having changed his name with this estate, inherited from a distant relative. The Count and myself frequently met at Rome and Florence; and had been, in more than one instance, rivals for works of art; but his affections were divided. If a connoisseur, he was also a religious enthusiast. Often and often, in visiting one of the three hundred and sixty-five churches which the City of the Faithful boasts, have I seen this French dévot kneeling before some Madonna, or with uplifted eyes rapt in contemplation of an Assumption of the Virgin, and half fancying himself borne by the skirts of her robe to heaven. Our meeting seemed agreeable to him; and when he pressed me to pass the day at his house, I did not decline the invitation; shrewdly suspecting, at the same time, that could I have dived into his heart, I should have found that he was somewhat of a La Rochefaucault, and that ostentation and pride, and a hope of exciting my envy and jealousy, were among the motives that stimulated him to this unaccustomed effort of hospitality. His collection entirely differed from what I had been led to conjecture was exclusively confined to the Italian school, and the subjects strictly devotional. Among them were many undoubted originals; but they depicted, with such circumstantial minuteness, the sufferings of St. Sebastian, St. Agnes, and other worthies, as chronicled in the Martyrology, not to speak of Infernos and Purgatorios, that their merit, as works of art, was forgotten in the unmitigated pain they produced in me, which I could not altogether disguise. The Count was grievously disappointed; but he was determined to have his revanche, and had it. Supper, the principal meal among the French, ended, and a bottle of exquisite Bordeaux (Comet wine) scarcely discussed, my host, who, like a picture-dealer or auctioneer, had reserved his chef d'œuvre to the last, said "I have one more treasure to shew you. Come!" I followed somewhat reluctantly, and after many windings, we entered a chapel brilliantly illuminated, where, over the altar, a green veil hid from the gaze of the profane the mysterious picture, which I had been brought, at what I deemed so unseasonable a moment, to admire. The obstacle being removed, my eyes rested on a painting such as I have never beheld, which I firmly believe excels whatever yet was looked upon, or hand of man hath done. Shall I call it a painting or a reality?—a woman or a goddess? I needed now no other proof to be convinced of the empire of imagination over art, or rather, how much the ideal excels the actual. I fully comprehended what the ancient writer meant by saying of a hero, that he as far surpassed his son as a statue does a man. Absorbed in such contemplations, I stood riveted to the spot, gazing with all my soul on this apparition, till I gifted her with life-thought that the bosom actually rose and sunk, and the limbs moved from beneath the folds that flowed around them. If such was the effect on me, could I wonder that some poor penitent should deem that this Madonna might listen to her prayers, and look on her with eyes beaming forth pity and tenderness and consolation? Meantime, I had not once thought of the Count: he had been lying motionless on the steps of the altar. At length he rose, and, with three prostrations, replaced the curtain, and beckoning to me, led the way out of the chapel, carefully locking the door, as a miser does that of his chest, when I had passed. We neither of us spoke till we were reseated at table. There we could talk of nothing but the picture, whilst we emptied flask after flask of his Lafitte. At length, his heart was opened, and he said "Many years have now elapsed since I have lived here in the strictest retirement. Those years seem to me but a day. They have fled, winged with ever new delight, full of a sweet intoxication. You smile. I allude not to the fumes of wine, but to my intercourse with that picture to my companionship with it, which has been to me better than all society. Listen to me. Three summers ago, this very month, if not this very day, I had, till a later hour than usual, lingered in the chapel, and had no sooner retired to my couch than I fell into a trance, and under the influence of somnambulism, proceeded to my sanctuary. You have seen the Notte of Correggio, where the light proceeds from the Bambino; in like manner, the chapel was dazzlingly brilliant with a glory that issued from the Madonna. I was neither awe-struck nor surprised, when about to worship at the shrine, to see her stretch forth her hand in the act to raise me, nor-so prepared was I for a miracle-did I wonder to see her lips move, and hear myself, in soft and silver tones, thus addressed:- "Your devotion has conquered my silence-your more than mortal love prevailed-you shall hear my story and adventures."" Overcome by the remembrance of this scene, my friend here paused, and gave me time to glance rapidly in my mind over the relations, as told in romance, of portraits slipping out of their frames, of statues that walked and talked, and I was quite prepared to believe all that might follow. The Count seemed to read my thoughts with exultation, and thus continued the narrative of the Picture: "I am from the hand of Raphael; on the day that he was crowned in the capitol, after refusing the purple, that he might not be distracted by worldly cares from his immortal pursuit, I saw, for the first time, that greatest of painters. At that moment I experienced what may be deemed an inspiration from above, and in obedience to its impulse, presented myself at the studio of the artist. Do not mistake me for a Fornarina-no, you behold the only daughter of the Prince Colonna! a name, great in itself, but still more ennobled in the page of Petrarch. "It is erroneously supposed that the last of Raphael's works was The Transfiguration. He afterwards painted one, and a greaterpainted, I say, for of that divine picture I am the sole record-that picture was an Annunciation; and in compliance with the custom of the times, that the sacred personages should each have their living representatives, I sat for the Virgin. If the author had wished to commemorate that event historically, he would have represented her, as has been often done, in a simple room, with no other attendant save the Angel, bearing her emblem flower; but Raphael resolved to treat the subject with mystery; and in order to make me the principal figure in the piece, placed me on a sort of throne, as you see, surrounded by a throng of patriarchs, sibyls, and angels. 66 6 Scarcely had a year elapsed after the mighty painter's untimely removal from this world when I was attacked by a rapid consumption, and fell a victim to its inroads. As it is permitted to those translated to a better sphere occasionally to visit what is dearest to them below, so it was fated that I should, by way of a purgatory for early sinsfor I had too much loved-animate this "dead likeness;" becoming what the Lares and Penates of old were, a blessing and a safeguard to our house, making honour and virtue the characteristics of the Colonnas. As the fame of The "Nor did my good offices stop here. Annunciation got abroad, our chapel, of which I was the presiding genius, became thronged with the first and noblest, and through my powerful mediation, the weak were strengthened, the wavering supported, and the afflicted consoled. Nor let me omit to mention that my glory was still further enhanced, when, on the great festivals and |