buted his power of studying for a greater num- | study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not ber of hours than most of his contemporaries been enduring. to his spare habits of living. A little bread and wine was all he required for the chief part of the day when employed at his work; and very frequently he rose in the middle of the night to resume his labours. On these occasions it was his practice to fix the candle, by the light of which he chiselled, on the summit of a pasteboard cap which he wore. Sometimes he was too wearied to undress, and he slept in his clothes, ready to spring to his work so soon as refreshed by sleep. He had a favourite device of an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it bearing the inscription, Ancora imparo! Still I am learning. Titian, also, was an indefatigable worker. His celebrated "Pietro Martire" was eight years in hand, and his "Last Supper" seven. In his letter to Charles V. he said, "I send your Majesty the Last Supper' after working at it almost daily for seven years-dopo sette anni lavorandovi quasi continuamente." Few think of the patient labour and long training involved in the greatest works of the artist. They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how great difficulty has this ease been acquired. "You charge me fifty sequins," said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, "for a bust that cost you only ten days' labour. "You forget," said the artist, "that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust in ten days." Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, "I am continually painting it within myself." It was eminently characteristic of the industry of the late Sir Augustus Callcott, that he made not fewer than forty separate sketches in the composition of his famous picture of "Rochester." This constant repetition is one of the main conditions of success in art, as in life itself. No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous labour. Many artists have been precocious, but without diligence their precocity would have come to nothing. The anecdote related of West is well known. When only seven years old, struck with the beauty of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister whilst watching by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper, and forthwith drew its portrait in red and black ink. The little incident revealed the artist in him, and it was found impossible to draw him from his bent. West might have been a greater painter, had he not been injured by too early success: his fame, though great, was not purchased by Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged himself with tracing figures of men and animals on the walls of his father's house with a burned stick. He first directed his attention to portrait-painting; but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of Zucarelli, and growing weary with waiting, he began painting the scene on which his friend's chamber window looked. When Zucarelli arrived, he was so charmed with the picture that he asked if Wilson had not studied landscape, to which be• replied that he had not. "Then I advise you," said the other, "to try; for you are sure of great success. Wilson adopted the advice, studied and worked hard, and became our first great English landscape-painter. Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to rebuke him. The boy was destined for the profession of physic, but his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a school boy, in the woods of Sudbury; and at twelve he was a confirmed artist: he was a keen observer and a hard worker,—no picturesque feature of any scene he had once looked upon escaping his diligent pencil. William Blake, a hosier's son, employed himself in drawing designs on the backs of his father's shop-bills, and making sketches on the counter. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years old, would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, which he called French and English soldiers. A box of colours was purchased for him, and his father, desirous of turning his love of art to account, put him apprentice a maker of tea-trays! Out of this trade be gradually raised himself, by study and laber, to the rank of a Royal Academician. Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his les sons, took pleasure in making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, and his school exercises were more remarkable for the ornaments with which he embellished them, than for the matter of the exercises themselves. In the latter respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the school, but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him apprentice to a silversmith, where he learned to draw, and also to engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver-chasing he went on to teach himself engraving on copper, princi pally griffins and monsters of heraldry, in the course of which practice he became ambitious to delineate the varieties of human character. be admitted to draw at the Academy." Banks explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he asked to look at the boy's drawings. Examining them, he said, "Time enough for the Academy, my little man! go home-mind your schooling-try to make a better drawing of the Apollo-and in a month come again and let me see it." The boy went home-sketched and worked with redoubled diligence-and, at the end of the month, called again on the sculptor. The drawing was better; but again Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply fulfilled. The singular excellence which he reached in this art was mainly the result of careful observation and study. He had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of committing to memory the precise features of any remarkable face, and afterwards reproducing them on paper; but if any singularly fantastic form or outré face came in his way he would make a sketch of it on the spot, upon his thumb-nail, and carry it home to expand at his leisure. Everything fantastical and original had a powerful attraction for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the-way places for the purpose of meeting with character. By this careful storing of his mind he was afterwards enabled to crowd an immense amount of thought and treasured observation into his works. Hence it is that Hogarth's pictures are so truthful a memorial of the character, the manners, and even the The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly exvery thoughts of the times in which he lived. plained by his indefatigable industry. Born True painting, he himself observed, can only at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor parents, be learned in one school, and that is kept by he was first apprenticed to a pastry-cook. His Nature. But he was not a highly cultivated brother, who was a wood-carver, afterwards man, except in his own walk. His school edu- took him into his shop to learn that trade. cation had been of the slenderest kind, scarcely Having there shown indications of artistic skill, even perfecting him in the art of spelling; his a travelling dealer persuaded the brother to self-culture did the rest. For a long time he allow Claude to accompany him to Italy. He was in very straitened circumstances, but assented, and the young man reached Rome, nevertheless worked on with a cheerful heart. where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Poor though he was, he contrived to live within Tassi, the landscape-painter, as his house-serhis small means, and he boasted, with becoming vant. In that capacity Claude first learned landpride, that he was "a punctual paymaster.' scape-painting, and in course of time he began When he had conquered all his difficulties and to produce pictures. We next find him making become a famous and thriving man, he loved the tour of Italy, France, and Germany, occa to dwell upon his early labours and privations, sionally resting by the way to paint landscapes, and to fight over again the battle which ended and thereby replenish his purse. On returning so honourably to him as a man and so glori- to Rome he found an increasing demand for ously as an artist. "I remember the time," his works, and his reputation at length became said he on one occasion, "when I have gone European. He was unwearied in the study of moping into the city with scarce a shilling, but nature in her various aspects. It was his pracas soon as I have received ten guineas there tice to spend a great part of his time in closely for a plate, I have returned home, put on my copying buildings, bits of ground, trees, leaves, sword, and sallied out with all the confidence and such like, which he finished in detail, of a man who had thousands in his pockets." keeping the drawings by him in store for the "Industry and perseverance" was the motto purpose of introducing them in his studied of the sculptor Banks, which he acted on him- landscapes. He also gave close attention to self, and strongly recommended to others. the sky, watching it for whole days from mornHis well-known kindness induced many aspiring till night, and noting the various changes ing youths to call upon him and ask for his advice and assistance; and it is related that one day a boy called at his door to see him with this object, but the servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and was about sending him away, when Banks overhearing her, himself went out. The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his hand. "What do you want with me?" asked the sculptor, "I want, sir, if you please, to occasioned by the passing clouds and the increasing and waning light. By this constant practice he acquired, although it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape-painters. Turner, who has been styled "the English Claude," pursued a career of like laborious industry. He was destined by his father for his own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day the sketch which the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a profession. Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances were so i straitened. But he was always willing to work, and to take pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be. He was glad to hire himself out at half-a-crown a night to wash in skies in Indian ink upon other people's drawings, getting his supper into the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired expertness. Then he took to illustrating guidebooks, almanacs, and any sort of books that wanted cheap frontispieces. "What could I have done better?" said he afterwards; "it was first-rate practice." He did everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his work because he was ill-remunerated for it. He aimed at learning as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a drawing without having made a step in advance upon his previous work. A man who thus laboured was sure to do much; and his growth in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin's words, "as steady as the increasing light of sunrise." But Turner's genius needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the most lasting memorial of his fame. THE NIGHTINGALE. BY THE REV. JOHN KEBLE. "They shall spring up as among the grass, as willows Instinct pure, or Heaven-taught art? Sweet the lengthening April day, Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, Minds us of our better choice. Needs no show of mountain hoary, Teaches truth to wandering men: See the soft green willow springing O'er the moist and reedy grass. If. the quiet brooklet leaving, Up the stony vale I wind, Haply half in fancy grieving For the shades I leave behind, Where the thickest bows are twining So they live in modest ways, SONG. The sun is careering in glory and might The linnet is singing the wild wood through; M. R. MITFORD. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT. As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in noting down the infirmities of Married People, to console myself for those superior pleasures which they tell me I have lost by remaining as I am. I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever made any great impression upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen me in those anti-social resolutions which I took up long ago upon more substantial considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different description;-it is that they are too loving. Not too loving neither; that does not explain my meaning. Besides, why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world. But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that you are not the object of this preference. Now there are some things which give no offence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but expressed, there is much offence in them. If a man were to accost the first homely-featured or plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and tell her bluntly that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,-the lady's choice. It is enough that I know I am not: I do not want this perpetual reminding. The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is brought out to insult me may accidentally improve me; and in the rich man's houses and pictures,-his parks and gardens, I have a temporary usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified insult. Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our faces. Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple,in that of the lady particularly; it tells you, that her lot is disposed of in this world; that you can have no hopes of her. It is true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps but this is one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for granted, not expressed. The excessive airs which those people give themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them to understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better than we who have not had the happiness to be made free of the company: but their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old bachelor as I could pretend to know anything about such matters. But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children are,-that every street and blind alley swarms with them,that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance, that there are few marriages that are not blessed with at least one of these bargains,-how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, &c.-I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young phenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a pretext. But when they are so common I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. But why we, who are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and incense, our tribute and homage of admiration, I do not see. arrows "Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed for the churching of women. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them" so say I; but then don't let him discharge his quiver upon us that are weaponless; -let them be arrows, but not to gall and stick us. I have generally observed that these are double-headed: they have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the other. As, for instance, where you come into a house which is full of children, if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually engaging, if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure to be found for sending them out of the room they are too noisy or boisterous, or Mr. does not like children. With one or other of these forks the arrow is sure to hit you. I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their brats if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to love them, where I see no occasion,-to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,-to love all the pretty dears, because children are so engaging. have a real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable or unamiable per se; I must love or hate them as I see cause for either in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is an attractive age, there is something in the tender years of infancy that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.—I was always rather squeamish in my women and children. But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,— if you did not come in on the wife's side,—if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,-look about you-your tenure is precarious-before a twelvemonth shall roll over your head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you. and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence after the period of his marriage. With some limi tations they can endure that: but that the good-man should have dared to enter into a solemn league of friendship in which they were not consulted, though it happened before they knew him,-before they that are now man and wife ever met,-this is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sov ereign prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these new mist I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog" that is not always so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing, any inanimate substance, as a keepsake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and anything that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive | ings. whatever hue fancy can give it. But children Innumerable are the ways which they take |