of her still beautiful face. Her head was turned on one side, and lay heavily on the pillow; and her long and beautifully formed fingers still held in their deathgrasp an empty phial! I lay for nearly an hour, quite exhausted. At length I arose, and feeling myself somewhat hungry, I ventured into the house in the hope that its inmates would take compassion on me. I was not deceived, for the family took great notice of me, and were much pleased with my docility and good temper, for I was always admired for these two qualities. The children offered me their bread and butter, while their mother, kind soul! sent the servant to a certain purveyor of food particularly adapted to our palate. I was literally crammed that day. I I remained with this amiable family for several months, and was treated in the kindest manner. It was during my residence here that I met with an adventure which I cannot help relating. had got out one dark night on the roof of the house, in the hope of meeting a beautiful tabby, who lived a few doors off. She was my first love, and I was her's; I need not tell you that the moments flew swiftly, and it was growing very late, when 66 Pardon me if I hasten from this scene, which, even at this time, sends a pang to my heart. I must pass over all that happened from this moment, until the time that she was consigned to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns." Her suicide became known-her friends read the heart-rending account in the daily papers, and hastening to London, bore her remains back to her native village. In the midst of their horror they did not observe me, and I was left in the house of the woman who had behaved so unfeelingly to my departed mistress. She admired my beauty, and seemed to be very proud of me; but how could I return her kindness after what I had seen of her conduct towards her own sex? I could not remain with her; no, her presence was hateful to me. I took the first opportunity to fly from the house. This I accomplished one morning, and having ascended into the street from the area, I fled with all speed, determined to enter the first house I came to, if I could find the door open. But, alas! like many truants, I soon saw my error; for, as the Devil would have it, not a door was left a-jar, and in a short time I had half a score of boys at my heels; nevertheless, I ran boldly on, notwithstanding the whistling, the shouting, and the screaming which greeted me from all quarters; but the worst was to come, for while turning the corner of a street, I ran right against a butcher's boy and his dog, when the villain immediately set his brute companion upon me. Picture to yourself, compassionate reader, my agony and affright_bour, and walking into the kitchen I espied upon hearing this. There are no wings like those lent by fear: I flew down the street, my pursuer close at my heels. I heard the heavy fall of his huge paws close behind me, while the voice of its master sounded at a distance in melodious accompaniment to the other urchins, who, as well as himself, were delighted with the sport. I had already given myself up for lost, when I espied a railed gate at the door of a carpenter's shop. I instantly sprung up, and clearing it, rushed down the passage through the house, while enemy, after trying in vain to leap after me, remained on the other side, and vented his rage and disappointment in discordant whinnings. my When I recovered from this horrible fright, and had regained my self-possession, I found that I had entered a small summer house at the bottom of the garden. Here how shall I describe it?- -we were suddenly drenched with a most unsavory fluid, which nearly washed us from the roof. Some spiteful fellow disturbed by our sweet converse," had risen from his couch and thus revenged himself upon us for disturbing his slumbers. We both flew from the spot completely saturated with this abominable and nameless liquid. My mortification was most severe, and I could hardly look any one in the face for several days after; however, we met again, but you may be sure we did not recur to this "untoward event." But fortune, jealous of my happy state, would not permit me to enjoy this state of felicity long. It happened that I had ventured one day into the house of a neigh on the dresser a fine beef steak. The cook's back was turned; the meat was tempting; I could not resist it, so, seizing on the tempting morsel, I was hastening from the spot, when at that moment the cook returned, and gaining the door before I had reached it, she banged it to, and called aloud on a lubberly fellow in the next room to come and seize me.But I was not to be easily caught, for after some scrambling I made for the window, dashed through it, and fled from the spot. But, alas! in my affright I took the wrong road home, and before I had recovered from the alarm, I found that I had fled into the street: luckily, however, no boys or dogs were abroad, and I entered a house at the other end of the street. Upon looking round me, I found that this was a butcher's. Being a "fine animal," to use the phrase of a certain turbulent lawyer, I experienced no difficulty in introducing myself to the notice of the family, who treated me with great kindness; but I did not feel at all easy at supper time, when I perceived that two young dogs of apprentices were in the house, and I fancied that they eyed me with a sort of malicious satisfaction, and winked at each other. In the morning my worst fears were realised, for, ere my master was up, one of these savages seized and conveyed me down stairs into the slaughter house. Here, spite screams and struggles, they forced my of my head into a boot, and I cannot describe what I suffered from the horrible mutilation inflicted upon me. My brain is fired at the bare recollection of it. I quitted the house in half an hour after I had been released by my tormentors, and flying from the spot took refuge in the dwelling of one who is, I fear, doomed to live in "single blessedness." Here I am now living, and, save that my life is somewhat monotonous, I have no cause to complain. Such have been my adventures until this period. Should this. portion of them be found amusing, the world shall hear of me again! PALMYRA. (For the Olio.) TOм. By J. FITZGERALD PENNIE, Author of Rogvald, an Epic Poem; Scenes in Palestine, &c. &c. FAR o'er the desert sands thy proud towers City renown'd of mighty Solomon ! The ruby weepings of the Shiraz vine, sung, O'er which Romance her veil of mystery flung; rolled The caravan's long tide-thy halls of gold, Sun! When his brave sword had won the combat- A captive led, bewailed the joyous scene. The long procession in thy Temple of the Suu! Rolling its anthem swell thy domes along, The pilgrim Gaur; nor magic priest the wine On thy pale spectre of departed might, No sound is heard but the wild Jackal's cry, Her moonlight music on the midnight hour- And thy dim piles in thunder-notes reply! And sunk, to rise no more, thy Temple of the Rogvald Cottage, July 1829. THE NOSEGAY WOMAN. Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower. THE bawling and squalling 66 pretty Dashed through thy gates the dazzling warrior bough pot" carriers of 1829 have no tide, To trumpet wail, in all its bannered pride, array, charms for me ;-their drabby and careworn looks convey no pleasures to a romantic fancy, and the imagination gathers no poetic flowers by the discordance which precedes their approach,-with a few like the evening primrose, and opening her lids in the morning like the daisy,she is the emblem of the nosegays she vends, and imagination may depict her as the prize flower for an horticultural anP. niversary. TABLETS FOR ACTORS FIFTH SERIES. Well, Sir, what follows ?-Hen. VIII. J. Cæsar. Him and his worth and our great need of him Hath like a ship been cast in many parts, slid close, Too rapidly; for, when those scenes will None can recal them, though the voice should bid, And e'en Thalia, smile on his repose. No. 26. JOHN REEVE. Certain it is, he will steal himself into man's discoveries. flowerets pinched into bunches, as they All's Well. or The Muse of Comedy and Farce secured No. 27.-BARTLEY. A comely person with a soldier's face, His book: forte good nature, learnt from feeling's lecturer of the heavens, their stars and ways Made known by truth in contemplations rays. A No. 28.-GATTY. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. L. L. Lost. A frizzled old Frenchman with a broken tooth; Snuffy, polite, loquacious and inspiring From college, information new desiring! sway. No. 29.-MEADOWS. To put the finger in the eye and weep, A thin young man, respected well, WE are glad to find that the proprietor of the Family Library continues his Biographical series in preference to the other works announced, and we hope while he continues to give us such admirable subjects, that he will long continue the theme, and that another and another will still succeed. The volume before us is the fourth number of this valuable Library, and the first of a series of Lives of Men eminent for their genius and skill in the fine arts, written by a poet and novelist of well tried and approved ability. That Mr. Murray has selected a gentleman quite equal to the task (one of considerable difficulty) he has undertaken, will be seen by the desultory extracts from his Biographical labours, which we have the honour to submit to our readers. The memoirs given in the volume produced are those of Hogarth, Wilson, Reynolds, and Gainsborough; preceded by an ingenious view of the early painters, and state of the arts in England before the coming of Hogarth, written in a style of much originality and live liness, whilst the criticism displays great justness and poetic feeling. In the introductory part we find the following, "The art of tapestry, as well as the art of illuminating books, aided in diffusing a love of painting over the island. It was carried to a high degree of excel lence. The earliest account of its appearance in England is during the reign of Henry the Eighth, but there is no reason to doubt that it was well known and in general esteem much earlier. The traditional account, that we were instructed in it by the Saracens, has probably some foundation. The ladies encouraged this manufacture by working at it with their own hands, and the rich aided by purchasing it in vast quantities whenever regular practitioners appeared in the market. It found its way into church and palace-chamber and hall. It served at once to cover and adorn cold and comfortless walls. It added warmth, and, when snow was on the hill and ice in the stream, gave an air of social snugness which has deserted some of our modern mansions. "At first the figures and groups, which rendered this manufacture popular, were copies of favourite paintings; but, as taste improved and skill increased, they showed more of originality in their conceptions, if not more of nature in their forms. with all other works of art, the mixed They exhibited, in common taste of the times-a grotesque union of classical and Hebrew history-of martial life and pastoral repose of Greek gods and Romish saints. Absurd as such combinations certainly were, and destitute of those beauties of form and delicate gradations and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings worthily so called-still when the hall was lighted up, and living faces thronged the floor, the silent inhabitants of the walls would seem, in the eyes of our ancestors, something very splendid. As painting rose in fame, tapestry sunk in estimation. The introduction of a lighter and less massive mode of architecture abridged the space for its accommodation, and by degrees the stiff and fanciful creations of the loom vanished from our walls. The art is now neglected. I am sorry for this, because I cannot think meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of the ladies of England, and gave to the tapestried hall of elder days fame little inferior to what now waits on a gallery of paintings." A few pages further on we come to the arrival in England of Hans Holbein, the designer of the Dance of Death, who introduced with him the art in which genius shines, "His name had already been spread far and wide by the obvious and peculiar beauty of his productions, and by the eloquent praises of Erasmus. Stung with the neglect of his talents at Bâsle, his native place, and his domestic peace embittered by the froward temper of his wife, he was willing to seek r peace and profit in another land. He accordingly accompanied the Earl of Arundel to England in 1526, in the thirtieth year of his age. This island, at that period, presented a fine field for the display of a creative and original genius. England had dismissed the pageantry of the Romish church; and-cleared of all preceding works of the pencil, with a taste improved and a mind enlarged, and great wealth- whoever appeared willing to work in her spirit, she was ready to welcome and reward him. The genius of Holbein was too literal and mechanical for this. He was skilful in plain fidelity of resemblance, and could imitate whatever stood before him in living flesh and blood; but he was deficient in imagination-in the rare art of embodying visions of grace and beauty. "He wrought at the court of Henry with a diligence, and, what was better, with a skill new to the country. His works are chiefly portraits, and are all distinguished by truth and by nature. His Sir Thomas More has an air of boldness and vigour, and a look at once serene and acute, which attest the sincerity of the resemblance. His Anne Boleyn is graceful and volatile, his King Henry bluff and joyous, with jealous eyes and an imperious brow. He was not always so faithful to nature-and knew how to practise the flattery of his profession. He lavished so much beauty on Anne of Cleves, that the king, who had fallen in love with the picture, when the original came to his arms, regarded her with aversion and disgust-exclaimed against the gross flattery of Hans-and declared she was not a woman but a Flanders mare. This anecdote, however, confirms the painter's claim to fidelity in his other likenesses, he was no habitual flatterer, or Henry would not have given implicit faith to him. On another occasion Holbein went to Flanders to draw the picture of the Duchess Dowager of Milanthe intended successor to Jane Seymour. She was a princess of equivocal virtue, but of ready wit. "Alas!" said she, "what answer shall I give to the King of England? I am unfortunate enough to have but one head; had I two, one of them should be at his highness's service. "It is traditionally asserted that the king employed Holbein to paint the portraits of the fairest young ladies in his kingdom, that, in case of the frailty of a queen, he might go to his gallery and select her successor. This story, which I can desire no one to credit, seeing that his majesty had ready access to the originals, is countenanced by an anecdote related by Vermander. One day, whilst the artist was painting in private the portrait of a favourite lady for the king, a great lord unexpectedly found his way into the chamber. The painter, a brawny powerful man, and somewhat touchy of temper, threw the intruder down stairs, bolted the door, ran to the king by a private passage, fell on his knees, asked for pardon, and obtained it. In came the courtier and made his complaint. "By God's splendour," exclaimed the king, (this was his customary oath,) "you have not to do with Hans but with me. Of seven peasants I can make seven lords, but I cannot make one Hans Holbein." "The works of Holbein were once very numerous in England, but some were destroyed during the great civil wars; others were sold abroad by the Puritan parliament, and many perished when the great palace of Whitehall was burned. The original drawings, eighty-nine in number, which he made of the chief persons of Henry's court, are the greatest curiosity in his present Majesty's collection. Charles the First exchanged them with the Earl of Pembroke for the splendid St. George of Raphael; Pembroke gave them to the Earl of Arundel; they suffered something in the vicissitudes of the civil war, and at last found their way back, it is not remembered how, into the Royal Gallery. "A great part of these drawings," observes Walpole, "are exceedingly fine, and in one respect preferable to the finished pictures, as they are drawn in a bold and free manner. And though they have little more than the outline, being drawn with chalk upon paper stained of a flesh colour, and scarce shaded at all, there is a strength and vivacity in them equal to the most perfect portraits." "Holbein died of the plague in 1554. His works have sometimes an air of stiffness, but they have always the look of truth and life. He painted with great rapidity and ease, wrought with the left hand, and dashed off a portrait at a few sittings. He was gay and joyous, lived freely, and spent his pension of two hundred florins and the money he received for his works with a careless liberality. He had a strong frame, a swarthy sensual face, a neck like a bull, and an eye unlikely to endure contradiction. It would be unjust to his fame to withhold the information that his talents were not confined to pictures. Like other eminent artists his mind took a range beyond the brush and the easel. He was an able architect-he modelled and he carved. He was skilful too in designing ornaments, and in making drawings for printed books; some of which he is said to have cut himself. Sir Hans Sloane had a book of jewels of his designing, which is now in the British Museum. Inigo Jones had another book of his designs for weapons, hilts, ornaments, scabbards, swordbelts, buttons, hooks, hatbands, girdles, shoe-clasps, knives, forks, saltcellars, and vases, all for King Henry.' At page forty-nine we find the following humorous anecdotes of Sir Godfrey |