A ROYAL SALUTE.

"Egressum magnâ me accepit Aricia Roma."

Our author, however, doubts if it be the place, though he unhesitatingly abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended to have painted nothing else than what was seen by the travelling graduate. "At any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform size, andpossessing about the same number of leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage roads, is given in a very cool green-grey, and the truthful colouring of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown." We need not say how unlike is this description of the picture. We pass on to—"Not long ago, I was slowlydescendingthis very bit of carriage road, the first turn after you leave Albano;—it had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of Chaos. But as Iclimbedthe long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep, palpitating azure, half æther half dew. The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, andsilverflakes oforangespray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock—dark though flushed with scarlet lichen—casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over all—the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, thesacredclouds that have nodarkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn andorbedrepose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea." In verity, this is no "Campana Supellex." It is a riddle! Is he going up or down hill—or both at once? No human being can tell. He did not like the "sulphur and treacle" of "our Scotch connoisseurs;" but what colours has he not added here to his sulphur—colours, too, that we fear for the "idea of truth" cannot coexist! And how, in the name of optics, could it be possible for any painter to take in all this, with the "fathomless intervals," into an angle of vision of forty-five degrees? It is quite superfluous to ask "who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?" There immediately follows a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is its colour?Puresky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any modifying hue whatsoever;—the same brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with unmitigated ultramarine."Now the fact is, that the picture has, in this part, been so injured, that it is hard to say what colour is under the dirty brown-asphaltum hue and texture that covers it. It is certainly not blue now, not "pure blue"—unless pictures change like the cameleon. We know the picture well, and have seen another of the same subject, where the mountains have variety, and yet are blue. We believe a great sum was given for this picture—far more than its condition justifies. We must return—we left the graduate discussing ideas of truth. There is a chapter to show that the truth of nature is not to be discerned by the uneducated senses. As we do not perceive all sounds that enter the ear, so do we not perceive all that is cognizable by the eye—we have, that is, a power of nullifying an impression; that this habit is so common, that from the abstraction of their minds to other subjects, there are probably persons who never saw any thing beautiful. Sensibility to the power of beauty is required—and to see rightly, there should be a perfect state of moral feeling. Even when we think we see with our eyes, our perception is often the result of memory, of previous knowledge; and it is in this way he accounts for the mistake painters and others make with respect to Italian skies. What will Mr Uwin and his followers in blue say to this, alas—Italian skies are not blue? "How many people are misled by what has been said and sung of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so; whereas the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light." Benevenuto Cellini speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose of light" is rather a novelty—he is fond of it. But then Turner paints with pure white—for ourselves we are with the generality of mankind who prefer the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid"—and why not? The chances are ninety to one that the merits of not a single picture shall depend upon this knowledge, and yet the pictures shall be good and the connoisseur right. One man sees what another does not see in portraits. Undoubtedly; but how any one is to find in a portrait the following, we are at a loss to conceive. "The third has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion—theice, and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river—were shivered and broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength,"&c.How can a man with a pen in his hand let such stuff as this drop from his fingers' ends?

In the chapter "on the relative importance of truths," there is a little needless display of logic—needless, for we find, after all, he does not dispute "the kind of truths proper to be represented by the painter or sculptor," though he combats the maxim that general truths are preferable to particular. His examples are quite out of art, whether one be spoken of as a man or as Sir Isaac Newton. Even logically speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be thewholeof the subject, and as such a whole might require a generality. There may be many particulars that are best sunk. So, in a picture made up of many parts, it should have a generality totally independent of the particularities of the parts, which must be so represented as not to interfere with that general idea, and which may be altogether in the mind of the artist. This little discussion seems to arise from a sort of quibble on the word important. Sir Joshua and others, who abet the generality maxim, mean no more than that it is of importance to a picture that it contain, fully expressed, one general idea, with which no parts are to interfere, but that the parts will interfere if each part be represented with its most particular truth—and that, therefore, drapery should be drapery merely, not silk or satin, where high truths of the subject are to be impressed.

"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore less important than form." "He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of colour, has neglected a greater truth for a less one." It is true with regard to any individual object—but we doubt if it be always so in picture. The characterof the picture may not at all depend upon form—nay, it is possible that the painter may wish to draw away the mind altogether from the beauty, and even correctness of form, his subject being effect and colour, that shall be predominant, and to which form shall be quite subservient, and little more of it than such as chiaro-scuro shall give; and in such a case colour is the more important truth, because in it lies the sentiment of the picture. The mystery of Rembrandt would vanish were beauty of form introduced in many of his pictures. We remember a picture, the most impressive picture perhaps ever painted, and that by a modern too, Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal." Now, though there are fine parts in this picture, the real power of the picture is in its colour—it is awful. We are no enemy to modern painters; we think this a work of the highest genius—and as such, should be most proud to see it deposited in our National Gallery. We further say, that in some respects it carries the art beyond the old practice. But, then, we may say it is a new subject. "It is not certain whether any two people see the same colours in things." Though that does not affect the question of the importance of colour, for it must imply a defect in the individuals, for undoubtedly there is such a thing as nature's harmony of colour; yet it may be admitted, that things are not always known by their colour; nay, that the actual local colour of objects is mainly altered by effects of light, and we are accustomed to see the same things,quoadcolour, variously presented to us—and the inference that we think artists may draw from this fact is, that there will be allowed them a great licence in all cases of colour, and that naturalness may be preserved without exactness—and here will lie the value of a true theory of the harmony of colours, and the application of colouring to pictures, most suitable to the intended impression, not the most appropriate to the objects. We have often laid some stress upon this in the pages ofMaga—and we think it has been too much omitted in the consideration of artists. Every one knows what is called a Claude glass. We see nature through a coloured medium—yet we do not doubt that we are looking at nature—at trees, at water, at skies—nay, we admire the colour—see its harmony and many beauties—yet we know them to be, if we may use the term, misrepresented. While speaking of the Claude glass, it will not be amiss to notice a peculiarity. It shows a picture—when the unaided eye will not; it heightens illumination—brings out the most delicate lights, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and gives greater power to the shades, yet preserves their delicacy. It seems to annihilate all those rays of light, which, as it were, intercept the picture—that come between the eye and the object. But to return to colour—we say that it must, in the midst of its license, preserve its naturalness—which it will do if it have a meaning in itself. But when we are called upon to question what is the meaning of this or that colour, how does its effect agree with the subject? why is it outrageously yellow or white, or blue or red, or a jumble of all these?—which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures—we do not acknowledge a naturalness—the license has been abused—not "sumpta pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the unnaturalness in colour of Salvator and Titian, and not see it in Turner's recent pictures, where it is offensive because more glaring. Those masters sacrificed, if it be a sacrifice, something to repose—repose isthething to be sacrificed according to the notions of too many of our modern schools. It is likewise singular, after all the falsehoods which he asserts the old masters to have painted, that he should speak of "imitation"—as their whole aim, their sole intention to deceive; and yet he describes their pictures as unlike nature in the detail and in the general as can be, strangely missing their object—deception. We fear the truths, particulars of which occupy the remainder of the volume—of earth, water, skies, &c.—are very minute truths, which, whether true or false, are of very little importance to art, unless it be to those branches of art which may treat the whole of each particulartruth as the whole of a subject, a line of art that may produce a multitude of works, like certain scenes of dramatic effect, surprising to see once, but are soon powerless—can we hope to say of such, "decies repetita placebunt?" They will be the fascinations of the view schools, nay, may even delight the geologist and the herbalist, but utterly disgust the imaginative. This kind of "knowledge" is not "power" in art. We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters. And we can point to the general admiration of the world, learned and unlearned, that a "contemptible fragment of a splintery crag" has been found to answer all the purposes of an impression of the greatness of nature, her free, great, and awful forms, and that depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro, are found in nature to be strongest in objects of no very great magnitude; for our vision requires nearness, and we want not the knowledge that a mountain is 20,000 feet high, to be convinced that it is quite large enough to crush man and all his works; and that they, who, in their terror of a greater pressure, would call upon the mountains to cover them, and the holes of rocks to hide them, would think very little of the measurement of the mountains, or how the caverns of the earth are made. Greatness and sublimity are quite other things.

We shall not very systematically carry our views, therefore, into the detail of these truths, but shall just pick here and there a passage or so, that may strike us either for its utility or its absurdity.

With regard to truth of tone, he observes—that "the finely-toned pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key, the dark objects in the middle distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I have often been struck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest pictures of the old masters." We only ask if, when looking at the picture in the camera, he did not still recognize nature—and then, if it was beautiful, we might ask him if it was nottrue; and then when he asserts our highest light being white paper, and that not white enough for the light of nature—we would ask if, in the camera, he did not see the picture on white paper—and if the whiteness of paper be not the exact whiteness of nature, or white as ordinary nature? But there is a quality in the light of nature that mere whiteness will not give, and which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in nature merely in what is quite white; we mean brilliancy—that glaze, as it were, between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value of the praise when he says—

"Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle. He boldly takes pure white—and justly, for it is the sign of the most intense sunbeams—for his highest light, and lamp-black for his deepest shade," &c. Now, if white be the sign of the most intense sunbeams, it is as we never wish to see them; what under a tropical sun may be white is not quite white with us; and we always find it disagreeable in proportion as it approaches to pure white. We never saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud pure white; so that here certainly is one of the "fallacies," we will not call them falsehoods. But as far as we can judge of nature's ideas of light and colour, it is her object to tone them down, and to give us very little, if any, of this raw white, and we would not say that the old masters did not follow her method of doing it. But we will say, that the object of art, at any rate, is to make all things look agreeable; and that human eyes cannot bear without pain those raw whites and too searching lights; and that nature has given to them an ever present power of glazing down and reducing them, when she added to the eye the sieve, our eyelashes, through which we look, which we employ for this purpose, and desire not to be dragged at any time—"Sub curru nimium propinqui solis."

After this praise of white, one does not expect—"I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples."

"Silent nymph, with curious eye,Who thepurpleevening lie,"

saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar Hill." The "glare-seekers" is curious enough, when we remember the graduate's description of landscapes, (of course Turner's,) and his excursions; but we think we have seen many purples in Turner, and that opposed to his flaming red in sunsets. He prefers warmth where most people feel cold—this is not surprising; but as to picture "is it true?" "My own feelings would guide me rather to the warm greys of such pictures as the 'Snow-Storm,' or the glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon' and the 'Slave Ship.'" The two latter must be well remembered by all Exhibition visitors; they were the strangest things imaginable in colour as in every particle that should be art or nature. There is a whimsical quotation from Wordsworth, the "keenest-eyed," page 145. His object is to show the strength of shadow—how "the shadows on the trunk of the tree become darker and more conspicuous than any part of the boughs or limbs;" so, for this strength and blackness, we have—

"At the rootOf that tall pine, the shadow of whose bareAnd slender stem, while here I sit at eve,Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,Tracedfaintlyin the greensward."

"Of the truth of space," he says that "in a real landscape, we can see the whole of what would be called the middle distance and distance together, with facility and clearness; but while we do so, we can see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and indistinct arrangement of lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary, we look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is any thing, our distance must be nothing, andvice versa." "Now, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could see of its details," &c. But he had blamed Claude for not having given the exactness and distinct shape and colour of leaves in foreground. The fact is, the picture should be as a piece of nature framed in. Within that frame, we should not see distinctly the foreground and distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the first thing he does—so do we range over every part of the picture, but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of foreground unostentatiously—to paint nothing, that which is to tell as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar Poussin—so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd "justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for."And now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art, the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert that there is any reason whatsoever forbaddrawing, (though in landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail has he required from Canaletti and others?—But is there any reason why we should have "pinkspots?"—is there any reason why Turner's foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?—and for the reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask, it may be all very well—but "is it true?" But we have another fault to find with Turner's figures; they are often bad in intention. What can be more absurd and incongruous, for instance, than in a picture of "elemental war"—a sea-coast—than to put a child and its nurse in foreground, the child crying because it has lost its hoop, or some such thing? It is according to his truth of space, that distances should have every "hair's-breadth" filled up, all its "infinity," with infinities of objects, but that whatever is near, if figures, may be "pink spots," and "four dashes of the brush." While with Poussin—"masses which result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful;" and he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless tricks of clever execution"—forgetting that all art is but a trick—yet one of those tricks worth knowing, and yet which how few have acquired! Surely our author is not well acquainted with Hobbima's works; that painter had not a niggling execution. "A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the infinity of foliage, than the niggling of Hobbima could have rendered his canvass, if he had worked on it till doomsday." Our author seems to have studied skies, such as they are in Turner or in nature. He talks of them with no inconsiderable swagger of observation, while the old masters had no observation at all;—"their blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature; and their untaught imaginations were not likely to originate it in study." What is theit, will be asked—we believe it to be a "cirrus," and that a cirrus is the subject of a chapter to itself. This beard of the sky, however, instead of growing below, is quite above, "never formed below an elevation of at least 15,000 feet, are motionless, multitudinous lines of delicate vapour, with which the blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several days of fine weather. They are more commonly known as 'mare's tails.'" Having found this "mare's nest," he delights in it. It is the glory of modern masters. He becomes inflated, and lifts himself 15,000 feet above the level of the understanding of all old masters, and, as we think, of most modern readers, as thus:—"One alone has taken notice of the neglected upper sky; it is his peculiar and favourite field; he has watched its every modification, and given its every phase and feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world another apocalypse of heaven." Very well, considering that the cirrus never touches even the highest mountains of Europe, to follow its phase (query faces) and feature 15,000 feet high, and given pink dots, four pink dots for the faces and features of human beings within fifteen feet of his brush. We will not say whether the old masters painted this cirrus or not. We believe they painted what they and we see, at least so much as suited their pictures—but as they were not, generally speaking, exclusively sky-painters, but painters of subjects to which the skies were subordinate, they may be fairly held excused for this their lack of ballooning after the "cirrus;" and we thank them that they were not "glare-seekers," "threading" their way, with it before them, "among the then transparent clouds, while all around the sun is unshadowed fire." We losehim altogether in the "central cloud region," where he helps nature pretty considerably as she "melts even the unoccupied azure into palpitating shades," and hopelessly turns the corner of common observation, and escapes among the "fifty aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the shechinah of the blue." We must expect him to descend a little vain of his exploit, and so he does—and wonders not that the form and colour of Turner should be misunderstood, for "they require for the full perception of their meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as not one in a thousand possesses, or can bestow." The inference is, that the graduate has graduated a successful phæton, driving Mr Turner's chariot through all the signs of the zodiac. So he sends all artists, ancient and modern, to Mr Turner's country, as "a magnificent statement, all truth"—that is, "impetuous clouds, twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and oppressed cattle"—yes, more, it wants repose, and there it is—"High and far above the dark volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky;" and there they are, "delicate, soft, passing vapours," and there is "the exquisite depth andpalpitatingtenderness of the blue with which they are islanded." Thusislanded in tenderness, what wonder is it if Ixion embraced a cloud? Let not the modern lover of nature entertain such a thought; "Bright Phœbus" is no minor canon to smile complacently on the matter; he has a jealousy in him, and won't let any be in a melting mood with the clouds but himself; he tears aside your curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious vapour—"the mouldering sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with blood." This is no fanciful description, but among the comparative views of nature's and of Turner's skies, as seen, and verified upon his affidavit, by a graduate of Oxford; who may have an indisposition to boast of his exclusive privilege.

"Ἀεροβατῶ και περιφρονῶ τὸν ἥλιον."

Accordingly, in "the effects of light rendered by modern art," our author is very particular indeed. His extraordinary knowledge of the sun's position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr Turner's pictures, and minute of the day, is quite surprising. He gives a table of two pages and a-half, of position and moment, "morning, noon, and afternoon," "evening and night." In more than one instance, he is so close, as "five minutes before sunset."

Having settled the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to heaven saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn, too, a wonderful power in the excited earth, far beyond that which other "naturalists" describe of the lobster, who only,ad libitum, casts off a claw or so. "But there is this difference between the action of the earth and that of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its anatomy, which in the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment of earth away from them on each side." If the gentle sketcher should happily escape a cuff from these cast-off clothes flung by excited earth from her extremities, he may be satisfied with repose in the lap of mother earth, who must be considerably fat and cushioned, though some may entertain a fear of being overlaid. What is the artist to do with an earth like this, body and bones? When he sits down to sketch some placid landscape, is he to think of poor nature with her bones sticking out from twenty-five thousand feet of her solid flesh! Mother of Gargantia—thou wert but a dwarf! Salvator Rosa could notpaint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not paint rock. A rock, in short, is such a thing as nobody ought to paint, or can paint but Turner; and all that, after his description of rock, we believe; but were not prepared to learn that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon' in last year's Academy," is "one of the most exquisite pieces of rock truth ever put on canvass." In fact, we really, in ignorance to be ashamed of, did not know there was any rock there at all. We only remember Napoleon and his cocked-hat—now, this is extraordinary; for asweonly or chiefly remember the cocked-hat, so he sees the said cocked-hat in Salvator's rocks, where we never saw such a thing, though "he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, ofcrushed cocked-hats, of locks of hair, of waves, of leaves, or any thing, in short, flexible or tough, but which, of course, are not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks." And the nature of rocks he must know, having the "Napoleon" before him. "In the 'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better example, for I can reason as well from this as I could with my foot on the native rock." What rocks of Salvator's, besides the No. 220 of the Dulwich gallery, he has seen, we cannot pretend to say; we have, within these few days, seen one, and could not discover the "commas," the "Chinese for rocks," nor Sanscrit for rocks, but did read the language of nature, without the necessity of any writing under—"This is a rock." Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective, and his efforts "invariably ended in reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look perpendicular;" but in one instance Claude luckily hits upon "a little bit of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial in its locality—"the little piece of ground above the cattle, between the head of the brown cow and the tail of the white one, is well articulated, just where it turns into shade."

After the entire failure of all artists that ever lived before Turner in land and skies, we are prepared to find that they had not the least idea of water. When they thought they painted water, in fact, they were like "those happier children, sliding on dry ground," and had not the chance of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a thing to be anatomized, a sort of rib-fluidity. The moving, transparent water, in shallow and in depth, of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not the least like water; they are men who "libelled the sea." Many of our moderns—Stanfield in particular—seem naturally web-footed; but the real Triton of the sea, as he was Titan of the earth, is Turner. To our own eyes, in this respect, he stands indebted to the engraver; for we do not remember a single sea-piece by Turner, in water-colour or oil, in which the water isliquid. What it is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship, which is considered one of his very finest productions, we defy any one to tell. We are led to guess it is meant for water, by the strange fish that take their pastime. A year or two ago were exhibited two sea-pieces, of nearly equal size, at the British Institution, by Vandervelde and Turner. It was certainly one of Turner's best; but how inferior was the water and the sky to the water and sky in Vandervelde! In Turner they were both rocky. We say not this to the disparagement of Turner's genius. He had not studied these elements as did Vandervelde. The two painters ought not to be compared together; and we humbly think that any man who should pronounce of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, that they "libelled the sea," convicts himself of a wondrous lack of taste and feeling. Of their works he thus speaks—"As it is, I believe there is scarcely such another instance to be found in the history of man, of the epidemic aberration of mind into which multitudes fall by infection, as is furnished by the value set upon the works of these men." Of water, he says—"Nothing can hinder water from being a reflecting medium but dry dust or filth of some kind on its surface. Dirty water, if the foul matter be dissolved or suspended in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and sharply as pure water, only the image is coloured by the hue of the mixed matter, and becomes comparatively brown or dark." We entirely deny this, from constant observation. Within this week we have been studying a stream, which has alternated in its clearness and muddiness.We found the reflection not only less clear in the latter case, but instead of brown and dark, to have lost its brownness, and to have become lighter. To understand the "curves" of water being beyond the reach of most who are not graduates of Oxford; and painters and admirers of old masters being people without sense, at least in comparison with the graduate, he thus disposes of his learned difficulty:—"This is a point, however, on which it is impossible to argue without going into high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader with something really high—and here is, in very high-flown prose, part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret, that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends up rockets—if you doubt—read:—"And how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire, like so muchshattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind, and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque satis"—we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their contraries—it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat it as fire—of fire,vice versa, as water; and be sure to send them all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find to come fromχρυσοςgold, andπρασονa leek, and means a precious stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"—the reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there is a discovery—"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature than has been given by Ruysdaël." You will indeed—if this be nature! But, alas, what have we not to undergo—to discover what water is, and to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary experimentalists."

We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"—and here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts, that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom, nearest the root, is manifest. There is an earlyassociation in our minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not as he states it, and surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one picture that has a good, true,bona fide, conspicuous tree in it. The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner" concludes with a quotation—we presume the extract from a letter from Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner, thus:—"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would makethemtell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause. Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from cucumbers—from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be, that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds—"And if you have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must pause again; hereisa riddle: what can be the meaning of having the sun in one's spirit?—is it any thing like having the moon in one's head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to expect our graduate ever toleaveMr Turner is one of the most hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer proceeds with afor—that appears, nevertheless, a pretty considerablenon-sequitur. "For I will give you no patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I serve." Here the graduate is treated as a servant, and the writer of the letter assumes the Pythian, the truly oracular vein. "Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master while they forget his message. Hear that message from me, but remember that the teaching of Divine Truth must still be a mystery." "Like master like man." Both are in the "Cambyses' vein."

We do not think that landscape painters will either gain or lose much by the publication of this volume, unless it be some mortification to be so sillily lauded as some of our very respectable painters are. We do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice, will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In this our graduate issemper idem, and to keep up his idolatry to the sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the people of England to join in it—a prayer to Mr Turner!

"Should you like to be a queen, Christina?"

This question was addressed by an old man, whose head was bent carefully over a chess-board, to a young lady who was apparently rather tired of the lesson she had taken in that interesting game.

"Queen of hearts, do you mean?" answered the girl, patting with the greatest appearance of fondness a dreadfully ugly little dog that lay in her lap.

"Queen of hearts," replied the minister, with a smile; "you are that already, my dear. But have you no other ambition?" he added, tapping sagaciously the lid of a magnificently ornamented snuff-box, on which was depicted one of the ugliest monarchs that ever puzzled a court-painter to make him human.

"Why should my ambition go further?" said Christina. "I have more subjects already than I know how to govern."

"No doubt—no doubt—I knew very well that you could not avoid having subjects; but I hope and trust you have had too much sense to receive their allegiance."

The old man was proud of carrying on the metaphor so well, and of asking the question so delicately. It was quite evident he had been in the diplomatic line.

"How can I help it?" enquired the young beauty, passing her hand over the back of the disgusting little pet, which showed its teeth in a very uncouth fashion whenever the paternal voice was raised a little too high. "But, I assure you, I pay no attention to allegiance, which I consider my right. There is but one person's homage I care for"——

The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his daughter's knee.

"Who is that person, Christina?"

But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not say a word.

The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his question.

"Who is that person, Christina?"

Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.

"Whoshouldit be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear father?"

"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that boy?"

"Boy—why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend—we learned all our lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it is so long since we loved each other!"

"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing but sisterly affection."

"Not at all—not at all!" cried Christina; "it would make me quite miserable if Adolphus were my brother."

"It is all you must think him, nevertheless. He has no fortune; he has nothing but his commission; and my generosity is"——

"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible! And then Adolphus is so brave—so magnanimous; and, upon my word, when I saw how much he liked me, and heard him speak so much more delightfully than any body else, I never thought of asking if he was rich; and you know you love him yourself, dear father."

Christina neglected the pug in her lap for a moment, and laid her hand coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.

"But not enough to make him my heir," said the Count, gruffly. Christina renewed her attentions to the dog.

"He would be your heir notwithstanding," she said, "if I were to die."

There was something in the tone of her voice, or the idea suggested of her death, that softened the old man. He looked for a long time at the young and beautiful face of his child; and the shade of uneasiness her words had raised, disappeared from his brow.

"There is nothing but life there," he said, gently tapping her on theforehead; "and therefore I must marry you, my girl!"

"And you will make us the happiest couple in the world. Adolphus will be so grateful," said Christina, her bright eyes sparkling through tears.

"Who the devil said a word about Adolphus?" said the father, looking angrily at Christina; but he added immediately in a softer tone, when he saw the real emotion of his daughter—"Poor girl, you have been sadly spoiled! You have had too much of your own way, and now you ask me to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable girl, there's a darling! and your aunt will present you at court. You will see such grand things—you will know our gallant young King—only be reasonable!"

"The rude monster!" cried Christina, starting up as if tired of the conversation. "I have no wish to know him. They say he hates women."

"A calumny, my dear girl; he is very fond ofoneat all events."

"Is she pretty?"

"And mischievous as yourself."

"As I?" enquired Christina, and fell into a long reverie, while the Count smiled as if he had made an excellent hit.

"But I have never seen him, papa," she said, awakening all of a sudden.

"He may have seen you though; and he says"——

"Oh, what does he say? Do tell me what the King says?"

"Poh! What do you want to know about what a rude monster says—that hates women?" answered the father with another smile of satisfaction.

"But he is a king, papa! What does he say? I am quite anxious to know."

But the minister of state had gained his object; he had excited curiosity, and determined not to gratify it. At last he said, as he rose to quit the apartment—"Let us turn the conversation, Christina; we have nothing to do with kings, and must content ourselves with humbler subjects. An officer will sup with us to-night, whom I wish you very much to please. He has influence with the King; and if you have any regard for my interest you will receive him well. I intend him for your husband."

"I won't have him!" cried Christina, running after her father as he left the room. "I won't have him! If I don't marry Adolphus, I won't marry at all!"

"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!" said Adolphus Hesse inpropria persona, emerging from behind the window-curtains, where, by some miraculous concatenation of events, he had found himself ensconced for the last hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy, and hear an advocate so persuasive as you have been, Christina—but the cause is desperate."

"Who told you, sir, the cause was desperate?" said Christina, pretending to look offended. "The battle is half gained—my father's anger disappears in a moment. Now, dear Adolphus, don't sigh—don't cross your arms—don't look up to the sky with that heroic frown—I can't bear to groan and be dismal—I want to be gay—to have a ball—to——We shall havesucha ball the day of our wedding, Adolphus!"

"Your hopes deceive you, dearest Christina. I know your father better than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing sadly on the beautiful features of the young girl who looked on him so brightly, "you will never be able to resist the brilliant offer that will be made you in exchange for one faithful, loving heart."

"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling her eyes filling with tears, but endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover, especially after the conversation you so honourably overheard."

"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said Adolphus, "I will believe any thing you like."

"Why do you make me cry then? Is it only to have the pleasure of telling me to dry my tears? Or did you think you had some rival; some splendid cavalier that it was impossible to resist—Count Ericson, for instance?"

"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at all uneasy. I know you hate him; and besides he is not much richer than myself; but, dear Christina"——

"Well—go on," said the girl, mocking the lugubrious tone of her cousin—"what are you sighing again for?"

"Your father is going to bring you a new lover this evening, and poor Adolphus will be forgotten."

"You deserve it for all your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was impossible to entertain a doubt.

"You love me really, then?" he said—"truly—faithfully?"

"I have told you so a hundred times," replied his cousin. "I am astonished you are not tired of hearing the same thing over and over again."

"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for me," said Adolphus, "and I could listen to it for ever."

"Well, then, we love each other—that's very clear," said Christina, with the solemnity of the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict on the clearest evidence; "but since my father won't let us marry, we must wait—that is almost as clear as the other."

"And if he never consents?" enquired Adolphus.

"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to whom such an idea seemed never to have occurred, "can it be possible he willneverconsent?"

"I fear it is too possible," replied Adolphus, and the shadow fell on his face again.

"Well," said Christina, after a minute's pause, as if she had come to a resolution, "we must always stay as we are. Happiness is never increased by an act of disobedience."

"I think as you do," said the young soldier, admiring her all the more for the death-blow to his hopes; "and are you happy, quite happy, Christina?"

"What a question! Don't I see you every day? Isn't every body kind to me? Is there any thing I want?"

A different answer would have pleased the lover more. He looked at her for some time in silence—at last, in an altered tone, he said—

"I congratulate you on your prudence, Christina."

"I cannot break my father's heart."

"No, but mine, Christina!"

"Adolphus," said the young beauty solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife with the consent of my father, I never will marry another. This is all you can ask; all I can promise."

Filial affection was not quite so strong in Adolphus as in his cousin, and his face was by no means brightened on hearing this declaration. It was so uncommonly proper that it seemed nearly bordering on the cold and heartless. He tried to hate her; he walked up and down the room at a tremendous pace, stopping every now and then to take another glance at the tyrant who had pronounced his doom, and looked as beautiful as ever. He found it impossible to hateher, though we shall not enquire what were his sentiments towards her worthy progenitor, Count Ericson, the unknown lover, and even the young heroic King; for the sagacious reader must now be informed that this wonderful lovers' quarrel took place in the reign of Charles XII. Our fear is that he disliked all four. Christina found it very difficult to preserve the gravity essential to a heroine's appearance when she saw the long strides and bent brows of her lover. A smile was ready, on the slightest provocation, to make a dimple in her beautiful cheek, and all the biting she bestowed on her lips only made them redder and rosier. Adolphus had no inclination to smile, and could not believe that any body could see the least temptation to indulge in such a ridiculous occupation on such a momentous occasion. He was a regular lover, as Mr Weller would say, and no mistake. He saw in his fair cousin only a treasure of inestimable price, guarded by two monsters that made his approaches hopeless—avarice and ambition. How differently those two young people viewed the same event! Christina, knowing her power over her father, and unluckily not knowing that fathers (even though they are prime ministers, and are as courtier-like as Polonius) have flinty hearts when their interests are concerned, saw nothing in the present state of affairs to despair about; and in fact, as we have said already, was nearly committing the unpardonable crime of laughing at the grimaces of her cousin. He, poor fellow, knew the world a little better, and perceived in a moment that the new lover whom the ambitious father was going to present to his daughter, was some favourite of the king; and he was well aware, that any one backed by that impetuous monarch, was in a fair way to success. The king had seenChristina too—and though despising love himself, was in the habit of rewarding his favourite officers with the hand of the beauties or heiresses of his court; and when, as in this instance, the lady chosen was both—how could he doubt that the king had already resolved that she should be the bride of some lucky rival, against whose claims it would be impossible to contend? And Christina standing all the while before him, scarcely able to restrain a laugh! He was only twenty-one—and not half so steady as his grandfather would probably have shown himself in the same circumstances, and being unable to vent his rage on any body else, he poured it all forth upon himself.

"What a fool I have been!—an ass—a dolt—to have been so blinded! But I see now—I deserve all I have got! To have been so deceived by an absurd fit of love—that has lasted all my life, too! But no!—I shall not repay my uncle's kindness to me by robbing him of his only child. I shall go at once to my regiment—I may be lucky enough to get into the way of a cannon—you will think kindly of me when I am gone, though you are so unk"——

The word died away upon his lips. Large tears filled Christina's eyes, and all her inclination to smile had disappeared. There was something either in his looks or the tone of his voice, or the thought of his being killed, that banished all her gaiety; and in a few minutes the quarrel was made up—the tears dried in the usual manner—vows made—hands joined—and resolutions passed and carried with the utmost unanimity, that no power on earth should keep them from being married. And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much against Adolphus and Christina.

Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The Count was rich—and with amply sufficient brains, according to the dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour—some gallant soldier—and dozens of them were reported every week—made him resolve once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.

Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created colonel on the field of battle; some young general freshfrom some heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would have nobody for her husband—neither count, nor colonel, nor general—but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a time she stayed before the glass—how often she tried different coloured roses in her hair—how carefully she fitted on her new Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as superb, as he had heard them described—and then she wished to show him that all these—smiles—eyes—teeth—figure, were given, along with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that other no favourite of a king—nor even of a minister, but only of a young girl of eighteen.

Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was prepared—a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the admiration of a whole court instead of an old man—and that, too, her father—and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."

Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure—large-boned and stiff-backed—that now stood before her—with a nose so absurdly aquiline that it would have done for a caricature—coarse-skinned cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed. And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by the higher powers for her husband—was this night to be treated as her accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day with her father—settling all the preliminaries of course—for the last six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him—that is, in the affirmative.

But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter Count Ericson's head—his grammatical education having probably been neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both, in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all the remarks—and they were nearly as heavy as himself—with which he favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having rejected his own nephew—undoubtedly the handsomest ofDalecarlian hussars—in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired—

"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"

This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.

"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."

Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.

"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself before he attempted to govern the world."

Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in an offended tone—

"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"

"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name! Men-killers—though you dignify them with the name of heroes—are atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."

A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied look, to have gone through the process already—the difficulty was to lift him up again.

"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"

"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a thousand pieces on the table—"to Alexander's glory!"

"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."

"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog. She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"

The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not in Sweden—nor probably in Denmark either—and the cunning old minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an infinite obligation on both of us."

Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful couple, with themen all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of (mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think, could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game of chess—an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.

"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat you?" she said.

"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed over me, you—you"——He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and concluded his speech with—"beauty!" This expression, which was, no doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither—made his knights slide along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights. His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid winning, and at last—enjoying the victory she had determined not to win—she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the queen."

"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"

"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however, pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued, trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns in their proper position again.

"Don't try it—don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with all its men on the carpet. "The game is over—you have given me check, and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.

"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had been the most fascinating of men.

Back to Index Next