convent, into the power of the unknown, who had promised to deliver her into the hands of her old persecutor. Her beauty, innocence, and wild distress affect the heart of this mighty criminal with strange emotions of pity, to which, in his previous career of blood and outrage, he had been a stranger; he is led into a reflective mood; and an interview at this crisis with Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan, completes the revolution in his fierce spirit. The robber who scorned all law becomes a meek and repentant convert; and Lucia reaps the advantage of the change. She is removed to Milan to avoid an army of German condottieri, then on their march through the country, and there encounters the plague. Renzo seeks her in that city; and the lovers, after suffering each an attack of the terrible disease, are at length restored to each other. Don Rodrigo and Father Christofaro both fall victims to the pestilence. The faithful pair safe in the protection of the Archbishop, are in the end united in marriage, by the truckling curate, who performs the ceremony willingly, when his own safety can no longer be compromised.

Such is the brief outline of the tale; the characters of the "marrying hero" and heroine are wanting in interest, from the passive part assigned to them. Lucia is merely lovely and artless-no more; and Renzo lacks energy. But amends is made in the portraiture of the personages above mentioned; they exhibit a power of conception in which our author has no superior among his countrymen. The story of Gertrude is an episode, not connected in the slightest degree with the main narrative; yet it is interesting, and conveys a striking moral. Many of the scenes have high graphic and dramatic merit. We would instance the flight of Lucia from Rodrigo's band; the interview between the unknown and Borromeo at the hamlet; the insurrection of San Martino, and the descriptions of the plague. The last, a subject which has employed the pens successively of

Thucydides, Lucretius, and Boccaccio, a list of names that would seem to baffle farther competition, to say nought of the picture of De Foe, does not suffer in the hands of Manzoni. The superstitious alarm of the multitude, the desolate aspect of the stricken city, the sufferings of the sick, the devotion of the few in whom the impulse of affection prevails over selfish fear, the terrible revelry of the monatti, are painted with fearful truth. We might illustrate our criticism with passages of startling interest, rising occasionally into sublimity; but extract is unnecessary, as an English version of the work has been for some years before the public in this country, with which most of our readers are, or should be acquainted. The insurrection reminds us of the rebellion among the Liegeois in Quentin Durward, to which it is only second in graphic force and truth. The meeting between the Archbishop and the unknown is imbued with the true spirit of the religion of love; the relenting of the man of crime, his struggles against the upbraiding voice of conscience; the raging of the storm in his breast, whose angry billows subside at the voice of the servant of Christ; his gradual yielding and final surrender of his pride and passion, and the benevolent joy with which the holy man opens his pure arms to welcome "him that was lost and found," his humble gratitude partaking of the joy that is "in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," are most touchingly depicted; and give rise to a scene which in eloquence and lofty feeling has never been sur. passed. Not a word of controversy or cant mars the sublime beauty of the picture. The prelate appears, like the ancient disciple of Jesus, meek and lowly in his own esteem, but stern in his vigilance over the souls of his flock; the very ideal of what a pastor ought to be. How much blood and misery would have been saved to the world, had there been more of such Bishops and Cardinals!

IN childhood, round one common shrine, they bent the knee in prayer,

Breathing that incense of the heart, a grateful offering there. A common hope, a common faith, their hearts in union bound; And there the same blest hope of Heaven, their mingling spirits found.

The mother o'er her infant's couch in fervent worship bent,
Raising her earnest prayer to Heaven, all hushed yet eloquent,
That in the fairer home above, their spirits yet might meet,
And pour their holier homage forth, before the mercy-seat.
But years passed on, all beautiful as childhood's radiant dream,
Each barque of hope sped gaily on, o'er life's unsullied stream.
The father's eye grew eloquent with thoughts he might not
speak,

That holiest gem, a mother's tear, shone on her kindling cheek.
Now parted from that blessed spot, that altar so divine,
They rear for love another home, for faith another shrine,
Though by a different sign they name the undefiled and blest,
Yet droops his sheltering wing above each humble holy breast.
To Him, our Father and our Friend, whom heavenly hosts adore,
Whose hallowed name shall yet resound to earth's remotest
shore,

An humble suppliant bows to Him, the ONE great King of kings,
And through His well beloved Son, accepted worship brings.
One bends within that stately fane, upon thy classic shore,
Immortal Rome! whose vanished light of glory all deplore,
One upon Afric's sandy shores, erects his lonely shrine;
And one adores upon thy hills! time hallowed Palestine.
Bowing before the throne of God, the holy vow they take,
Who seal that precious bond of faith, which death can never
break,

Then with unfaltering souls, his shield fast to their hearts they gird,

And spread abroad through heathen gloom, the riches of His Word.

Yes! Afric's sands, and Asia's isles, and Europe's classic strand, Have each a shrine at which they kneel, that once united band. Richly, from each devoted heart, the incense swells to Heaven, As when around a mother's knee, childhood's pure vows were given.

Yet once again their voices swell within that glorious fane, The only perfect home of love, where peace and glory reign, United, never more to part, they share that heavenly rest, And raise a new and holier song-the anthem of the blest.

"How I wish I were a painter! it appears almost a sin that a scene so glorious as this should be allowed to pass away without a pencil to perpetuate its beauty!"

Cecelia Johnstone, the young lady that made this rather young exclamation, while looking from a parlour window at a sunset on the most beautiful river in the world, (which that is, we leave it to the taste of our readers to decide;) was the daughter of a distinguished southerner, a widower; who, being always state governor, or member of congress, or something of that sort, had not time to take care of her himself, and was very glad to have her kept under the guardianship of two ancient friends of his own, Miss Susan and Miss Nancy Smith.

"It is a matter of astonishment to me," she pursued, "that a painter, I mean one who deserves the title, can ever be without friends and fame. It is easy to account for a poet's being neglected, there are so few that can appreciate the feelings he expresses; but with painters it is so different! a savage even can enjoy their works, which seem to place nature itself before his eye, and yet how many touching stories we read of their sufferings!"

"There was something about that in the magazine Gerald Sanderson brought you to-day, wasn't there, Cicy?" asked Miss Susan.

"Yes, ma'am; here is one passage that struck me particularly," replied Cecelia, turning over the leaves of her magazine and reading. "But why refer to an individual instance? Where is the painter whose life has not been a chain of alternate hopes and fears; of burning aspirations and chilling disappointments? From the hour when genius awakes in his soul and directs his young ambition whither to wing her flight, what to him are the glories of creation, what the startling passions and soothing affections of human life, but slaves to minister unto him in his quest after fame! He wraps himself in solitude, and with the apotheosis of the mighty masters of old to inspire him, his fervid fancy conjures up scenes and images which he fondly hopes shall earn for him, too, a crown of immortality. Unaided, unwearied, he toils through the foodless day and the sleepless night, to give his glowing visions a local habitation and a name,' and then, with a bursting heart, he unveils it to the world to receive the fiat which is the summit of his dreams. Alas! the offspring of his love and 'pride is passed carelessly by the crowd: they have no intellect to come forth and welcome his; and, by the envious and hollow-hearted, is sneered at, because he who gave it existence has made them feel their own littleness, has proved that though among them he is not of them!""

"Poor things!" ejaculated Miss Nancy, compassionately.

“Is not that written by the young man who signs himself Ypsilon?" asked Miss Susan, who was

Not one that we have ever heard of before. He is a travelling artist, quite a young man, and supposed to be very talented."

"Has he brought specimens of his work with him?"

"I believe not, ma'am. I presume he relies on a consciousness of his own ability. I have just been thinking that this would be an excellent opportunity for me to sit for my portrait. You know I have so long wished to have it taken for papa."

"But hadn't you better wait and see a little of his skill, first?"

"Wait!-no, indeed, Miss Susan! Some person must set an example. If every one should wait until another had made a beginning, a sad business it would be for the poor young man, and poor he really is, I have heard-entirely self-made, the very reason why he should be patronized at once;" and her face quite glowed at the idea of encouraging unfriended genius.

"I never have liked to hear girls talk about patronizing professional strangers, since poor Hetty Stapleton's misfortunes," said Miss Susan. "She undertook, as you may have heard me tell, to get up a school for a poor French teacher, who represented himself to be an exiled Pole, and became so much fas cinated with him, through her pity, as to run away with him in a few months, and then had the mortification to find him no Pole at all, but only a good-fornothing French Jew, who beat her half to death within a week after their marriage."

"There he is!" exclaimed Cecelia, again losing Miss Susan's part of the colloquy; "there!—that must be the painter himself—the stranger walking on the bank!"-and both the old ladies arranged their spectacles to examine him. He was a tall, very slender young man; some people would have called him lanky; dressed in a summer suit of white, with a broad blue ribbon floating over his vest, by way of watch-guard, and a profusion of long buff-coloured locks streaming out from under a flapping straw hat, which Cecelia mentally termed a sombrero.

"I should like to know what he thinks of our river scenery," continued she. "Do you see how he looks about? I should judge from his attitudes that he admires it, a proof at once of his taste.

I do get

so provoked at our young men for always hurrying along the houses here, instead of walking on the bank, where they might enjoy the finest views in the world!"

"You forget, my dear," returned Miss Susan, "that they mostly have their business to attend to, and of course have not much time to go out of their way to look at prospects."

"I wonder what society he will go into? How much I should like to be acquainted with him! I have never known a painter. Persons with so much enthusiasm, so keen a perception of the sublime and beautiful, and a devotion so intense to their noble art, as they are said to possess, must be very interesting." "I have always found them pretty much like other people," responded the old lady.

The next morning Cecelia, having discovered by an advertisement in the village paper, that the artist's name was B. Franklin Meredith, a very respectable name, she thought, and where he was to be found, prevailed upon Miss Nancy, greatly against the advice of Miss Susan, to call on him as she went out shopping, and speak to him about undertaking the picture. He engaged to do it, and the day following was fixed upon for the first sitting.

Several hours, previous to the one appointed, were occupied in a consultation about Cecelia's dress. Miss Nancy insisted that she should wear the whole contents of a new box of finery she had received from her father, an elaborate French work cape, a many coloured scarf, a gold chain on her neck, and another, with a tuft of ostrich feathers, on her head; but Miss Susan judiciously suggested that so much dress would be unbecoming to a very young person, and advised her to try to look exactly as she did in common, only a little handsomer. This she accomplished by arranging her usual tasteful dress with more than usual

care.

The painter had proposed that the work should be done where his materials were at hand; and, in consideration of saving their carpets from a risk of greasespots, the old ladies willingly agreed to it. Miss Nancy, whose presence was least necessary at home, was to accompany Cecelia, and to his room they in due time set off.

This room, (we are sorry, through respect for the arts, that we cannot make use of the technical plural,) promised, from Cecelia's reminiscences, to be any thing but worthy of the honour it was now sharing. It had once been used for a school, but, long since, was deserted on account of the wind and rain having taken too many liberties with the weather-boarding. She thought that there was a good deal of eccentricity in such a selection, but expected that, of course, its contents would redeem its homeliness. She was disappointed, however. It presented no lay figures, no plaster casts, no copies, not even a vase of flowers. Every thing was as unpicturesque as uncomfortable. The furniture consisted of what is commonly called a bar-room table, and three or four old chairs, one of them having arms, for the aspirant after painted immortality, together with an easel, so bedaubed with trying colours, as to look as if cased in gaudy curtain calico, standing in the middle of the floor, and a blank canvass or two leaning against the wall. Two of the windows were darkened by newspapers, stuck up with pins, for blinds, and two others, through which the summer sun came hot, though far from clear, were closed down, and served as a promenade to a

few gaunt flies, and foraging ground to a couple of hungry hornets.

"What evident poverty!" thought Cecelia, with a sigh; but before she had time to give utterance to her commiseration, she caught a glimpse of the young man in whose appearance she had been so much interested the evening before, leaning on his elbows, and talking in at the window of a tailor-shop opposite, and then, at a nod of some one inside, hurrying across the way. Her surmise had been correct. It was the painter. He threw away the core of an apple he had been eating, on entering the door, and saluted the ladies with a succession of bows, which showed at best, a very philosophical contempt for the graces.

The presence of one whom she had made up her mind to discover nothing else than a genius, so disconcerted Cecelia, that his deportment was lost upon her; so much so, that on Miss Nancy's introducing her she did not notice his replying, "Ah, indeed!" instead of with the usual form. He immediately commenced operations, which he did by suspending a piece of old carpet over the lower part of one of the windows, to keep his subject in proper obscuro, and directing her to place herself accordingly. He then took his seat in front of her, and she felt for the first time how trying a thing it is for a young lady that does not believe herself absolutely a beauty, to encounter the scrutiny of a person, who, in the pursuit of his profession, must be practised in reading every expression, and noting every defect. She was exceedingly vexed at herself to know that she was blushing all over, when he requested her to fix her eye on his, and while, for the first fifteen minutes, he continued giving his orders to "turn to the right—to the left-forward-back," with all the authority and precision of a militia captain, she had to endure the consciousness of going through the exercises with a very bad grace.

But, during the succeeding hour, she had opportunity not only to recover her ease, but to examine the painter himself, who flourished away with his chalk, drawing a line one minute and rubbing it out the next, and appearing much more troubled about his work than interested in his sitter. Judging from the rule, that "the handsomest painters produce the handsomest pictures," beauty might not have been expected as the characteristic on which the reputation of his works was to depend; yet he was not so ugly, only insignificant looking, and decidedly ungenteel. Cecelia, however, attributed every thing in him not exactly comme il faut, to professional peculiarity. An extremely awkward rounding of the shoulders she accounted for by a supposition of his sedentary habits; a sallowness of his complexion, as the effect of the fumes of oil and paints; and his eyes, which very much resembled a pair of new grey marbles, before they have received a lustre from a boy's greasy pockets, she supposed had been deprived of brightness and expression, by having so often, in his reveries, been fixed on vacancy.

Every person and thing, meanwhile, including Miss Nancy and the flies and hornets, preserved a solemn silence, and Cecelia at last felt in danger of getting both a crick in the neck and going to sleep, when the artist opportunely offered her permission to leave her seat. She gladly took advantage of it, and nerv. ing herself to attempt a little conversation, she asked Mr. Meredith's opinion of "Death on the Pale Horse," presuming that of course he was familiar with it.

up.

At last, however, the theme of the portrait was introduced, and she had commenced descanting enthusiastically, as usual, on the artist's talent, modesty, sensibility, and all other qualities her fancy had supplied to him, when she was interrupted by the entrance of the gentleman himself, followed by an extremely vulgar looking elderly woman, with red ribands on her bonnet, and blue ones on her cap, and every thing else accordingly, who, after a glance round the room, ran up to her, and grasping her hand exclaimed, "This is her!—this is her!-any body could tell with half an eye who the portrait was took for!-upon my word, Miss, Benny Meraidy has done you more than justice!"

"My aunt, Miss," said the artist, by way of introduction, and smiling, with much self-satisfaction at her compliment to his skill.

"Excuse my impudence, Miss, for pushing myself in here without leave or license," continued the old lady; "but Ben showed me the picture at his shop, and nothing would do me but I must have a peep at you to see if it really could be natural. Being it was pretty much my doings that he turned out painter, I kind of felt an interest to see how he was getting along, and considering he never painted but three likenesses before, me and my husband, and one of General Washington, for our sign, I must say he does wonderful. Don't you think so, Miss?"

Cecelia was too much confounded to answer. "Ha! ha!" laughed the visiter; "well, well, you girls are every one alike, all the world over, too mo. dest to praise young men to their faces!-be hanged, Ben, if she doesn't favour Captain Johnson's daughter, Sarah Ann-doesn't she? I should not wonder if they are akin, being they have the same name; what connexion are you, Miss?"

"Not any, I think, ma'am."

66

Well, if you were, you'd have relations not to be sneezed at, I can tell you. The captain made enough by railroading to build himself a new brick house and mill, and now they are quite the tip-top among us, especially the young man. Indeed I don't know if he hasn't too many high notions about following the fashions and all that. When he went to college his own name, Daniel, was not good enough for him, and what does he do but stick Webster to it, and make every body write it, D. Webster Johnson. You need not laugh about it, Ben, you know he got you at the same trick-you were no more christened Franklin than I was. I helped to name you after your own uncle, myself."

If you wish to look at some fine engravings, Mr. Meredith, you will find a number on the back parlour table, which I have just received from my father," said Cecelia, scarcely yet beginning to doubt, and kindly making an effort to release the artist from what her own feelings suggested to be his painful situation.

"I see you understand how to please Benny," resumed the aunt; “nothing can tickle him better than to look at curiosities. His mother used to say he never was intended for any thing else. Ben always was the gentleman of the family. He never did any thing but play on the fife and fiddle, and tinker at rat-traps and bird-cages all his life. As I was telling you, it was pretty much my doings that he took to painting at last. He couldn't learn any thing at school, and and got tired of two or three trades they had put him to, so I took him home to help us along, for as I

always say, there never was any body made yet that wasn't good for something, and sure enough, in a month or two, a couple of young Englishmen came down our way, and he soon found out his latitude. They put up at our house, and went roving over the country like a couple of crazy fellows, making a picture of this and a picture of that, all the scraggy rocks and crooked trees they came across, the uglier the better. And as to likenesses, they refused to paint husband and me for their board, but drew off Polly Stimmel's three little dirty puddings of children, without even letting their mother put clean frocks on them; and our old Jube, the hostler, the funniest looking, whitest headed old negur I ever did behold. Well, Benny saw at once that that was the thing for him, and set to work to steal their trade, and I let him go on, for I thought he might as well follow that as any thing else. It seemed from their accounts to be money-making, and I told him if they could make a hundred dollars a piece out of their rocks, and trees, and old negurs, as they said, he surely could get as much for genteel likenesses and things that had some sense in them; and that as he hadn't the gift of the gab as they had, he should mind a still tongue shows a wise head, and never let on, and nobody would know but what he had been brought up to the business. So after he had practised a little, and learnt the names of the things they worked with, he went to the city to buy a few for himself and pick up a little there; and in three or four weeks he came back, with his hair all hanging about his face, and a great broad brimmed hat on his head and a knapsack to carry on his back, looking as much like a painter as any of them."

This was delivered to Cecelia in a tone intended to be low, and confidential, but which was still loud enough to be heard by every person in the room, and it was with the greatest difficulty that any one, excepting indeed, Cecelia herself, who listened with shame and vexation, could command an inclination to laugh.

The old lady then looked curiously around the room, and catching a glimpse of Cecilia's embroidery frame with a handsome piece of worsted work in it, she exclaimed, going towards it, "So, so, Miss! here's one reason why you and Benny have taken such a fancy to each other, you can handle the paint-brush, too!"

I'ts no use It

for me now to begin to learn French names. is very pretty any how. People are as much better at sewing now a-days than ever they were, as Ben says they are at painting. My girls both learnt to work samplers at school, but all the pictures they could ever put on them were strawberries, and Adam and Eve and the apple-tree.”

Even Miss Susan, who had undertaken to extricate Cecelia from her new acquaintance, could not now restrain a smile, and the New York lady to recover her gravity, took up one of the new engravings from a window-seat beside her, and remarked to her brother, "I have seen the original of this—it is a very fine piece by Lawrence."