who had fully revenged her sex by her ill qualities; which had obliged him to live separate from her. Doubtless the reader has sometimes passed his evening at one of those houses where there is not the amusement of cards, but where the mistress, who has for some time been post meridiem, supported by large cushions, with her foot negligently placed on a damask stool, is surrounded by old courtiers, ruined speculators, antiquated coquettes, and others of both sexes, who know not how to drag on the burden of their existence.If so, when politics, the news of the day, and slander have had their turn, and are exhausted, he has probably heard the amiable mistress, to entertain her guests, go into a history of her early adventures, paint emphatically the domination of the passions; and console herself for the present by the remembrance of the past; boast of the heroic deeds of those knights who were proud to wear her chains. Twenty of them were killed iu duels; an officer of the dragoons set fire to a convent to procure her liberty, and carry her off to a foreign country; a burgomaster, in despair at her indifference, put an end to his life by poison; the emperor of Russia was deeply smitten with her his ministers were no less struck with her beauty: a bashaw with three tails offered her all the gold and diamonds of the eastern world-she rejected every thing, with noble disinterestedness. What attacks were not made on her virtue! An artist, a young Italian painter, bècame enamoured of her charms; the pencil of Apelles prevails over the treasures of Croesus. But time flies, the days of pleasure pass rapidly away, the rose o ses its fragrance, and the painter forsakes his new Sophronima, in order to go and copy the ruins of ancient Greece. The unfortunate damsel afterwards marries a rich financier, who dies in a state of insolvency, and the poor widow is at length reduced to talk of her former splendor in the midst of a circle of grey-beards, who in reply relate the battles they have fought, the sieges they have undertaken, the assaults they have sustained, the embassies which have been intrusted to them, the money they have squandered, and the success they still meet with, (alluding to the fair sex,) notwithstanding their grey hairs. A person present, whose errand there is to make observations, listens attentively, collects all these circumstances, arranges the materials, and gives to the public, disguised as fabulous, the history of these ridi culous personages.-The vices, the faults, the virtues, the crimes, and the noble actions, all is huddled together: it resembles falsehood, it is called a NOVEL OF ROMANCE, and yet every part is founded on reality. A DASHING AUCTIONEER. "Decipimur specie recti.'' "Deluded by a seeming excellence."' HOR. ROSCOMMON. WHILE he was speaking with the auctioneer, a stranger came up to him, and pointing to a Madona which Aubrey had added to his collection about two years before, wished to know if he would part with it by private agreement. Aubrey said he had no objection, provided he could get his price for it; on which Mr. Flourish, assuming his professional style, and addressing the stranger, said: "Sir, you could not have displayed finer taste, truer judgment, than in the choice of this piece. What a beautiful brunette! Raphael's most charming Madona. His earlier Madonas, Sir, those I mean of his middle style, are generally of a lighter and less taking complexion. I am fully persuaded, Sir, though some men's judgments are apt to be guided by particular attachments, that a complete brown beauty is really preferable to a perfect fair one: the bright brown gives a lustre to all the other colours, a vivacity to the eyes, and a richness to the whole look, which one seeks in vain in the whitest and most transparent skins. All the best artists in the noblest age of painting, about Leo the Tenth's time, used this deeper and richer kind of colouring: indeed, the glaring lights introduced by Guido went a great way toward the declension of the art; as the enfeebling of the colours by Carlo Marati has since almost completed the fall of it in Italy." Aubrey was delighted with the science displayed by the auctioneer; but, as he had heard him descant with wonderful rhetoric on the dyes on a china bowl, he had no doubt that his eloquence was chiefly indebted to his memory, and that he had learned much, of it verbatim by heart. "I am willing," said the stranger, "to give a good price for it, though I am certain it is not an original." -"Not an original, Sir!" exclaimed Mr. Flourish; "I can only tell you, that it cost Mr. Aubrey seven hundred pounds." The stranger shook his head, smiled, begged pardon, and walked on. Aubrey went with Mr. Flourish towards the door, when the latter heard his name called; but catching no eye, did not distinguish the person. "Flourish!" exclaimed Lord Tall boy, who spoke without removing his eyes from a Magdalen which he was scrutinizing with all the attention and gesture of a professed conoisseur, and whom a rapid glance on the surrounding taste-hunters had informed of the auctioneer's approach. "This is 3- "-- Α very fine Magdalen, my lord," added Flourish; who now perceived the young nobleman, from the continuance of his voice, and the discontinuance of his remark. "A very fine one, by Gd!” said Lord Tallboy, emphatically; "it is a Magdalen plain enough, by her tears."-" Nay, my lord, if there were no tears on the face," said Flourish," you might see, by the humid redness of the skin, that she had been weeping extremely:-Elle pleure jusqu'aux bouts des doigts; it weeps all over."-" Clearly, by G-d!” returned his lordship; "Le Brun was a famous painter of Magdalens; this is a "A Titian, my lord." "I know; it is equal to his Venus, by Gd!" then pointing to the next picture, he continued: "What soft, silky skin has the artist given to that Madona next to it! What an exquisite complexion! that must be one of "—" Guido's, my lord," added Flourish; "the colour of the complexion," continued the auctioneer, "is the most beautiful ever imagined; it is that which Apelles gave to his famous Venus, and which, though the picture itself be lost, Cicero has, in some degree, preserved to us in his excellent description of it. It was a fine red, beautifully intermixed and incorporated with white, and diffused in due proportion through each part of the body. Such is often the colouring of Titian, particularly in the sleeping Venus; and such are the descriptions of a most beautiful skin in several of the Roman poets*. "Accepît vocem lacrymus Latinia matis, Flagrantus profuso genus; qui plurimus ignum Alba rosa; tales virgo dabat ore colores+." Aubrey endeavoured in vain to follow the sense of these lines; and was now fully convinced that Flourish spoke by rote, and that he had conned his lesson both for Raphael's bright brown, and the fine red and white of Apelles; but that his memory, as is natural, was truer to his mother tongue than to one which he did not understand. * Beaumont's Crito. "Accépit voce lacrymis Lavinia matris, Flagrantes perfusa genas; cui plurimus ignem Siquis ebur, aut mixta rubent ubi lilia multa "At this a flood of tears Lavinia shed; ENEID. A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread, Run here and there; and flush, and fade away. Or lilies damask'd by the neighbouring rose.” DRYden, |