and silence, for he would suffer no one to see him paint; and he had the exquisite satisfaction of beholding every successive effort grow more perfect under his hand than the last, until his glory burst from the interposing cloud of poverty, and penetrated even to the metropolis of France which he had left.

He received an invitation from the French minister Denayers to repair to Paris and to decorate the gallery of the Louvre with his pencil. Louis XIII was equally pressing in this request. He was reluctantly prevailed upon to go, for Italy had now become dear to him; it was classic ground, abounding in the finest models and the purest antique, which he regarded with a veneration little short of idolatry. His recluse habits likewise tended powerfully to confirm his reluctance to a change of residence, as he was far more avaricious of fame than of fortune, and was withal every way unqualified to dwell amidst the splendor of a royal court.

From this determination he was with great difficulty prevailed upon to recede, and he accordingly repaired to the metropolis. On his arrival he was received with every mark of attention and respect by Louis, who assigned him a pension suitable to the character of so illustrious an artist. He painted, while here, several pieces, of extraordinary merit, and amongst the rest, a Cœna Domini.

At length he began his labours in the gallery of the Louvre, and changed the whole plans and dispositions of the architect Le Mercier. This artist, stung with severe mortification, confede rated with Vouet Fouquiers and a multitude of others, who envied Poussin's celebrity. They raised perpetual cabals against the intruder; slandered, misrepresented, and attempted to under mine a character against whom they did not dare to enter the lists of competition.

Poussin had no, weapons of offence, or of defence, in this new mode of hostility. He was as unacquainted with the corruptionand polished depravity as he was with the splendor and politeness of the court. This occupation became therefore the more intolerable, and at last inspired him with insurmountable disgust. He therefore abandoned it abruptly, under the pretext of escorting his wife to Rome.

After he had set his foot on Italian ground again, he shut himself up in his study, and had recourse to his pencil with as much philosophy as if he had never been disturbed by any solicitations to relinquish his retirement

To the most earnest royal entreaties and remonstrances to return to Paris, and to the most tempting rewards he turned an ear of impenetrable deafness. The gallery of the Louvre still remained unfinished, and his country had to lament that the intrigues of a mean and insignificant cabal, were capable of despoiling her of such an ornament.

He died in the year 1665, in the seventy-first year of his age. His character as a man was mild and amiable towards those whom he admitted to his confidence, and those were very few. This did not result from suspicion or jealousy; but from his early habits of reserve and seclusion which his avocation tended to confirm; habits that impressed on transient beholders the conviction that he was cold, inaccessible, and morose. His friends however, testify to the benevolence of his heart; they beheld behind the repulsive exterior, traits that endear and engage.

One master passion reigned with tyrannical ascendancy to which every other was made implicitly to bend; fame and not fortune was the idol he unvariably worshipped. His birth only denoted him a Frenchman; for his manners were tinged with nothing of that levity; that desire of pleasing and courtesy of deportment, so universally allowed to be the character of his nation.

His works are distinguished for a rigid adherence to antique; the countenances, the draperies, the surrounding scenery, and all the accessories are framed on those exquisite models from which he never ventured to depart. He was, in the strictest sense, a classical artist, and gave antiquity more pure and unmingled with modern manners, than any other painter of his time. He had transported himself back into the early ages so completely, that he seemed to live only in the society of the ancients.

Colouring had very little fascinations for him; once, indeed, he copied the works of Titian, and strove to improve his colouring by imitating Dominichino. This he soon abandoned, and