s fascinated as
well as instructed. The former may discern its scope and its importance
in the felicity with which Toepffer illustrates the true aim of Art, as
being the expression, the idealization, and not the rigid copy of
Nature. He maintains that Nature should be the only teacher, and that we
are to be wedded to no man's mannerism.

It is to be hoped that some day the "Reflexions et Menus Propos" may be
rendered into English by one fully acquainted, not only with French, but
with the philosophic and the aesthetic writings of France. If the late
Bayle St. John (whose knowledge of the French language and manner of
thought was so thorough) had possessed the finished style of the author
of "Six Months in Italy," he would have been the very man to have
introduced M. Toepffer's works to English readers.

Whoever reads the works which I have thus briefly mentioned will regret
that so genial and gifted a man as M. Toepffer should have been so soon
snatched away from earth. It is rare to find in any author's or artist's
life such calm happiness as that which smiled over his existence. Fame
did not spoil him; and if he lived long enough to win it, he died too
soon to enjoy it.

The last two years of M. Toepffer's life were years of continual
suffering, through which his amiable cheerfulness never faltered. When
he was told by his physicians that he could not recover, as if he
thought only of alleviating the sorrow of those who loved him, he did
not give way for one hour to impressions of sadness, and his private
journal alone received the confidence of the keen regret he felt in
taking farewell of his young wife and his lovely children. To the very
last day of his life his friends found him in the evening surrounded by
his family, and even then handling the pencil for their amusement and
his own.

On Sundays, Calame dined with him; and we may imagine what a brilliant
coloring of thought must have characterized the conversation of these
two sympathetic men.

In 1844, when M. Toepffer had just concluded his romance of "Rosa et
Gertrude," his disease took an alarming turn, and he became aware that
he was fast drawing to the close of his earthly voyage. After two
repeated visits to the French watering-place of Vichy, he returned to
Geneva. Towards the end of the following winter he was obliged to
abandon those duties which hitherto had been to him so pure an
enjoyment. Unable now to write, he tried painting, which, it will