tion, one of the most severely
beautiful in antiquity--the gardens of the Hesperides. To do Mr. ----
justice, he had painted a laudable orchard, with fitting seclusion,
and a veritable dragon (of which a Polypheme by Poussin is somehow a
fac-simile for the situation), looking over into the world shut out
backwards, so that none but a "still-climbing Hercules" could hope to
catch a peep at the admired Ternary of Recluses. No conventual porter
could keep his keys better than this custos with the "lidless eyes."
He not only sees that none _do_ intrude into that privacy, but, as
clear as daylight, that none but _Hercules aut Diabolus_ by any manner
of means _can_. So far all is well. We have absolute solitude here
or nowhere. _Ab extra_ the damsels are snug enough. But here the
artist's courage seems to have failed him. He began to pity his pretty
charge, and, to comfort the irksomeness, has peopled their solitude
with a bevy of fair attendants, maids of honour, or ladies of the
bed-chamber, according to the approved etiquette at a court of the
nineteenth century; giving to the whole scene the air of a _fete
champetre_, if we will but excuse the absence of the gentlemen.
This is well, and Watteauish. But what is become of the solitary
mystery--the

Daughters three,
That sing around the golden tree?

This is not the way in which Poussin would have treated this subject.

The paintings, or rather the stupendous architectural designs, of a
modern artist, have been urged as objections to the theory of our
motto. They are of a character, we confess, to stagger it. His towered
structures are of the highest order of the material sublime. Whether
they were dreams, or transcripts of some elder workmanship--Assyrian
ruins old--restored by this mighty artist, they satisfy our most
stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the antique
world. It is a pity that they were ever peopled. On that side, the
imagination of the artist halts, and appears defective. Let us examine
the point of the story in the "Belshazzar's Feast." We will introduce
it by an apposite anecdote.

The court historians of the day record, that at the first dinner given
by the late King (then Prince Regent) at the Pavilion, the following
characteristic frolic was played off. The guests were select and
admiring; the banquet profuse and admirable; the lights lustrous and
oriental; the eye was perfectly dazzled with the display of plate,
among which the