on painter
among the schools of Italy.

To the full and unmeasured intoxication of the flattery that beset me
on every side, I now abandoned myself. At first, indeed, I did so as a
relief from the sorrowful and depressing feelings my unfriended solitude
suggested; and at last, as the passion crept in upon and grasped my very
heart-strings, the love of praise took entire possession of my being,
and in a short time the desire for admiration had so completely
supplanted every other emotion, that I only lived with enjoyment when
surrounded by flattery; and those praises which before I heard with
diffidence and distrust, I now looked for as my desert, and claimed
as my right. The "spoiled child of fortune," my life was one round of
gaiety and excitement, For _me_, and for my amusement, _fetes_ were
given, parties contrived, and entertainments planned, and the charmed
circle of royalty was even deserted to frequent the places at which I
was expected.

From these circumstances it may readily be believed how completely I was
beset by the temptations of flattery, and how recklessly I hurried along
that career of good fortune which, in my mad infatuation, t deemed
would last for ever. I saw my name enrolled among the great ones of my
art--myself the friend of the exalted in rank and great in wealth--my
very praise, patronage. Little knew I that such sudden popularity is
often as fleeting as it is captivating, that the mass of those who
admire and are ever loudest in their praises are alike indifferent to,
and ignorant of, art. Led along by fashion alone, they seemed delighted,
because it was the rage to appear so. They visited, because my society
was courted by others; and if their knowledge was less their plaudits
were louder than those of the discriminating few, whose caution and
reserve seemed to me the offspring of jealousy and envy.

It is well known to almost all, how, in the society of large cities,
some new source of interest or excitement is eagerly sought after to
enliven the dull routine of nightly dissipation, and awaken the palled
and jaded appetite of pleasure to some new thrill of amusement!--how
one succeeds another, and how short-lived are all! The idol of to-day is
forgotten to-morrow; and whether the object of momentary attraction be
a benefactor of mankind, or some monster of moral deformity, it
matters but little, so that for the hour he furnish an article for the
fashionable journalist, and a subject of c