at the Sacrificial Altar. Perhaps he had wondered that she
should sacrifice herself to Sir William Hamilton.... 'I like Hamilton
uncommonly' is a phrase culled from one of his letters; and when a man
is very hearty about the protector of a very beautiful woman one begins
to be suspicious. I do not mean to suggest that Miss Harte--though it
is true she had not yet met Nelson--was fascinated by Tischbein. But
we have no reason to suppose that Tischbein was less susceptible than
Romney.

Altogether, it seems likely enough that the future Lady Hamilton's
fine eyes were Tischbein's main reason for not going to Sicily, and
afterwards for his sudden exodus from Rome. But why, in this case, did
he leave Naples, why go back to Rome, when Goethe was in Sicily? I hope
he went for the purpose of shaking off his infatuation for Miss Harte.
I am loth to think he went merely to wind up his affairs in Rome. I will
assume that only after a sharp conflict, in which he fought hard on the
side of duty against love, did he relapse to Naples. But I won't pretend
to wish he had finished that portrait.

If you know where that portrait is, tell me. I want it. I have tried to
trace it--vainly. What became of it? I thought I might find this out in
George Henry Lewes' 'Life of Goethe.' But Lewes had a hero-worship for
Goethe: he thought him greater than George Eliot, and in the whole book
there is but one cold mention of Tischbein's name. Mr. Oscar Browning,
in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' names Tischbein as Goethe's 'constant
companion' in the early days at Rome--and says nothing else about him!
In fact, the hero-worshippers have evidently conspired to hush up
the affront to their hero. Even the 'Penny Cyclopaedia' (1842), which
devotes a column to little Tischbein himself, and goes into various
details of his career, is silent about the portrait of Goethe. I learn
from that column that Tischbein became director of the Neapolitan
Academy, at a salary of 600 ducats, and resided in Naples until the
Revolution of '99, when he returned in haste to Germany. Suppose he
passed through Rome on his way. A homing fugitive would not pause to
burden himself with a vast unfinished canvas. We may be sure the canvas
remained in that Roman studio--an object of mild interest to successive
occupants. Is it there still? Does the studio itself still exist?
Belike it has been demolished, with so much else. What became of
the expropriated canvas? It wouldn't have