n
sculptor, examine them, and investigate their secrets. Rauch is a grand
type of a man. This senior or _doyen_ of the German artists, who died
overwhelmed with glory and honours, had been a _valet de chambre_ in the
Princess Louisa's household. He had followed the princess to Rome,
where, among the masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance, she
had divined the budding genius of him who was to carve in everlasting
marble the monumental figure of the great Frederick.

"These two illustrious men are bending over a basso-relievo with a Greek
inscription, when the king enters; he is accompanied by a gentleman, who
has on either arm a fair young girl in the spring of her youth and
beauty. The king invites M. von Humboldt to explain the inscription, and
the gallant old man goes straight to one of the young girls, excusing
himself for not attempting to translate it in the presence of one of the
greatest Hellenists of the time.

"'Come, your Highness,' he says, 'make the oracle speak.'

"And the young princess reads off the inscription fluently, setting down
M. von Humboldt's ignorance to the account of his politeness.

"The king compliments the handsome stranger, and Rauch, struck by her
great beauty, inquires of his friend who may be this fair, sweet Muse,
who gives to the marbles the tongue of eloquence, who, young and lovely
as an antique Venus, seems already as wise and prudent as Minerva.

"You see that it is a pretty _tableau de genre_, worthy of the brush of
Mentzel, the German painter, or of the French Meissonier. For background
the canvas will have the picturesque Louis Quatorze interiors of
Sans-Souci; in the foreground, the king and the great Humboldt, who
inclines towards the young girl; farther off, her sister leaning on
their father's arm, and the aged Rauch, who closes up the scene and
holds in his hand the bas-relief.

"That young girl, who has just given a proof of her erudition is Helena
Ghika, now famous under the literary pseudonym of Dora d'Istria. The old
man is the Prince Michael, her father, whose family, originally of
Epirus, has for the last two centuries been established in the Danubian
Principalities, and has supplied Wallachia with Hospodars. The other
young lady is Helena's sister."

* * * * *

Dora d'Istria was one of those fine, quick intelligences which look upon
the world--that is, upon humanity--as, in the poet's words, "The proper
study of manki