eyes, and finely-cut thin lips--a curious mixture of audacity
and meekness blended upon his features. Yet this impression was but the
prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humor
seeming to stir in him unbidden, the true meaning was given to his face.
Each feature helped to make a smile that was the very soul's life of the
man expressed. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a
noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me Dosso's jester, the type of
Shakespeare's fools, the life of that wild irony, now rude, now fine,
which once delighted courts. The laughter of the whole world and of all
the centuries was silent in his face. What he said need not be repeated.
The charm was less in his words than in his personality; for
Momus-philosophy lay deep in every look and gesture of the man. The
place lent itself to irony; parties of Americans and English parsons,
the former agape for any rubbishy old things, the latter learned in the
lore of obsolete church-furniture, had thronged Torcello; and now they
were all gone, and the sun had set behind the Alps, while an irreverent
stranger drank his wine in Attila's chair, and nature's jester
smiled--_Sic Genius_.

When I slept that night I dreamed of an altar-piece in the Temple of
Folly. The goddess sat enthroned beneath a canopy hung with bells and
corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who flourished
two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena with his
white lamb, a new St. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with
his keys, a new St. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent,
divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, _Sic Genius_. Are
not all things, even profanity, permissible in dreams?

FOOTNOTES:

[E] The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than helichrysus,
and their breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon.

[F] Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow autumn
sheaves, wreathed in curled bands around thy head.

[G] Both these and the large frescos in the choir have been
chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society.

THE END.

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| Transcriber's Note: |
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| + sign denotes Greek transliteration |
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| Typographical errors corrected in text: