figures, in robes as bright as rubies and amethysts. I think he must
have a magic glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cherubs
with many-colored wings, very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp
robes of white, surrounded with halos of gold, come and flutter across
the mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts through
Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best
to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm,
and pouncing mayhap on carrion; or the linnet warbling on the spray?

By much the most delightful of the Christopher set of Rubens to my mind
(and ego is introduced on these occasions, so that the opinion may
pass only for my own, at the reader's humble service to be received or
declined,) is the "Presentation in the Temple:" splendid in color, in
sentiment sweet and tender, finely conveying the story. To be sure,
all the others tell their tale unmistakably--witness that coarse
"Salutation," that magnificent "Adoration of the Kings" (at the Museum),
by the same strong downright hands; that wonderful "Communion of St.
Francis," which, I think, gives the key to the artist's faire better
than any of his performances. I have passed hours before that picture in
my time, trying and sometimes fancying I could understand by what masses
and contrasts the artist arrived at his effect. In many others of the
pictures parts of his method are painfully obvious, and you see how
grief and agony are produced by blue lips, and eyes rolling blood shot
with dabs of vermilion. There is something simple in the practice.
Contort the eyebrow sufficiently, and place the eyeball near it,--by a
few lines you have anger or fierceness depicted. Give me a mouth with
no special expression, and pop a dab of carmine at each extremity--and
there are the lips smiling. This is art if you will, but a very naive
kind of art: and now you know the trick, don't you see how easy it is?

TU QUOQUE.--Now you know the trick, suppose you take a canvas and see
whether YOU can do it? There are brushes, palettes, and gallipots full
of paint and varnish. Have you tried, my dear sir--you who set up to be
a connoisseur? Have you tried? I have--and many a day. And the end of
the day's labor? O dismal conclusion! Is this puerile niggling, this
feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can produce--you, who
but now found Rubens commonplace and vulgar, and were pointing out the