deputation from Charles X., to negotiate the purchase of the Heart of St. Louis, which was in the keeping of the brotherhood. The mission proved unsuccessful, for though the monks would have been glad of the money, they were apprehensive that the conventual estates might be held to be an appanage of the custody of the relic. NATHAN MEYER ROTHSCHILD. When a young man I held a confidential position in a banking firm, and was often sent on missions to this great financier. On one occasion the subject of my errand was a newly issued foreign loan. As I was leaving his presence, he put his hand upon my shoulder, and said, Young man, before one fortnight has passed that stock will be up five per cent." His prediction was verified, and to the exact amount of rise. The Paris Rothschild was in the room at the time. A very wealthy Jew, and a relative of this extraordinary capitalist, told me that the latter had mentioned to him that when he was first sent for by the Prime Minister, who wished to consult him in some financial matter, he was considerably disturbed by the summons, which he feared had reference to Rothschild's being extensively engaged in the exportation of sovereigns, then carried on to a great extent, and at an enormous profit. J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. I used to meet Turner at the table of Mr. Ruskin, the father of the art critic. The first occasion was a few days after the appearance of a notice in the Athenæum, of a picture of Turner's, which was therein characterised as "Eggs and spinach." This stuck in the great painter's throat, and as we were returning together, in Mr. Ruskin's carriage, Turner ejaculated the obnoxious phrase every five minutes. I told him that if I had attained to his eminence in art, I should not care a rush for what anyone said of me. But the only reply I could get was "Eggs and spinach." On another occasion I sat next to him at the same hospitable board; when to my surprise, he asked me to come and see him; adding that if he were not at home when I called, I had only to present my card with Mr. John Ruskin's name in the corner, and his "Guardiana," as he termed her, would admit me to his gallery. Accordingly, shortly afterwards, I called with a friend, and was admitted by the lady in hidden in a huge poke bonnet question, whose face was almost (called an Oldenburg, after the Duchess, who visited England many years before). I presented my card, when the old lady, without saying a word, pointed to a narrow staircase opening from the hall (in Queen Anne Street), and that we found led to his gallery, where we were gratified by the sight of some most magnificent productions of his wonderful pencil; some of them, however, nearly falling from their frames. I was told, on very good authority, that Turner, whose economical habits were patent to all who knew him, had his dinner daily from a cook shop; and it would sometimes happen that his dinner arrived when Turner was in his gallery with some great man, and the person (alleged by my informant to be his father) would whisper in the painter's ear, "That's ready." And then taking another turn round the gallery, he would again approach, and, in a somewhat louder whisper, say, "That's getting cold." At last, after another interval, he would say louder still, "That's quite cold." A story was told to me by the same person, of the late Marquis of Lansdowne once asking Turner for a sight of some sketches, which the painter told him his Guardiana would direct him to if the Marquis should call in his absence. In the interim, however, a friend of the Marquis to whom his lordship had mentioned his intention of calling, said, "It is not unlikely that if your lordship drives up to the door in your carriage the old lady may not care to let you in, as she is a very odd body. I should therefore recommend your leaving your carriage at the end of Queen Anne Street, and pulling the area bell." This advice was followed, when the old lady, in her poke bonnet, without raising her eyes, inquired, "Is that you, Cat's-meat?" It is singular that Turner, who was so jealous of fame in his lifetime, should have been so careless as to goodness of his materials, sending, as a friend of his and my own remarked, for any colour he wanted to "the chap round the corner." The result of this indifference is that many, and to my certain knowledge, one of his best pictures is cracking all over. Among the evidences of his failing powers may be mentioned the strange fact of his introducing fish into pictures. Though naturally fond of money he allowed pictures to get mouldy in a cellar for which he might have got thousands; the alleged reason being that if the public did not buy them when they might, they should not when they pleased. He could do generous things, both pecuniarily and otherwise. There was a rich vein of quiet humour in him, and the merry twinkle of his light blue eye will not have been forgotten by his friends. He painted two portraits of himself; one at the age of, I think, sixteen, which, when he was about to destroy it, was begged of him by his housekeeper, who left it by will to Mr. Ruskin. The other was a later one, and was purchased some years after Turner's death by the same gentleman. Turner has been charged with sacrificing Truth to Effect-a not uncommon fault among painters. There is in "Rogers' Italy" a picture of Pastum, from which a friend of mine made a drawing, and knowing, from having visited the spot, that there are three more columns in the Temple of Neptune than is given in the engraving, he supplied the deficiency. He mentioned the fact to George Cruikshank, who happened to call, and who, placing his finger on the last three columns in my friend's copy, exclaimed, "Ah! the rogue, he knew it would be a better picture without it." There is in the Bodleian a cork model of the Temple, of which I have a duplicate, and counting the columns, I find there are fourteen on each side of the building, while Turner has given only eleven. It is a veritable fact that in Turner's original sketch for "Rogers' Italy" there is not the lightning flash which appears in the engraving, that having been introduced by the engraver at the suggestion of the poet, as being appropriate to the stormy atmosphere in the sketch. (To be continued.) CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. NEW SERIES.-No. 5. THE RIGHT HON. W. H. SMITH, M.P., FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY. THE faculty which empowers a man worthily to carry out an established code of policy, to be free from vacillation and stick to honest business, may be below that rare and original wisdom which leads opinion while seeming to follow it, and leaves its mark upon an age or century. But if the faculty of an administrator who may be relied upon to do his duty within his own groove of circumstance, be deemed mediocre when compared with the mind of an Alexander or Napoleon of intellect, it has at least an eminence of its own. Far as it may be below the genius that seizes upon our imaginations, it is at least by an equal degree above the baseless brilliance that manifests itself at one time by a flash of invective, at another by a fretful personal caprice, and in all its pyrotechny does nothing of substantial value for the world of everyday. The man whose line of action, on any contingency, may be calculated beforehand by any person moderately versed in the algebra of politics, the politician who can do work to order by reason of being free from personal vagaries, fills at least a place in the national economy above that of the merely plausible person, however attractive. For the brilliant surprises of the latter, when placed under the probe of calm, logical analysis, turn out most often to be but coruscations from the dangerous intensity of some personal foible or prejudice. Granting thus fully the merits of the common sensible man, we cannot yet allow the obviousness of the oft-quoted dictum, that an individual who manages his own affairs well must necessarily be fit to be entrusted with the affairs of the nation. This may easily be reduced to the absurd by assuming that a costermonger whose loud voice and brisk manner ensure him a successful trade, would readily fit himself to |