that a head of Venus which their master had left upon his easel unfinished the night before, completely perfected, and in a style superior to any thing Murillo had ever done! The master, too, was astonished at the addition made to his work, and charged his pupils with meddling with it. This they all positively denied, and poor Tortesa, the mulatto, was sternly commanded to tell all that had passed in the studio during his nightwatchings. At first the terrified boy was silent, but at last he fell upon his knees, begged his master's pardon, and confessed that the work was his own. He had heard the instructions given to the pupils, and had stolen many hours of sleep to profit by them unobserved. In a moment the countenance of Murillo was changed, and lifting up the astonished boy, embraced him, and charged him to ask any favour and it should be granted. Tortesa trembled, half doubting the sincerity of his master, but at last he found courage to say, "The liberty of my father!" The next day Tortesa's father was a free man, and the servant was raised to the station of pupil. But death early closed the career of him who so young gave such evidence of exalted genius. Spagnoletto, Giordano, Conea, and a few others, were the contemporaries of Murillo, but, with the exception of the first named, none approached him in excellence. We will conclude this sketch of painting on the continent, by a brief notice of a work of art, executed about the period when the pupils of Raffaelle were found in almost every part of Europe. It is founded upon the authority of Huet, a French writer of eminence. A young lady, the daughter of a Saxon noble. man, named Julia de Angennes, was celebrated for her wit and beauty, and admirers swarmed around her continually. While her popularity was at its height, the young and brave Gustavus of Sweden, was pushing his victorious arms into Germany. Julia conceived a romantic attachment for the hero, and declared she would acknowledge no other lover than Gustavus. The Duke de Montausier was warmly attached to her, and more than all others had been blessed with the smiles of her approbation, and he heard her declaration of preference, with pain. Gustavus, as is well known, was shot in the midst of his career, and died in the arms of victory. His death pressed heavily upon the spirits of the gay Julia, and autumn and winter passed, and spring came with its fresh flowers, and birds of song; yet a gloom hung around her. The duke renewed his suit, the cloud gradually moved from her brow, and with all the ardor of passion and the promptings of hope, the lover conceived a new plan to win her esteem for his taste, at least. He made her a birth-day gift, and called it the Poetical Garland. The most beautiful flowers were painted in miniature, by an eminent artist, named Robert, on pieces of vellum, and all made of an equal size. Under each flower, a space was left for a madrigal, or amorous stanza, each referring to the flower painted above it. He employed the most celebrated wits and poets of the time to write the most of these madrigals, and the remainder were effusions of the duke's own pen. They were then copied upon the blanks by a distinguished penman, named du Jarry The garland was decorated by a frontispiece, represent ing the wreath itself, composed of twenty-nine flowers, and, on turning the page, a painted Cupid appeared. The whole was then magnificently bound, and enclosed in a splendid bag of Spanish leather. This gift Julia found when she awoke on her birth-day morning, lying upon her toilet, and so well pleased was she with the donor's task, that she gave him her hand, heart and fortune. Huet says of this garland: "As I had long heard of it, I frequently expressed a wish to see it; at length the Duchess of Uzez gratified me with a sight." He was locked in her cabinet one afternoon, and, among others, transcribed the following madrigal, written under the picture of a violet: Modest my colour, modest is my place, Pleased in the grass my lovely form to hide, In 1784, this garland appeared at the sale of the library of the Duke de la Vallière, and sold for the extravagant sum of fourteen thousand five hundred and ten livres! During the French Revolution it found its way to England, and a bookseller offered it for the moderate sum of five hundred pounds sterling, or two thousand five hundred dollars! CHAPTER IV. Early Progress of the Art in England-Its Decline during the Commonwealth-Revival under Charles II.-English Painters of the Eighteenth Century-Change of Costume-Decline of the Art on the Continent and its Improvement in BritainSir Joshua Reynolds and his Contemporaries-Hogarth and his Works-First Painters in the United States-Benjamin West--Peale, and his Efforts to establish an Academy-Notice of different Academies of Design formed in the United States. VERY little is known respecting painting in England, previous to the time of Henry VIII., about the year 1520. There are some few specimens of the art of a date probably earlier; they evince not only little talent, but evidence of being productions of the Dutch or Flemish schools, in their infancy. Henry invited Holbein, (as previously mentioned,) Torregiano, and Titian to his court, and, as far as his taste would allow, patronized them munificently. But instead of giving them subjects of a historical character, which might have rendered more honour to both patron and artists, he confined them to gothic work, in ornamenting the walls and ceilings of his palaces and chapels, and in portrait painting. When Henry renounced the Catholic religion, and adopted the principles of the Reformation, instead of using the art of painting in personifying those great leading principles, as the mother church had done hers, he permitted his feelings against anything appertaining to images, or pictures that might be used in their stead, to operate detrimentally to the fine arts. While his contemporary, Francis I., was enriching and honouring those artists who were under his pat ronage, the policy of the British monarch effected neither. Under the patronage of the former, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, Cellini, and Nicolo, rose to eminence and wealth, while Holbein and his contemporaries, under Henry, and Zucchero, under Elizabeth, reaped neither. "If," says Elmes," at this juncture, (the adoption of the Protestant religion in England,) when the national spirit was remodeled, and when that stupendous change laid open almost all that was grand in intellect, or spirited in action, the fine arts had participated in the vigorous upspringing, and had received the encouragement instead of the reprobation of those lofty-minded theologians, it is more than probable that England would at this day have had to boast, in addition to her brilliant and recognized claims on the score of literature and science, the glory of exhibiting a national and superior style of painting." But Henry's injunction against images, (so universally used in the Papal churches,) and the edicts of Edward and Elizabeth against statuary and painting, crushed at once the uprising germ of the art in Great Britain, and foreign artists left her shores with disgust. The liberal mind of the first Charles, directed his efforts to the introduction into England of a taste for the liberal arts, and while Rubens remained in the character of ambassador from his Spanish majesty, he employed him to paint the ceiling of the royal banquetting-room, then just completed at Whitehall. He also patronized Vandyck munificently, collected a considerable gallery of fine pictures, and, by the advice of Ru bens, purchased those celebrated cartoons of |