insult if one were offered to us. But in the case of a poor man, depending for daily food on daily work, it is a very different thing. Probably he has a wife and family at home, poorly fed and poorly clad, to whom the possession of such a purse as yours to-day, or one of even a quarter its value, would seem like the sudden opening of a perfect mine of wealth. Is it strange that they should look for some reward in return for the great sacrifice they make in giving up anything of such importance, when they might easily retain and make use of it? or that they should feel some bitterness at the parsimony of those who would fain deny them even this slight encouragemeut of their self-denying honesty? I beg your pardon, Bertram, for speaking so warmly," added Leonard, breaking off as he became aware of the energy of his own words and manner. "I hope that in your case it is only through thoughtlessness, and ignorance of the harm you may do, that you have so acted to-day."

"Bis dat cito dat !" suggested Mr. Mansfield, rejoining the circle. "Is that the moral you are trying to impress upon him, Leonard? What is it all about?"

"I have heard of that saying being rather curiously used, or rather misused," said Constance. "Do you know the story, papa? An Oxonian had been borrowing two sovereigns of a companion, and promised to return them before long in some shape or other. 'I should prefer to have them back as nearly as possible in the shape of the two sovereigns,' said the lender; 'and I hope you will not forget the old adage, Bis dat cito dat-he that gives quickly gives twice. The other immediately gave him back one of the sovereigns, exclaiming, 'Then we are quits!""

brother, a fine little fellow of about eight. He was highly delighted to find that Leonard had arrived, and immediately began begging for some 66 stories about snakes and tigers."

"My dear Edwin, what a request!" laughed Constance. "Just after Leonard's journey to be obliged, without an hour's rest, to give you a history of the last seven years; for if he once begins, he will have no peace till you know everything."

"Then I think I shall defer the commencement a little longer," said Captain Vivian, "Another day I will do my best to satisfy you. Edwin. Do you know you have grown a little in the last few years? You were a baby when I last saw you."

Edwin looked incredulous.

"Was I? I don't remember."

"No, I should suppose not," said Captain Vivian, laughing. "I am afraid you have forgotten me quite, Edwin."

"No; Connie told me you would have lots of Indian stories to tell me," said Edwin, promptly; "and I haven't forgotten that."

"Ah, I see! Then if I tell you some stories to-morrow, you must promise to take me for your brother," said Leonard.

"Arn't you my brother ?" asked Edwin, looking puzzled.

"Ask Constance," he said, smiling.

"That depends upon yourself," said Constance, laughing. "I used to say you were just as much my brother as Bertram, except when you teased me, and blinded my dolls, and then I never could acknowledge the relation ship."

And you will acknowledge it now, on condition that I don't blind any more of your dolls? I think I may safely promise thateh, Edwin ?"

"Connie doesn't play with dolls at all," returned Edwin, rather indignantly.

"So much the better for me. I am the less likely to break through the condition. Yes, I am your brother, Edwin. You see, Constance will let me say so. Rather an important point settled satisfactorily!" he added with a smile.

E were enabled to accompany our sketch of the career of Sir Edwin Landseer, the greatest modern painter of animals, with engravings from two of his most telling paintings, "Dignity and Impudence," and "The Guard."* The annexed engraving, from one of the most effective paintings of another distinguished artist, justly considered the prince of landscape painters, will be equally. opreciated by our readers.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, was born in London, on the 23rd of April, 1775. His father, William Turner, was a hair-dresser, and of sufficient liberality of mind to allow his son to follow the bent of his genius, so that even while a boy he prosecuted at leasure his passion for drawing. As early as his sixteenth year we find him admitted as an exhibitor to the Royal Academy. In 1790 he exhibited a view of Lambeth Palace, a water-colour drawing. His early efforts were nearly exclusively water-colour drawings.

His first oil picture, a "View of the Thames at Millbank by Moonlight," was exhibited in 1797, and is now in the National Gallery. The style of his early youth was that of Girtin and Cozens, who both died while he was still young-Cozens in 1799, having been deranged the last five years of his life; Girtin in 1802. The dry manner of these masters, pioneers in their art, scarcely deserves the title of "watercolour painting." The best of their works are but flat, tinted, Indian-ink drawings; they display much spirited handling, but little colour, and less chiaroscuro. The imitation of these men must have kept Turner back, rather than otherwise-enforcing the importance of the early influence of artistic taste by the supply of first-class models. Turner's true master was Wilson; many of his earlier oilpictures are so like Wilson's, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them.

He appeared as a finished oil-painter in 1799, when he exhibited his "Battle of the Nile." He was elected an Associate of the Academy in this year, and a full Academician in 1802. His early studies of Wilson soon led to an independent style; and the same happened with his emulation of Claude, whom it was the * Pages 1 and 36.

then fashion of making the standard of excellence by which all landscape painters were to be measured. It was unnatural or impossible for Turner to be an imitator; and after developing a style somewhat analogous to that of Claude, he almost immediately afterwards forsook it for one quite peculiar to himself— less vigorous than his earlier style, but more poetic. This was developed after his visit to Italy in 1819. Towards the close of life, he gave way to a careless facility of style-a loose version of that of his maturer taste. The "Fighting Témeraire," 1839, marks the line between the two.

From the time of his election into the Academy, Turner appears to have made a large income from his drawings alone, or at least such a one as to render it a matter of indifference to him whether he sold his pictures or not. He not only refused to sell many of them, when they had been returned from the Academy exhibition unsold, but some he re-purchased at higher prices than those he had received for them-as "The Sun rising through Vapour," the "Blacksmith's Shop," and others. He also made an income from the sale of prints, especially of the celebrated series in brown ink, known as the Liber Studiorum," consisting of seventy-one plates. He sold them in the set, in 1820, for fourteen guineas; a single good proof, now, is worth as much money as the set was then.

In 1812 Turner built a house and gallery in Queen Anne Street West, which he retained until his death, though he used it only as a depository for his pictures during the last few years of his life. He resided at this period in a small house in Chelsea, under the assumed name of Booth; and here he died, on the 19th of December, 1851, in his seventy-seventh year. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a statue has been placed to his memory, for the cost of which he made a provision of £1,000 in his will.

The portraits of Turner are very rare. Leslie the painter says, in his own life, that "Turner was short and stout, had a sturdy sailor-like walk, and might be taken for the captain of a river steamboat at a first glance."

There is much to lament, in connexion with

Turner's biography, upon which we purposely abstain from dwelling; and, probably partly owing to his exclusive devotion to his art, he has the character of having been exceedingly eccentric in his habits, and of an unsocial disposition.

His property was sworn under £140,000. He bequeathed nearly everything to his country -his pictures to the National Gallery, and his funded property towards the establishment of an institution for the benefit of decayed artists. The will, however, was disputed, and settled by compromise in 1856: the pictures and drawings were awarded to the nation; £20,000 to the Royal Academy, for the benefit of art; and the rest of the property to the next of kin.

About one hundred of his finished pictures, besides some thousands of drawings, are now exhibited at the National Gallery. The pictures comprehend, independent of his imitations of Claude, three styles: his early vigorous manner; his own original brilliant style, of which "Caligula's Bridge," "The Bay of Baiæ," and "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

are the greatest examples; and then his third style, which gradually declined into a mere extravagant display of contrasts of light, colour, and shade, with scarcely a definite form in any of his compositions. Many of his pictures, however, even at this third period of decline, are works of great genius. The noblest of these may be considered the“ Fighting Témeraire tugged to her berth to be broken up." It is now in the National Gallery.

Whilst admiring-enthusiastically admiring the marvellous productions of the illustrious genius of Turner, and desiring to guard against any depreciation of the independent and generous spirit which he fréquently manifested, we cannot but feel that one less a of his life may serve to impress upon all, whether gifted with artistic genius or not, the necessity and the importance of the most diligent watchfulness and prayerful effort, in order that the character may be formed, not after the varying standard of human example, but after THE ONLY PERFECT MODEL. The painter aims at perfection let the Christian emulate him.

:

C. A. H. B.

There was once an old, very old house, standing in a low hollow. It was at least four thousand years old. On looking at it, you could at once see that it was in ruins. And it was plain at a glance that it was not time that had ruined it, for the stones in its walls were all as fresh as if just erected. And yet it was in a sad state. The walls were bowing, and the stones lying in all sorts of positions, as if shaken by some mighty earthquake. The roof was broken in here and there, as if great rocks had fallen on it, and crushed it. The chimneys were leaning this way and that way, as if ready to fall. The windows were covered with dirt, so that it was next to impossible to see through them. The trees that stood around it, once so shady and ornamental, were now broken and twisted, stripped of leaves, and going to decay. All round the house, where once was a garden, and walks, and fruit, there was now nothing but weeds and thistles, briers and thorns. Instead of the song of birds,

there was nothing heard but the hiss of serpents, or the barking of wild dogs. Instead of the well, where pure cool water once gushed up, there were now little pools of stagnant water, in which frogs croaked and reptiles crawled.

The place where the house stood was called Sunken Hollow-because it had once been a beautiful hill covered with gardens and trees, and the house had stood on its very summit; but by a terrible convulsion it had been depressed and depressed, till it became the low disagreeable spot I have been describing. And yet at a distance, as you looked at the house, it seemed fair and whole, and the grounds seemed covered with a hazy kind of light, so that you would think it a most beautiful spot. Many a one, on passing by in the distance, had pronounced it the fairest thing he had ever seen. This was owing to the peculiar light which hung around it, created by the vapours that rose up from the hollow.