self by a hearty cry, of which the tendency was so composing that she went to bed and slept nearly as well as usual.

Very different was her master's case. Men have so many advantages over women, that they need not grudge them the unspeakable comfort of crying; although in many instances, and especially in this, it makes all the difference between a good night and a bad one. Mark never closed his eyes. His waking thoughts, however, were not all unpleasant. He thought of Maria and the children, and of Harry's generous reluctance to deprive him of his treasures-and so long as he thought of that, he was happy. And then he thought of Louis Duval,-how well he deserved these pictures, and how much he would value them; for Mark had been amongst Louis's earliest patrons and kindest friends, and would undoubtedly have served Henry Warner, had he not been abroad during the few months that he spent at Belford. And then too he thought of Hester, and of her resemblance to the girl with the music-book. But then unluckily that recollection brought vividly before him the Guercino itself,-and how he could live without that picture he could not tell! And then the night seemed endless.

At length morning dawned. But no sound was heard of cart or wagon, or messenger from the Nunnery, though he had implored Louis to send by daybreak. Five o'clock struck, and six, and seven,-and no one had arrived. At last, a little before eight, a single knock was heard at the door, but no cart, -a single knock; and, after a moment's parley, the knocker went away, and the postman arrived, and, too impatient to wait longer, the old gentleman rang the bell for his housekeeper.

Martha arrived, bringing two letters. One, a heavy packet, had been left by a servant; the other had arrived by the post. As our friend Mark opened the first, a key dropped out. The contents were as follows:

"The Nunnery, April 18th.

"MY DEAR SIR, "As you had your way yesterday, when you forbade me to say anything more than yes or no, you must allow me to have mine to-day. I return the key, with an earnest entreaty that you will condescend to be the guardian of that and of the pictures. Long, very long, may you continue so! Hester says that she should never see those pictures with comfort anywhere but in their own gallery, the dear back parlour; and you know that Hester always has her own way with everybody.

"From the little that you would suffer Mr. H. Bridgman to say yesterday, both Mr. Carlton and myself are inclined to consider this money as a loan, to be returned at his convenience; and our chief fear is lest he should hurry himself in the repayment.

"Should it, however, prove otherwise, just remember how very kind you were to me, a poor and obscure boy, at a time when your money, your encouragement, your good word, and, above all, your permission to copy the Guercino, were favours far greater than I ever can return. Recollect that I owe to the study of the girl with the music-book that notice from Mr. Carlton which led to my acquaintance with Hester.

"After this, you must allow, that even if this sum were never repaid, the balance of obligation must still be on my side,-and that I must always remain

"Your grateful friend and servant,
"LOUIS DUVAL."

With a trembling hand the old man opened the other letter. He had some trouble in deciphering Louis's, perhaps because he had been obliged to wipe his spectacles so often; and this epistle, although shorter and written in a bold mercantile hand, proved more difficult still. Thus it ran:

"London, April 17th.

"MY DEAR UNCLE, "On my return to town, I found that remittances had arrived from Hamburg and St. Petersburgh; that the good ship Amphion was safe in port, and that the Flycatcher had been spoken with and was within two days' sail;in short, that all was right in all quarters; and that Maria, until I told her the story, had not even suspected my embarrassments. Imagine our intense thankfulness to you and to Heaven! I have returned the check to Mr. Duval. The obligation I do not even wish to cancel; for to be grateful to such a person is a most pleasurable feeling. I am quite sure, from the very few words that you would suffer any one to speak yesterday, that he considers the affair as a loan, and that the dear pictures are still in the dear back parlour. I forgot to tell you that the Amphion was to touch at Cadiz for two more paintings, a Velasquez and a Murillo; for which, if you cannot find room, Mr. Duval must.

"Once again, accept my most fervent thanks, and believe me ever

"Your obliged and affectionate
"Kinsman and friend,

66
"H. BRIDGMAN."

The gentle reader must imagine, for I cannot describe, the feelings of the good old man on the perusal of these letters, and the agitated delight with which, after he and Martha had contrived to open the door, (for, somehow or other, their hands shook so that they could hardly turn the key in the lock,) they both surveyed the rescued treasures. Also, he must settle to his fancy the long-disputed point (for it has been a contest of no small duration, and is hardly finished yet,) of the

ultimate destination of the Velasquez and the Murillo, whether both went to the Nunnery as Mark Bridgman proposed, or both to Mill Lane as Louis Duval desired; or whether Hester's reconciling clause were agreed to, and the merchant's grateful present divided between the parties. For my part, if I were inclined to bet upon the occasion, I should lay a considerable wager that the lady had her way. But, as I said before, the courteous reader must settle the matter as seems to him best.

Note. They who live in the neighbourhood of Reading will recognize, in the splendid paintings that I have attempted to describe, two of the chief ornaments of Mr. Anderdon's beautiful and select collection at Farley Hill. It may add to the interest of the Salvator to say, that it was that picture (originally purchased by the very tasteful and liberal possessor from the gallery of the King of Naples) which converted our own great painter Wilkie from his originally brilliant and sparkling style to his present chaster and severer manner. He used to visit Mr. Anderdon and his pictures every morning at Rome, where the picture and its accomplished proprietors remained some time, and from intense admiration of its boldness and breadth, resolved to abandon his own glit tering effects, and to revert, as all the world knows how finely he has done, to the utmost purity and simplicity of the art. There are who complain of this change of style; but, for my part, I think that he has done well, if only to prove that there is no mode of the pencil in which he does not excel.

An interesting anecdote also belongs to the Guercino. It was purchased from the collection at the Colonna Palace; and Mr. Anderdon says that from the moment he became the owner of that picture the old servants seemed to transfer their allegiance to him, as if the possession of the David had been the charter under which they served.

I could talk for ever of this exquisite collection, unique in the admirable taste moral as well as pictorial with which it has been selected, full of the best works of the best masters, and rich in those paintings of which everybody has heard, and which to see forms an epoch in one's life.

There, for instance, is almost the only serious work of Teniers-an exquisitely painted landscape, with three figures from the New Testament, (for although the glory round the head indicates the Christ, the subject, I believe, is not exactly ascertained,) and with no sign of Teniers, except what he could not help, the trace of a Dutch-like country festival in the background. There is the famous Coral Fishery on the coast of Africa, by Salvator Rosa; a sea-view breathing heat-the very water seems ready to boil. And there that Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto, of which so pretty a story is currently told. The artist, it is said, went out one day, leaving this picture unfinish ed upon the easel; and Raphael happening to call, painted in the head of the Madonna by way of visiting-card. That the head of the Virgin is by Raphael, there can be no manner of doubt. It has the grace, the sweetness, the composure, the light stealing from under the eyelids, the brow of thought, the look of love, which he, and he only, was used to give to the

Virgin Mother.

But the glory of this collection-the gem amongst gems, is a copy from Andrea Sacchi, by its kind and liberal owner's most kind and most richly-gifted wife. It is a St. Bruno, a head purely intellectual, of which the charm is that, which generally vanishes from all copies of great pictures-the singular and beautiful expression. A friend of mine walking through

the rooms said very happily, that next to being the paintress of the St. Bruno, she would wish to be the possessor of the David. The purchaser of the original wished to exchange it for the copy: and the Duke de Berri, no mean judge, died in the persuasion that no woman ever did or could paint such a picture, and that it was an original by Carlo Dolce.

Mrs. Anderdon, whom I have the honour and

pleasure of counting amongst my friends, will chide me for putting her name into a book. But nobody else will; and in good truth she must forgive me, for the temptation was too great to be withstood. If she does not like to be talked about, she should not paint so well: the effect is the natural consequence of the

cause.

ROSAMOND:

A STORY OF THE PLAGUE.

In the reign of Charles the Second-that reign over which the dissolute levity of the monarch and his court, and the witty pages of Count Anthony Hamilton, have shed a false and delusive glare, which is sometimes mistaken for gaiety, but in which the people, harassed by perpetual treasons, or rumours of treasons, and visited by such tremendous calamities as the Fire and Plague, seem to have been anything rather than gay;-in that troubled and distant reign, Belford was, as now, a place of considerable size and importance; probably, when considered relatively with the size of other towns and the general population of the kingdom, of as much consequence as at the present time.

True it is, that, in common with other worshipful things, the town" had suffered losses." The demolition of the abbey had been a blow which a charter from Queen Elizabeth, and even the high honour of bearing her royal effigy in the midst of four other maiden faces for the borough arms, had hardly repaired; whilst the munificent patronage of Archbishop Laud, a liberal benefactor to the public schools and charities of the place, scarcely made amends for the plunder of the corporation chest,-a measure resorted to on some frivolous pretext in the preceding reign, amongst many similar ways and means of King Jamie. But the grand evil of all was, that Belford happened to be so near the site of many of the battles and sieges of the Civil War, that the inhabitants had an undesired opportunity of judging with great nicety which of the two contending parties did most harm in friendly quarters, and whether the reprobate cavaliers of the royal army, or the godly troopers of the parliamentary forces, were the more oppressive and mischievous inmates of a peaceful town. Even the wise rule of Cromwell, excellent as regarded the restoration of prosperity within the realm, went but a little way in compensating for the long years of turmoil and disaster through which it had been ob

tained; and although warned by the fines and penalties levied on the corporation by James the First of "happy memory," and aware that his grandson had, with somewhat diminished facilities for performing the operation, an equal taste for extracting money from the pockets of the lieges, that prudent body contrived to turn so readily with every wind during that stormy and changeable reign, that even Archbishop Laud's star-chamber itself must have pronounced their loyalty as unimpeachable as that of the docile and ductile Vicar of Bray, yet, such had been the effect of those different drawbacks, of the royal mulets and fines and penalties, and of the exactions of the soldiery, in the Civil War, that the good town of Belford was hardly so opulent as its importance as a county town and its situation on the great river might seem to indicate, and by no means so gay as might have been expected from its vicinity to London and Oxford, and the royal residences of Hampton and Windsor.

“A dull, dreary, gloomy, ugly place as ever poor maiden was mewed up in!" it was pronounced by the fair Rosamond Norton, the ward and kinswoman of old Anthony Shawe, apothecary and herbalist, at the sign of the Golden Mortar, on the south end of the High Bridge," the dullest, dreariest, gloomiest, ugliest place that ever was built by hands! She was sure," she said, "that there was not such a melancholy, moping town in all England; and the people in it-the few folk that there were looked sickly and pining, like the great orange-tree in a little pot in Master Shawe's green-house, or fretful and discontented like her own lark in his wired cage. Master Anthony was very kind to her-that she needs must say; but Belford and the Golden Mortar was a dreary dwelling-place for a young gentlewoman!”

And yet was Belford in those days a pretty place-prettier, perhaps, than now-with its old-fashioned picturesque streets, mingled with trees and gardens radiating from the ample market-place; its beautiful churches; the Forbury, with its open lawn and mall-like walk; the suburban clusters of rural dwellings in the outskirts of the town; and the bright clear river running through its centre like a waving line of light: a pretty place must Belford have been in those days! And a prettier dwelling than the Golden Mortar could hardly have been found within the precincts of the town or of the county.

The outward appearance of the house, as seen from the street, was indeed sufficiently unpromising. It was an irregular, low-browed tenement, separated from the river by two or three warehouses and granaries; and the shop, a couple of steps lower than the street, so that the descent into it had somewhat the effect of walking down into a cellar, was, although sufficiently spacious, dark and gloomy.

The shelves, too, filled with bundles of dried camomile, saxifrage, pellitory, vervain, colemint, and a thousand other such herbs (vide our friend Nicholas Culpeper), with boxes of costly spices, rare gums, and mineral powders, and bottles filled with such oils and distilled waters as formed the fashionable medicines of the time,-had a certain dingy and ominous appearance, much increased by divers stuffed curiosities from foreign parts, amongst which an alligator suspended from the ceiling was the most conspicuous, and sundry glass jars, containing pickled reptiles and insects of various sorts, snakes, lizards, toads, spiders, and locusts; whilst a dusky, smoky laboratory, into which the shop opened, fitted up with stills, retorts, alembics, furnaces, and all the chemical apparatus of the day, added to the gloominess and discomfort of the general impression.

But, in one corner of that unpleasant-looking shop, fenced from general observation by a brown stuff curtain, was a flight of steps leading into apartments, not large indeed, but so light, so airy, so pleasant, so comfortable, that the transition from one side of the house to the other was like passing from night into day. These were the apartments of Rosamond. They opened too into a large garden, embracing the whole space behind the granaries and warehouses that led to the river-side, and extending back until stopped by wharfs for coals and timber, too valuable to be purchased:

for his garden was Anthony Shawe's delight; who, a botanist and a traveller, a friend of Evelyn's and a zealous cultivator of foreign plants, had filled the whole plot of ground with rare herbs and choice flowers, and had even attained to the luxury of a cold, damp, dark house for greens, where certain orange and lemon trees, myrtles, laurustinuses, and phillyreas languished through the winter, and were held for miracles of bounty and profusion, if in some unusually fine summer they had strength enough to bear blossoms and fruit. Ah me! what would Master Anthony Shawe and his worthy friend Master Evelyn say if they could but look upon the pits, the stovehouses, the conservatories, the gardeningdoings of these horticultural days! I question if steam-boats and rail-roads would astonish them half so much.

Nevertheless, that garden, in spite of its cold greenhouse, was in its less pretending parts a place of exceeding pleasantness, rich to profusion in the most beautiful of the English plants and shrubs, pinks, lilies, roses, jessamine, and fragrant in the aromatic herbs of all countries, which, together with the roots and leaves of flowers, formed so large a part of the materia medica of the time. So exceedingly pleasant was that garden, kept by constant watering in a state of delicious and dewy freshness that might vie with an April meadow, that I could almost sympathize