at once, for I remember very well listening to the creaking of the ship's timbers as she rose to the swell, and watching the lamp, which was slung from the ceiling, and gave light enough to make out the other hammocks swinging slowly all together. At last, however, I dropped off, and I reckon I must have been asleep about an hour, when I woke with a start. For the first moment I didn't see anything but the swinging hammocks and the lamp; but then suddenly I became aware that some one was standing by my hammock, and I saw the figure as plainly as I see any one of you now, for the foot of the hammock was close to the lamp, and the light struck full across on the head and shoulders, which was all that I could see of him. There he was, the old Commodore; his grizzled hair coming out from under a red woollen night-cap, and his shoulders wrapped in an old threadbare blue dressing-gown which I had often seen him in. His face looked pale and drawn, and there was a wistful disappointed look about the eyes.

I was so taken aback I couldn't speak, but lay watching him. He looked full at my face once or twice, but didn't seem to recognise me; and, just as I was getting back my tongue and going to speak, he said slowly: Where's Tom? this is his hammock. I can't see Tom;' and then he looked vaguely about and passed away somehow, but how I couldn't see. In a moment or two I jumped out and hurried to my cabin, but young Holdsworth was fast asleep. I sat down, and wrote down just what I had seen, making a note of the exact time, twenty minutes to two. I didn't turn in again, but sat watching the youngster. When he woke I asked him if he had heard anything of his great uncle by the last mail. Yes, he had heard; the old gentleman was rather feeble, but nothing particular the matter. I kept my own counsel and never told a soul in the ship; and, when the mail came to hand a few days afterwards with a letter from the Commodore to his nephew, dated late in September, saying that he was well, I thought the figure by my hammock must have been all my own fancy. No. 8.-VOL. II.

However, by the next mail came the news of the old Commodore's death. It had been a very sudden break-up, his executor said. He had left all his property, which was not much, to his great-nephew, who was to get leave to come home as soon as he could.

The first time we touched at Malta Tom Holdsworth left us, and went home. We followed about two years afterwards, and the first thing I did. after landing was to find out the Commodore's executor. He was a quiet, dry little Plymouth lawyer, and very civilly answered all my questions about the last days of my old friend. At last I asked him to tell me as near as he could the time of his death; and he put on his spectacles, and got his diary, and turned over the leaves. I was quite nervous till he looked up and said,"Twenty-five minutes to two, sir, A. M., on the morning of October 21st; or it might be a few minutes later."

"How do you mean, sir?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "it is an odd story. The doctor was sitting with me, watching the old man, and, as I tell you, at twenty-five minutes to two, he got up and said it was all over. We stood together, talking in whispers for, it might be, four or five minutes, when the body seemed to move. He was an odd old man, you know, the Commodore, and we never could get him properly to bed, but he lay in his red nightcap and old dressing-gown, with a blanket over him. It was not a pleasant sight, I can tell you, sir. I don't think one of you gentlemen, who are bred to face all manner of dangers, would have liked it. As I was saying, the body first moved, and then sat up, propping itself behind with its hands. The eyes were wide open, and he looked at us for a moment, and said slowly, 'I've been to the Mediterranean, but I didn't see Tom.' Then the body sank back again, and this time the old Commodore was really dead. But it was not a pleasant thing to happen to one, sir. I do not remember anything like it in my forty years' practice."

To be continued.

M

A GOOD ruler but a bad general was Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. The French defeated him at Auerstadt and Jena; mortally wounded, he retired to his own territories to die, but, being hunted out, took refuge within those of the Danish king. His enemies overran Brunswick and committed such dreadful excesses that the huzzars of Brunswick Oels, assuming a black uniform of perpetual mourning for their loss, signified a determination neither to give nor receive quarter by wearing on their shakoes a silver skull and crossbones. They fulfilled the vow, and their hatred of the French was deepened by the death of the young Duke William Frederick, at Ligny, on the day before Waterloo. Mr. Millais has chosen for his contribution the parting of an officer of this famous corps of the BlackBrunswickers from his mistress. He insinuates a French leaning to her judgment by giving a French character to her face, and showing hung upon the wall of the room a print after

David's picture of "Napoleon crossing the Alps." She would have him stay, not only as her lover, but as the opponent of her own party. For this she has interposed herself between him and the door,-standing up against his breast, she holds it back with one hand upon the lock, although he firmly strives to open it and leave her. For this the tears are ready to start under her broad eyelids, and for this she lays her head against his bosom; her eyes are downcast, and her lips tremble with emotion-suppressed though evident. He looks at her depressed face, in pique averted from him, himself hurt that she owns not the call of duty he must obey.

"I could not love thee, deare, so much, Loved I not honour more"

is the motto he might take from Lovelace's song. His will is stern and heart strong, and she does but make the duty painful by resisting. Maybe he feels that a political bias in

fluences her conduct. Does this seem melodramatic, good reader-this story of vengeance, skulls, and cross-bones, and lovers' parting? Possibly it may to some who believe in no more earnest expression of passion than an operatic duet sung before the footlights. But let such sceptics see Millais' picture, and they will recognise more than the raptures of the kid-glove school. He has dealt with great wisdom upon the broad, bold, and blunt features of the German officer; the square forehead and knitted brow, the clear firm-set lips; the hair cut short giving a precision and rigidity to his face, which, brown but pale, typifies a resolute grief admirably. She too, with her French face, is half unworthy of such a lover, piqued and nigh fretful as she is. Passionate as a child, and unstable as water, she would stay his will with her prejudices. All this must strike the most unobservant as the converse of the motive of the "Huguenot"-to which this picture is a pendant. Let us think how the artist displays his knowledge of the heart in thus treating two allied subjects so diversely. In both the woman would save her lover, one by keeping him away from danger; the other, humbler and more devoted, bowing to the will of the strong-hearted man, strives only to gain him a little safety-only a little-with the badge of Guise! We are to suppose too that she is not aware of the Protestantism of her lover, at any rate that it is not publicly known; so she is tempting him to no overt dishonour-as she of the Black-Brunswicker does; therefore the entreaty of that sweet face, whose beauty men have not yet done justice to, because forsooth it is not tamely vacant of expression. The depth of her tenderness is very different from that passionate caprice of the lady of Brussels, who would not guard her lover, but rather lock him up out of the way of hurting or being hurt.

For technical merit this work is a triumph throughout. Getting over the difficulty of the mass of black in the soldier's uniform by any means would be

honourable to the painter, but every artist will appreciate the skill with which Millais has opposed this by a sudden contrast of the intense white of the lady's dress, so that they negative one another; then, to overcome the chill effect of bothhaving grouped round them warm greens of the wall-paper, mauve of the lady's shawl, and hot transparent brown of the polished mahogany door, white and black repeated in the print on the wall, he adds the warm-tinted floor, the variety in unity of broken tints of warm or cold counterchanged upon the black and the white dress; lastly, the focalization of hot tint with crimson-scarlet of the broad arm-ribbon of the lady, and the subtle employment of downright cold blue in the braid running athwart the soldier's figure. We shall be told that these are technical subtleties people don't understand, but reply that they are not subtleties, but patent to the least taught eye. Colour is as much an art as music, being in fact to the eye what music is to the ear,-the expression of beauty

"That

may overtake far thought, With music that it makes." The time is rapidly coming when this will be understood, and critics no more omit to describe the colour of a picture -heart of art as it is-than they would the melody of a piece of music.

Mr. Frith's "Claude Duval" displays no such knowledge as Mr. Millais' work. Comparatively it is deficient in artistic power and feeling for the subject, relatively coarse as that is. Claude Duval, the highwayman, took a lady out of her coach and made her dance a corranto with him in the road while his companions rifled the equipage. His figure is stiff and angular, needs grace and spirit of action; that of the lady is much better; she looks pallid with fear, and trembling with suppressed anger. The group inside the coach is the best part of the picture; a masked ruffian enters it with a grin, demanding the occupiers' valuables. An old lady clasps her hands entreatingly, a younger one faints at the spectacle. An old man

sits bound by the roadside, after having struggled against the thieves.

Sir E. Landseer has outdone himself with his great picture, "A Flood in the Highlands." A torrent rushes through the village street, bearing large pinetrees torn up by the roots, and carried down from the bank above; these have fallen across a waggon, the horse of which struggles in the flood; some men on the roof of a cottage endeavour to save him by means of a rope, that stretched to the utmost does but check the speed. Immersed, and nigh spent, an ox has come driving full upon a cottage in the foreground, and with bloody nostrils and distended eyes, strives vainly to get footing for its hoofs. A goat whose eyes are glazing in death is swept down beside the larger beast, and will soon sink in the waves. Upon the roof of this last cottage, up to the very threshold of which the water flows, are gathered its inhabitants, a woman with her child, whom she has just taken from the cradle; and now, so ghastly is the spectacle of death presented by the drowning beasts before her that she lets even the infant lie scarce noticed on her lap. Glaring with rounded eyes of horror, and parted jaw, fixed wide in terror, with outthrust head, and body bowed, she stares, her forehead in deep lines, and her cheek hollowed out fearfully. The cradle is empty, the clothes tossed over; before it a sheep-dog, with pricked ears and quivering flanks, whimpers with fright. Behind her sits an old man, blind, scarce conscious, but mutely praying; by his side, a boy, dripping wet, clasps a puppy he has saved close to his chest; the boy is pallid-cheeked, and his eyes red. On a ladder, by which they have reached the roof, is a group of poultry, fussily troubled, and stupidly selfish. cock roosts lazily; one of the hens in her nervous alarm-true bit of nature thishas laid an egg, which, falling on a lower step before a cat, astonishes her greatly, as, with curved tail, she rises to inspect it.

The

Above the poultry, a mouse creeps upon the step, having judiciously put them between himself and

the cat. The trophies of the household, that have been saved as its palladium, lie heaped in front,-a brass-studded target, wherewith the old grandsire might have gone to battle in the '45; a heap of plaids, and triple case of Highland knives. Overhead the great pines roar in the wind's strife, bending their red branches like canes; black game, driven from the moors, cling there; and the wild grey clouds of storm hurry heavily over the scene of ruin. Close under the eaves of the cottage in front, a hare, borne down from the open, and sheltered from the force of the deluge by the slack-water, burrows fearfully in haste a way into the thatch of the habitation of its enemies; its ears are laid back, and the eyes, that Nature has made ever expressive of alarm, have now no meaning in them but the wild instinct of self-preservation. We have said the water has reached the cottage threshold, and it has flooded the interior. A flock of ducks swim before it. Over it is placed a board, with the inscription denoting the occupation of the inmates; thus:ALICK GORDON. Upputting.

Stance mile East.

For the benefit of Southron readers, let us say that "upputting"-genuine old Saxon the Celtic proprietor has adopted-is equivalent to the offer of "beds." Does not promise good ones even; you may stop, and that is all; still less does it hold out hopes of "good entertainment for man and beast," so rife, but so seldom fulfilled, in the English villages. "Stance mile East," signifies that there is a mile-stone so placed. In the Highlands the primitive direction to travellers is by the points of the compass, and not "first turning to the right and third to the left," of the less intelligible English custom.

Mr. Elmore's picture, "The Tuileries, 20th June, 1792," has for subject. Marie Antoinette before the mob. The lowest of the people have flooded the Palace; and, the Queen's attendants having brought her children, in order that their presence might protect their