'Curse it, Lucy!' he exclaimed at last, with a strong effort, as if anxious to break the silence; have you nothing to tell me? When did Higgs call here ?

6

About an hour ago.'

Well, why could n't you say that at first? If it had been that fellow Jack Phillips, I should have heard it soon enough. He's here too much.'

'Well, George,' said she, mildly, if you wish it, we can refuse to let him in. I thought he was a friend of yours, and for that reason I—'

Fell in love with him,' interrupted Wilkins, with a sneer; 'you see I know all about it.'

At this announcement Lucy turned short round, without saying a word, and fixed her dark eyes upon him with a look of surprise and incredulity that completely overmastered the dogged gaze it encountered.

No, George,' said she, with a faint laugh, 'not that; but it's ill jesting on such subjects: do n't say it again.

'But I will say it, and I do! Jesting!' By G-! I mean what I say - all of it.'

6

No, no, George,' exclaimed she, with an hysterical laugh, and catching hold of his arm; you do not mean ityou cannot. I know it was only a joke; but you looked so very strange! It was only a joke - was n't it?'

'Was it?' muttered he, grinding his teeth, though without raising his eye to hers; we'll see that! But give me my supper, for I must be out. Do n't keep me waiting.'

The girl made no reply, but releasing his arm, and turning her back toward him, hastily dashed her hand across her eyes, then went on with her preparations in silence. This lasted about five minutes, Wilkins gazing now at the floor, and now stealing a look at his wife.

The supper is ready,' she said, at length. Wilkins rose hastily, and dragging the chair to the table, seated himself and began to eat voraciously, without noticing his wife, who sat at the opposite side, eyeing him with looks of suspicion and fear. Once or twice their eyes met, and Wilkins' dropped beneath hers.

What are you staring at?' demanded he, angrily; can't a man eat without having every mouthful counted?'

The girl rose without reply, and taking a stool from the corner, drew it near the fire, and seated herself with her back to him. 'Did Higgs say what he wanted?' asked Wilkins.

'No; he only asked if you were in, and when I told him you were not, he went off.'

I suppose he wanted money. I must see him. Do you know where he went?'

'He said he would wait at Rawley's, and that you would know where that was.'

Without farther words, Wilkins left the table, and put on his shaggy overcoat, jerking his hat on his head, and taking from the corner a stick, something between a cane and a bludgeon, he sallied out. 'Will you return soon, George?'

⚫ Wilkins slammed the door behind him, without any reply, and walked off.

His wife stood until the sound of his footsteps died away, her lip quivering, the large tears in her eyes, with her hand pressed painfully against her breast, and her breath coming short and with difficulty. The struggle was but for a moment. She threw herself in a chair, bent her head down upon the table, and wept long and bitterly.

A WORD ON ORIGINAL PAINTINGS.

Ir is always a marvel, frequently an annoyance, and, at times, a grief to me, to hear persons to whose judgment on other topics I might willingly defer-speak of good copies of paintings, as in their estimation equal or almost equal to the originals themselves;' persons who have doubtless cherished with deep care the hand-writing of some friend; the Essay perhaps in which his opinions were developed and enforced; the Letter that spoke his impassioned Love; the lines of Poetry in which his spirit yet breathes and in the very characters of which his genius may perhaps be traced.

All these, now that the power that sketched them is mouldering in the dust, are resorted to like hid treasure, watched over, dwelt upon in solitude, spoken to, apostrophized, loved by the deep heart. Would they barter these relicks of delight against nicely-printed copies of the same productions? The copies to be curiously bound, and silver-gilt, the paper to be fresh and fair, the ink black, and the characters much clearer and more legible than in the original draft? Not for worlds! There is some latent, some mysterious yet undeniable connection between these lifeless manuscripts and the beings whose affections seem even yet to haunt and hover round them; and the pulse beats and the blood gushes through the loyal heart, as it vibrates again to the wellremembered words, and half listens for the voice that might have uttered them.

white

And now if this be the case with mere pen, ink, and paper paper and black ink what becomes of it when the subject is a painting, in which the soul of the imperishable artist speaks its inmost graces of conception in the beau idéal of form? or in the varied wonders of expression? or blossoms forth its affections into colour? COLOUR! that deep, mute eloquence of Earth and Heaven! that one remaining beauty of Eden! That earliest sensation of joy that the mourner can admit into a broken heart! That choice of GoD when he would decorate the sky with a promise of His love! That poetry, surpassing words! The Soul's wealth, it's element, it's fountain of refreshment and joy!

Is all this to be accounted as nought? The long yearning, the deep earnestness of soul of the artist? The hallowed stillness of the studio in which the miracle of art has been achieved, is it no longer to be thought of? - and the half-planned, half-fortuitous movement of the brush, just short of sacred Inspiration, that transferred his Idea to the canvass, and clothed his spirit with gladness, and his name with lustre; making him familiar with the highest and purest imagination that has ever been accorded to man, a consciousness namely of the possession of creative power. Is it all-nothing?

Has my reader perchance frequently visited the studio of some true artist? I have myself no pretension whatever to art, but it has been my happiness more than once to have been, alone, in the studio of Thorwaldsen; and I have felt there, and elsewhere upon similar occasions, that the repose that pervaded it was occupied; the quiet that reigned there was a living quiet; it was a silence in which sensa

tion lingered; a rich capacity of existence; an intense atmosphere of life waiting to be appropriated. I have been in that of one of our American artists, distinguished for his calm yet precious colouring, watching his efforts with rapt attention, when suddenly his pencil has shed the hue that relieved, at the same instant, his heart and my own; and Joy has enveloped us, begirt us both at the same moment as with a sun-beam. There was a spiritual light around us, and although the silence was unbroken, I felt as if his soul had spoke to mine. If it had been the habit of our country, I could not but have embraced him as he stood, pallet, pencil, linen-jacket, and all!

Now this spirit, or, if you will, this character of hallowed stillness and this solemn effusion of the soul of the artist; the hopes, the fears, the affections, the rapturous delight with which he has at last found his pencil give utterance and visible existence to some long-cherished combination of his fancy; all this, which forms his life, is bestowed upon the offspring of his genius, and for century after century shall live and breathe and haunt and dwell around the noiseless unobtrusive canvass of the original painting, that hangs, mellowing its tints from year to year, in intermingling beauty and immeasurable grace; the admiration, the solace, the joy, the reward, the refinement of thousands who flock to it from distant passages of Earth:

And are the works of the mere operatives who infest the galleries of Europe and frequently by their numbers almost exclude the visiter, or confine his view with their sheets of canvass to an occasional or partial glimpse of the object of his far pilgrimage-are these mechanical copies to satisfy our longings for the art, while the immortal production itself is to be seen merely by crossing the Atlantic and the Simplon ?

Are they to occupy, with their leaden outlines, and muddy tints, and wooden limbs, and abortive expressions, that sanctuary in the young American heart, where the first aspirations after excellence are nurtured and bred; and where and at the moment when the taste is formed and the soul expands and is refined, or is repressed and fades, or perishes, as images are denied or are accorded to it, to exalt, extend or vivify its capacities, to show God in the beautiful, and His presence in the sublime alike of nature and of art?

Ought these copies in justice even to be permitted to take place of that image in the memory, which calls around it, from the grave of the past, the emotions that possessed us at the first view of some original inspiration? When we stood in front of it? near it? within its presence? within the nimbus of it's existence communing with the spirit of its author? I think not: I think the copy obscures the recollection of the original, and blinds the imaginative eye; deadens the memory of sensations that have formed our happiness; and destroys that bewilderment of joy which it is so delightful to remember; that tumultuous movement when we could only say to each other, after a long breath: And this is Raffaelle!' Oh moment, beyond the reach or future measurement of Time!

No! these imported academic copies of the great paintings of Europe, which are so fast increasing in number upon us, are often worse than valueless in the effects they produce alike upon the inexperienced, the young, and the travelled amateur. They still the inquiries and satisfy the sentiment' of the first; they injure the imaginative powers of the second; and outrage the memory of the last.

A few well-chosen engravings are, for every purpose of usefulness or of true pleasure, worth all that have ever been brought to America; and a whole wilderness of copies were well-bartered for one of ALLSTON'S deeply-imaginative female heads; one of his exquisite visions of the moral and intellectual beauty of Woman; revelations of the Heaven of her interior spirit: or for one of those Skies which our own WEIR, in his quiet way, stretches abroad in full aërial perspective, above some ruined tower, or solitary mountain-lake,