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afterwards taking advantage of an opportunity to wreak his vengeance during the scuffle, when so many others were present, and who therefore might have equally been considered guilty, were it not for the two credible witnesses now before the Court. He concluded his speech with asking if the prisoner was yet will ing to confess his crime; when nothing but his former story was again and again repeated, together with accusations of perjury against the witnesses. The Judge therefore ordered him to be put to the torture. "I call all the Saints to witness to my innocence!" exclaimed Andreolo. Then, his eyes flashing with indignation, he was about to address the Judge; but suddenly controlling himself, be permitted the officers to proceed in their duty, without a struggle or a word; and sadly smiling on all around him, as if in gentle appeal to their humanity, he was bound upon the rack.

The mother heard of her son's arrest, before he had been borne within the prison-gates. She hurried to the palace of Count Pepoli, a nobleman of great authority in the city, and making herself known as the widow of his friend, implored his influence in so dear a cause. Tears, unknown to herself, and without a sob, trickled down her cheeks, as she urged his interference. All her feelings were so centred in her boy, that she was unconscious of those drops of agony that would fall. The Count listened to her with the deepest interest, but demanded of her why she was so assured of her son's innocence. "Because," she answered, "he had himself assured me of it." "Alas! madam," was the reply, "we are willing to convince those we love best that we have committed no wrong. But go to him,-I will obtain your admittance to the prison-and there, with all a mother's power, persuade him to reveal every thing. The less I am deceived, the more will be my influence." She thanked him, but added in a suppressed tone, You do not know his truth; and for myself-though I will obey you, if you insist on it-yet I would not willingly inflict such great distress, so severe a pang, as to make him doubt my faith in him." These words, her look, her manner, all touched the Count's heart; and he promised his utmost exertions in favour of her son.

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It was necessary to mention the above interview in order to explain the story as it continues. Count Pepoli attended both the examinations in the Court. His presence had annoyed the Judge in

his proceedings, or they would have been more summary. He had silently observed the prisoner, studying his every look and motion, nor could he discover the slightest indication of guilt. He could believe nothing evil in so ingenuous a countenance. There was no downward cast of the eyes, no shuffling of the features, no contradiction in their individual expressions, no hesitation about the corners of the lips. Shame, he thought, never had sullied his fair and free brow; it bore witness to a modest and honourable mind. "I feel much interest in this lad," said the Count, addressing himself to the Judge, as he moved his chair towards him, "and I would gladly save him from this painful trial. I cannot suspect that malevolence, like that imputed to him, can lurk beneath such apparent sincerity; yet, if you think otherwise, will torture be of avail with so firm a nature? Then, unless he will confess, what but banishment can be his sentence? Banish him therefore at once from the States of Bologna. I will, in whatever mode you please, stand surety for his conduct. And, if you can yield to my intercession, I will endeavour to prove how much I am indebted to your indulgence." Upon this, many smiles and protestations took place (the prisoner still bound upon the rack) together with an invitation to the Judge for the morrow's dinner; till at last Andreolo, under certain restrictions, and with the surety of Count Pepoli, was ordered to be released from the rack, and conducted to his home-banishment, and that to take place within three days, being included in this act of mercy.

How joyfully the mother received her son, need not be related. A sentence of banishment, as all property, to which the offender might be heir, would be confiscated, was indeed severe. But the Count called on them, and explained his reasons why he thought this the most eligible course; comforting them with the assurance that the Pope's Legate could at any period, recall and reinstate him in his rights as citizen; and promising, in the meanwhile, to exert himself in the discovery of the actual

assassin.

On the third day, late as he dared, Andreolo left his native city, a banished being. His journey lay towards Modena, where he was advised to remain, as at the shortest distance from the States. He was well armed, but thinking he could not mistake the road, he was without a guide. His horse moved on

duplicate of it upon the world is a different matter. It is not well done;-it is exceeding his natural privileges. The world is entitled to some consideration as well as his face. It is making too much of a good (or indifferent) thing. It is wrong; it is indecorous; it is indelicate and should the man happen to have any moral or physical obliquity about him-should he squint or have taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act-it is both injudicious and unseemly-very. They may say of portrait-painting as they say of spirituous liquors, it is not the use but the abuse thereof that is pernicious, and certainly no art has been treated in so reprehensible a manner since (as Burton says) "the enamoured daughter of Deburiades the Sycionian first introduced it to notice by taking the person of her lover with charcoal, as the candle gave his shadow on the wall," up to the present time, as this same art of portrait-painting. Instead of being ap propriated to embalm beauty, and preserve the externals of wit, wisdom, genius, courage, and intelligence, half the Hobbs's and Dobbs's in creation have availed themselves of it, to inflict upon the much-enduring public copies of their interesting physiognomies. This is but an ill compliment to the memory of the fair Deburiades. And the ill usage principally proceeds from that sex who ought to have more gallantry and good sense than wantonly to bring the discovery of a lady into disrepute; for visit what exhibition of modern art you may, the numerical proportion of hirsute faces over those of the more endurable sex, is most grievous. Besides, the ladies are in no case to be complained of. Almost any thing in the semblance of a womanoriginal or copied is pleasant to the eye of man; and though there may be some truth in honest John Webster's observation

"With what a compell'd face a woman sits

While she is drawing! I have noted divers
Either to feign smiles, or suck in their lips
To have a little mouth; ruffle the cheeks
To have the dimple seen; and so disorder
The face with affectation-"

yet what are those trivial matters-the
manoeuvring for a smile or a dimple
in that sex to whom affectation is at times
so natural and easy as to be quite becom-
ing, to the horrible violent assumption
of it by the he-creatures staring at you
from the walls in every direction? You
are in an exhibition-room. Well ;-just
turn your eyes around and note how un-
commonly handsome, and noble, and
graceful, and animated the gentlemen

"

are all endeavouring to make themselves! Look at the haughty sublimity of the folded arms, and the easy propriety of the outstretched limbs! Observe the studied negligence of the attitude, and the "admir'd disorder" of the adored hair! Ah! incautious fair, turn-turn away your gaze before it be too late! Here stands an irresistible spare young man, with an infinity of whiskers: mark the resolute compression of his lips and the fiery sparkle of his eye! How fiercely intelligent he looketh in his own esteem! By his side hangs a fat, flobby face, enriched with wreathed smiles' of the most dangerous and insinuating character. One gentleman affects a pensive thoughtfulness,—another, a commanding frown! Some arch their eyebrows, and have their right hand deposited in their left breast; others, recline with their elbow resting on the book covered table, their fingers the while tapping their literary and scientific foreheads, as much as to say-"what a world of thought is here! Again, a 66 gay young man" chooseth to be painted with a look of languid satiety or misanthropical indifference: whilst some outrageous hosier's clerk, who reads Byron and has an ill-digestion, is depicted with his hair thrown back from his "pale" forehead, and his mouth screwed up to that precise angle which denotes that he has im

bibed

"that vital scorn of all, As if the worst had fallen that could befall."

In short, instead of having their features transcribed in a natural and unassuming state of repose, the majority of the gentlemen think proper to have some fleeting feeling or transitory passion fixed upon the canvass, thereby certifying to the judicious observer the somewhat assinine qualities of the originals and it is not going too far to say, that here is more petty, paltry, repulsive affectation in the portraits of any two dozen males, than in those of all the women that were ever painted. Truly, John Webster might have spared his sneer.

Portrait-painting has one peculiar and especial virtue. It has a stronger claim upon the AFFECTIONS than the noblest branches of art. Its dull, literal, matterof-fact transcripts are more dear to those with whom the fate of the originals is linked than the brightest and loveliest visions of ideal beauty. Through its medium friends and lovers gaze into each other's faces at the outermost ends of the earth. It preserves to you, unchanged by death or decay, or the mutations of

the world, the frank, free countenance of the companion of your boyhood, or the form and features that "first-love traced." Through it the mother gazes with mournful tenderness on the similitude of her absent or departed child, and children with grateful recollection on the presentment of those who were the first and last to love them. And no matter how common-place, or generally uninteresting the countenances which have been so preserved-they were dear to some one. The beneficent law of nature sayeth, that no human being shall go utterly unbeloved;-it has insured sympathy and affection to all;-a nook in some heart to the most despised ::

"There is a tear for all that die

A mourner o'er the humblest bier,"—

therefore, as an art that yields to the eye that for which the soul yearns, portraitpainting is worthy of all love and honour. But then, it ought to minister to those sacred and hidden feelings in the "miniature" size, so that the object could be worn next the heart, or deposited for unobserved inspection in the silent closet or quiet drawer. It ought not to placard your love and esteem on two square feet of canvass, to be stuck against the wall for the criticism or annoyance of the cold and uninterested. That is too barefaced an exhibition of your sympathies ;-too obtrusive a setting forth of your affectionate reminiscences.

Again, a man is not to be respected whose portrait occupieth a prominent station in his own house. It is too self

sufficient by half. It is using his friends ill, giving them, as it were, too much of himself. Perchance he gives good dinners. Well, - admit the honourable fact; still is he not justified in exorbitantly indemnifying himself by the exhithan the privileged quantity of egotism. There is a decency to be observed in such matters; and the first person singular is enough for any gentleman without showing off at secondhand, Such double-faced proceedings are not commendable.

Besides, this Janus-fashion of a man having a couple of visages is often attended by unpleasant consequences,more especially in the case of second marriages. For instance, when Mrs. Smith, after the expenditure of a due and proper quantity of grief, has prevailed upon herself to be comforted, and has, at the expiration of a decorous period, legally invested Mr. Brown with the rights and privileges of her defunct lord, it is a peculiarly embarrassing con

sideration to the wedded widow to know what to do with the face Smith left behind him. It looketh unfeeling to stow it away at once in a garret or lumber. room but then again, to suffer it to remain staring from the wall, inspecting, as it were, the proceedings of her and her new help-mate, with an expression of countenance changed (to her eye at least) from a beneficent smile to a reproachful frown, as much as to say, "frailty, thy name is woman," is mighty uncomfortable. When she entered into her new state, she ought to have had a hole dug in the garden, and Smith's portrait interred with the rest of her Smithonian reminiscences; but a sort of pseudo delicacy preventeth this, and there hangs Smith intruding most disagreeably upon Brown. The effect is decidedly unpleathe domestic privacy of Mr. and Mrs. sant to both parties, reminding the lady of her faithfulness to the memory of the dear deceased, and placing before the who formerly eat, drank, and slept with gentleman the features of the person Mrs. Brown. Now there is something indelicate in this a species of moral bigamy. How can conjugalities go on in such a presence? hang there, his face ought to be turned

If Smith has to

to the wall instead of from it. But this is not the worst; for in the case of any domestic difference will occur despite of love and legal cereand such things voking habit of reverting to the past; monies-the secondary wife hath a proand by way of reply to Brown's expostulations, she fixeth a lack-a-daisical gaze upon the features of the "departed one," as much as to say

"Ah me!

Seeing what I have seen-seeing what I see !" and then Brown waxeth warm, as is most natural, and asketh, "why the d-v-1 she married him?" and she replies, "she cannot tell!" and sobs, and sighs, and putteth her handkerchief to her eyes to intimate the presence or hide the absence of tears, as it may happen. Now this wounds Brown's self-love: he taketh the pet with his dinner, and Mrs. Brown neglecteth to press him to eat, but continueth to wipe her nose, and rub her eyes, and look mournfully and tenderly at Smith. Then up jumps Brown from the table, wroth exceedingly, and he seizes his hat, and hies him forth, and proceeds to the tavern, and calls for strong drink and the newspaper; and lo! when the clock strikes twelve, his nightcap remaineth unoceupied, and his head resteth not on its own proper conjugal pillow.

Giants

What an eccentric production of intelligence is the abstract notion of a fair. An ostentation of white, scarlet and yellow, intoxicates the imagination; then comes a war of melody-the whole progeny of Jubal engaged in a reciprocal proclamation of hostilities, fills the generous bosom with feelings of martial enthusiasm, while critical taste is furnished with ample subjects of gratification in a thousand fantastic forms, to which the posture-master's flexible organization can be made subservient. All these things carry with them an ideal aspect. Then to widen the existing breach between fancy and truth, we find ourselves surrounded by a crew of the most savage abortions that an artist of celebrity is able to delineate. Pig-faced ladies become as familiar to us as a sprig of bachelor's-buttons. Deaths who, strange to behold, are not entirely devoid of bowels of compassion, walk from their charnel-houses with as much ronchalance as the beaux of Regent-street. look down upon us in scores; and Liliputians in the costume of gentlemen ushers, strut with so much importance as to make the greatest vanity of ordinary people dwindle into pitiable insignificance. Around us is a sea of headsthere an acute eye may discern a shallow, now a commotion is excited by the pursuit of a shark-there it is very deep. Far off may be descried, replete with graphic sublimity, a band of those natural outlaws, to whom forest law is a dead letter-tigers, wolves, jackals, and bears, white, black, or both combined, seem ready to spring from the clouds and victimize their gaping admirers. Bold Robin Hood, the rightful sovereign of "glen and of glade," suspends his abstemious jaws over a calf's head, whimsically yclept his keeper's, and while apparently wagging his regal tail, he tantalizes our anxiety with a sidelong glance of cunning complacency. And then, if we turn our attention from the phenomena of four legs to their rivals upon two, what a wonderful people are the players!-they never die. By our hali. dom! the little man with a puffed and crying species of countenance, and a very hoarse voice, is as energetic in his appeals for public patronage as when his eloquence seduced a reluctant penny from its warm attachment to our juvenile palm, and gailantly compels us to acknowledge that the fat lady in a plaid scarf, is as beautiful a representation of a Scottish lassie as she was some five and

twenty years ago.

But fairs are not to be considered as affording only gratification to an imaginative mind: they take their stand on higher ground, and claim the attention of every student of natural curiosities. A player is by birth-right, a lusus naturæ. Some senatorial wag once characterized the knights of the buskin as outcasts of society. Had he gone farther (to Hollybush Fair for instance), he might with equal justice have denounced them as outcasts of humanity. Aptly may the eulogium be applied in this case, "Nature formed him, and then broke the mould."

Such an incongruous combination of the physical elements can be found in no other class, productive or non-productive. It has often struck us that these singular men must have been made by contract. Eyes, noses, and arms, feet and calves, turned off by the gross, and hastily put together, with a reckless disregard of the "eternal fitness of things." Look at the pepperish Hotspur yonder, a stumpy pudding-faced fellow, with legs decidedly angular. There, parade a party of patriotic Romans, snuffing the zephyrs with a calm satisfaction of their legitimate dignity. But O! ye shades of the Cæsars! such delicate young men, with very clear skins and limbs fearfully fragile-so much so, that had they wandered into the ancient Forum, we feel persuaded that, disguised in a pile of dingy-white napkins, Cicero himself would have taken them for a bevy of immaculate vestals. One of these heroes has always attracted our particular regard. His dishevelled black tresses depending over a brow, inscribed with traits of a sentimental spirit, and telling

"Of griefs that canker all the heart." while they harmonize with the pathetic wildness of his sunken optics, tend to heighten the effect of a manifestation of raw cheekbones. Poor fellow! for ten years past he has been in the last stage of a galloping-consumption; and noble Marc Anthony, in his equivocal-hued toga, still moves a sweet personification of the ghost of a chimney-sweeper's wife.

Any intelligent person who wished to learn the capabilities of his corporeal machinery, should pay a visit to one of our equestrian establishments. Considered as a subject of anatomical interest, Johr Hunter's collection in Lincoln's-Inn-field bears the same relation to Samwell's cires at Hollybush fair, as the board of an Ite lian imageman to the Statue Gallery d In fact, we ha

the British Museum.

often wondered that medical students, in addition to walking the hospitals, have not been required to perambulate the fairs. Son of Hippocrates! if thou hast a heart of iron, look up and behold a couple of clever lads about to demonstrate the docility of human nature. Now, straddling till they make the spectators wince with a sympathetic anxiety for their well being - now illustrating a spinal curvature anon shouldering a leg with as much indifference as a soldier his arms; meanwhile ribs are so legible through their buff integument, as to warrant the presumption that these versatile gentlemen are sometimes under a painful necessity of meeting their importunate creditors in the shape of animated skeletons at some minor establishment. There is no end to the marvellous at fairs. A harlequin is seen not less remarkable for his agility than for a very conspicuous bunnion on his great toe, -leaning over a barrier, a stalwart form with an olive complexion, would make one believe he was as easy in his circumstances as he is doubtless independent in his principles. Now, how this individual contrived to get there, may be known to Governor Cope; but how he can muster up sufficient assurance to face a body of men, making the slightest pre tensions to a knowledge of physiognomy, is one of those exclusive bits of information which can be known only to himself. Bow-street forefend us from this gentleman's society on Hounslow-heath after dark!

Are you a connoisseur in the fine arts? At Hollybush fair you will find a splendid collection of wax work, wherein the most esteemed effigy (Harry the Eighth, of uxorious memory) may be seen, with his characteristic ferocity materially improved by a wall-eye.

A thousand minor points of attraction peculiar to fairs we have not space to enumerate. We trust these desultory reflections will tend to strengthen the bonds of amity existing between our readers and these ancient legacies of our fun-loving forefathers. There is, how. ever, a pleasant little drama frequently enacted before the curtain, in which, as unprofessional persons are sometimes required to sustain a prominent part, it may be useful to give a slight description of its plot and leading incidents :1 respectable middle-aged gentleman, esh from the country, somewhat defint in altitude, groans inwardly at beBlding the partiality of nature in a uple of Life-Guardsmen, which for

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tune has maliciously planted between his eager organs of perception, and the amusements going forward on the outside of Richardson's show. Feeling for the moral debility of a crowd, he takes peculiar thought to secure five buttons of his bottle-green coat. "Ha, ha, ha!" exclaims a tall elegantly-made-up spark, in ecstasy at our hero's elbow. Ha, ha, ha!" iterates a parallel in gentility, pressing forward from behind to obtain a more extensive view of some laughtermoving exhibition. "What is it ?what is it?" anxiously inquires the compressed little man from a very deep and dark abyss, exalting himself on tip-toe. A general rush, attended with lateral pressure, sufficiently intense to make mummies of mill-stones, carries the bottle-green off his legs in a vortex of consternation. One vagabond, averse to the aristocracy of hats, imprints upon our hero's a mark of plebeian disaffection, and his companion reduces it to a level with the wearer's chin. Emerging from his oppressive situation, the little gentleman naturally congratulates himself on coming off with such slight detriment to his personal property. Without question, the habit of precaution which prompted him to secure his buttons, alone prevented the abstraction of his pocket-book, and two five-pound Bank of England notes-an admirable piece of ingenuity, which has only been nullified by that purely legal process called docking an entail! The abridged retires from society with a monkey on his back, and bequeathing a cordial benediction to the author of this diabolical “Essay on Man.”

A. A.

A TRUE TALE OF THE COLISEUM.

IN THREE PARTS-PART THE FIRST.

"MIGHTY emperor! the gods regard thee with envy!" cried Lætus, the pretorian prefect, bending before the couch on which the emperor reclined, while the slaves were preparing a sumptuous banquet.

"That sinewy Greek god, omnipotent Commodus, is dignified by thy condescension in using his name," said Eclectus the chamberlain.

"What is the slaughter of the Nemæan lion, or the boar of Erymanthus," resumed Lætus, " compared with the deeds of thy arm? Oh world, till now hast thou never witnessed true valour and martial skill."

"Witnessed!" echoed Eclectus, 66 nor

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