soldier's old great-coat, and flew towards it--stopped--gazed on his haggard face, and empty sleeve, and, gasping, fixed her eyes upon his countenance. 'Twas but for a moment she gazed on him thus in silence; but there was no forgetfulness, nor coldness, nor pride about her heart--there was sorrow, and joy, and love, and memory in her very glance.

"Oh François, François!" cried she, at length, casting her arms round his neck, "how thou hast suffered!" As she did so, the old great-coat fell back, and on his breast appeared the golden cross of the legion of honour. "N'importe!" cried she, as she saw it, "Voilà ta récompense." He pressed her fondly to his bosom. "My recompense is here," said he, "my recompense is here!"

THE PAINTINGS.

A painter must raise his ideas beyond what he sees, and form a model of perfection in his own mind, which is not to be found in reality, but yet such a one as is probable and rational.--Richardson.

When I was a child, nothing pleased me so much as the woodcuts in Gay's fables, and my nurse could do any thing with me if she promised me a pretty picture. The taste has grown up with me, and I have as much difficulty in passing a printseller's window without looking in, as some people have in passing a book-stall. In returning from our ramble, we fell upon a shop of the kind; but that which most amused us was an engraving of the departure of Louis XVIII., on the return of Napoleon from Elba. In truth, there was little to be represented, except the good old king getting into his carriage in a great fright. But the object of the painter was to represent the sorrow of the people of Paris; and for this purpose he has drawn the two sentinels in tears, one hiding his eyes with his hand, and the other on his knees, not a little embarrassed with his musket, while a great many other tragic attitudes were expended in the background. Frenchmen in many of their undertakings seem striving to do better than nature, and, consequently, nine times out of ten they caricature what they attempt. Their most glaring efforts of this kind are in painting and engraving, and there they appear to have totally forgotten that the beau ideal does not consist in generating what nature never produced, but in assembling the most beautiful objects which naturally harmonize together.

Painting is one of the most purely imitative of the arts, and the utmost licence which its greatest masters have allowed it, is simply the power of choosing and combining what is pleasing to the eye, and rejecting all that can offend it. This, however, does not content the present school of painting in France. They must have something such as never was, and never will be, and in their colouring especially they have succeeded to a miracle.

David's naked Spartans are brilliant instances of how far art can go beyond nature; for certainly never was any thing seen under heaven like the skins of those polished gentlemen. Take away the shields and helmets, and a very slight alteration would convert the three hundred arming for Thermopylæ, into Diana and her nymphs bathing; and even then they would be somewhat too pretty, for without doubt the goddess's hunting-parties, gave her a much more russet tint than David has thought proper to bestow upon the hardy warriors of Greece.

Perhaps the great corrector of all things, time, may deprive these pictures of their adventitious glare of colouring; but even then, though they may be admired for their fine bold outline, one violent defect can never be banished, the forced and extravagant attitudes of some of the principal figures. David had certainly a strange penchant for sans-culotteism; he never missed an opportunity of leaving his heroes without any apparel except a helmet, which sits rather preposterously on a naked man.

The grand and dignified simplicity of the ancient masters forms a most striking contrast with the laboured and overcharged productions of the present French school. A modern painter, certainly possessing very great talent, has attempted a picture of the deluge. He has crowded into it great many horrors, all very horrible; but the principal group will be sufficient. It consists of a family vainly endeavouring to escape from the surrounding destruction by climbing a rock in the foreground. The agonies of such a moment might have been expressed most touchingly, had the artist chosen to keep within the bounds of moderation: but no, he must out-herod Herod; and, consequently, he has contrived to make one of the most dreadful situations the human mind can conceive actually ludicrous.

The principal figure is that of a man, who, like pious Æneas, carries his father on his back, certainly not in the most elegant or picturesque attitude possible, while with one hand he pulls his wife up after him rather unceremoniously. The wife for her part suffers considerable inconvenience from a young gentleman behind, who, having a mortal aversion to being drowned, has got his mother fast hold by the hair, by means of which he almost pulls her head off her shoulders.

The whole family are certainly not very comfortably situated; and, in fact, the old gentleman who is riding on his son's shoulders is the only one at all at his ease, and he appears to have a very good seat, and not to care much about it. Yet I have heard this picture lauded to the skies both in France and England.

Poussin painted a picture on the same subject. It scarcely could be surpassed. The scene is a wild mountainous desert, which the ever-rising waters have nearly covered. The ark is seen floating in the distance, and a solitary flash of lightning, shown dimly through the thick rain, breaks across the lurid clouds in the background. Amongst the dull bleak rocks in front, a monstrous serpent winds its way slowly up, to avoid the growing waves. The sky lowers upon the earth, and the earth looks heavily back to the sky: all is wild, silent, and solemn; one awful gloom, and mighty desolation.

In every art but that of music, and perhaps even there in a degree, nature furnishes us with a standard by which to regulate our taste. In judging of what is most beautiful in nature herself, there may be many opinions; but that which is out of nature altogether must always be in bad taste. The same Being which formed every thing in this beautiful world formed equally our minds to enjoy and admire it. He made nature for man, and man for nature, with perfect harmony between his soul and all that surrounds it; and the least deviation from those forms, to which the great Artist restrained his work is discord to the human mind. Whenever we see any thing distorted from its original shape, or represented in circumstances in which it could not have been placed, without thinking, of why, our taste revolts as from something impossible and untrue.

With respect to engraving I can say but little, as I have no knowledge of the art; but it strikes me that in modern French prints, at least, there is hardness without force, and feebleness without softness; nor have I ever seen the beautiful roundness of flesh well represented.

A French, artist of some merit assured me, one morning, that the arts had now migrated from Italy to receive their highest degree of perfection in France. In that point, I believe, every other nation on the face of the earth will be found to differ from this favoured people.

But there is, however, one observation to be made, not only with respect to painting, but to all other arts. They are far more generally diffused in France than in England. The French have always conceived perfection in the arts to be a part of the national glory. Their king and statesmen have thought the encouragement of arts and sciences at home, to be as much a part of