The writer can tell an amusing story of a picture that was _not_ by Correggio. It was a small picture of a Holy Family, on copper. It was bought in Naples, for a very large sum, by a gentleman who resides not many miles from New York, who smuggled it out of the country. On his arrival home, wishing to improve the brilliancy of the coloring, which appeared much obscured by the smoke and dust of many years, he sent it to a skillful artist to be cleaned, who, on removing the plentiful coats of varnish, soon discovered that it was nothing but _a transfer_. The artist gently hinted to the _connoisseur_ that he had been duped. “Zounds, sir, this cannot be; the picture was valued at $5,000 in Naples, and I was offered very large prices for it by some of the best judges in Paris.” The artist, with a little spirits, quickly brought the lines of a print into full view, so that not even a glass was required to see them! It is needless to say that the proprietor was greatly chagrined, and vented his rage in curses loud and deep against foreign impostors. Yet he ordered the coats of varnish to be replaced, and afterwards sold the picture as an original Correggio. DISCOVERY OF A CORREGGIO. Among the numerous restorers of old pictures who resided at Rome about 1780, were two friends, an Italian named Lovera, and a German named Hunterspergh. They were both pupils of the Cavaliere Mengs. They frequented the sales of old pictures at the Piazza Nuova, as well to purchase the works of the old masters at a low price, as to supply themselves with old canvass, which they might repaint. On one occasion, having bought a lot of old canvass and divided it between them, Lovera received as a part of his share a very indifferent flower-piece. On taking it home, he found that the ground scaled off, and to his surprise discovered traces of a figure painted in an admirable style. He employed himself with the utmost care in removing the ground which covered the original picture, and thus restored a capital performance, representing Charity, under the emblem of a Woman surrounded by three Children. The report of this happy discovery soon spread; all the artists and amateurs ran to behold it. The best judges, among whom was Mengs, acknowledged the genuine style of Correggio, and valued the performance at £2,000. The Earl of Bristol bought it from Lovera for about £1,500. An engraving has since been made from it. The value was afterwards the subject of a suit at law between Hunterspergh and Lovera. LIONARDO DA VINCI. This illustrious artist, denominated by Lanzi “the Father of Modern Painting,” was also an eminent sculptor, architect, and engineer, the natural son of Pietro da Vinci, notary to the Florentine Republic. Vasari and his annotators place his birth in 1445; but Durazzini, in his Panegyrics on Illustrious Tuscans, satisfactorily proves that he was born in Lower Valdarno, at the castle of Vinci, in 1452. PRECOCITY OF DA VINCI’S GENIUS.