During Bernini’s distinguished career, Charles I. of England endeavored in vain to allure him to visit his court. Not succeeding in this, he employed Vandyck to paint two excellent portraits of himself, one in profile and the other in full face, and sent them to Bernini, to enable him to execute his bust. The sculptor surveyed them with an anxious eye, and exclaimed, “Something evil will befall this man; he carries misfortune in his face.” The tragical termination of the monarch’s career, verified the sculptor’s knowledge of physiognomy. Bernini made a striking likeness, with which the king was so much pleased, that, in addition to the stipulated price, six thousand crowns, he made him a present of a diamond ring, worth six thousand more. BERNINI AND LOUIS XIV. Bernini received the most flattering and pressing invitations from Louis XIV. to visit Paris. At length, he was persuaded by the great Colbert to undertake the journey, and having with great difficulty obtained permission of the Pope, he set out for France, at the age of sixty-eight, accompanied by one of his sons, and a numerous retinue. Never did an artist travel with so much pomp, and under so many flattering circumstances. By order of the King, he was received everywhere on his way with the honors due to a prince, and on his arrival at Paris, he was received by the king with every mark of distinction, and apartments assigned to him in the royal palace. Louis defrayed all the expenses of his journey, and to immortalize the event, had a medal struck, with the portrait of the artist, and on the reverse, the Muses of the Arts, with this inscription, “_Singularis in singularis; in omnibus, unicus_.” When he returned to Rome, Louis presented him with ten thousand crowns, gave him a pension of two thousand, and one of four hundred to his son, and commissioned him to execute an equestrian statue of himself, in marble, of colossal proportions. The statue was executed in four years, and sent to Versailles, where it was afterwards converted into _Marcus Curtius_, and where, as such, it still remains. BERNINI’S WORKS.