glimpse of the face of the assassin, in whom he recognised his own brother-in-law, the brother of Donna Agnes. Vieira, supposing himself mortally hurt, called out for a confessor, staggered back to meet his wife, and fell bleeding at her feet. Both were carried half dead into their house. His wounds, though so serious that the last sacraments were administered to him, were skilfully and prosperously treated by Felucci, an Italian leech, and by the king's German surgeon, who was ordered to attend to him. His wife was nearer death from terror and anxiety, than he from his wounds; but no sooner was he declared out of danger than she recovered, and was his best nurse. As soon as he could be safely moved, he proceeded in a chair to the palace, and craved audience of the king, before whom, after he had knelt and kissed hands, he was permitted to produce the clothes in which he had been shot. They were stained with blood that told its own story. The king and the gentlemen present seemed much affected; and an order was given, somewhat late it would seem, for the apprehension and punishment of the assassin. Family interest, nevertheless, smothered up the inquiry, and the criminal was not even imprisoned; but the mark of Cain was on him, and the general odium that he had incurred soon compelled him to leave the kingdom. It is a sort of satisfaction to know that he fell into poverty, and was even at last reduced to the ignominious condition of a pensioner on the bounty of the man whose life he had attempted. The fact is not recorded in the poem, as it ought in poetical justice to have been; but Cyrillo asserts that he had it from Vieira's own mouth, in these words,--"He came at last to beg his bread from me, whom he had outraged so cruelly." Vieira, soon after his complaint to the king, being apprehensive of further molestation from the family of his wife, placed her with some of his own relations, and took sanctuary, for a while, in the convent of the Paulistas; and there, in 1730 and 1731, he painted his famous Hermits, as appropriate ornaments for the church of their patron, St Paul the Eremite. In 1733, willing to live tranquil, says Cyrillo, he resolved on a third visit to Rome, with the view of ending his days there. Guarienti, the curator of the Dresden Gallery, who came to Lisbon in 1733, and remained there till 1736, was personally acquainted with Vieira, and asserts that his motive for expatriating himself was disgust at an insult that had been put on him through the malice of his rivals, by the removal of one of his works from the recently completed pile of Mafra, and the substitution of a picture by an inferior artist. He got no farther, however, than Madrid or Seville, (Cyrillo names the latter city,) when he was recalled by his sovereign, who well knew his value, and appeased him with honours and a fixed salary as Royal Painter, exclusive of payment for works supplied by command.