and therefore shunned an indissoluble tie. Irritated by this mistake, he followed her to the gallery in frigid silence. She guessed his mood, but knew his pride too well to tell him so; yet, with a vague design of soothing him, she lent even to general and indifferent topics the softest tones of affection. Her gallery was composed of historical, poetic, religious subjects, and landscapes. None of them contained any great number of figures. Crowded pictures are, doubtless, arduous tasks; but their beauties are mostly either too confused or too detailed. Unity of interest, that vital principle of art, as of all things, is necessarily frittered away. The first picture represented Brutus, sitting lost in thought, at the foot of the statue of Rome, while slaves bore by the dead bodies of the sons he had condemned; on the other side, their mother and sisters stood in frantic despair, fortunately excused, by their sex, from that courage which sacrifices the affections. The situation of Brutus beneath the statue of Rome tells all. But how, without explanation, can we know that this _is_ Brutus, or that, those are his children, whom he himself has sentenced? and yet the event cannot be better set forth by any painting. Rome fills its background, as yet unornamented as a city, grand only as the country that could inspire such heroism. "Once hear the name," said Corrine, "and doubtless your whole soul is given up to it; otherwise might not uncertainty have converted a pleasure which ought to be so plain and so easy into an abstruse enigma? I chose the subject, as recalling the most terrible deed a patriot ever dared. The next is Marius, taken by one of the Cimbri, who cannot resolve to kill so great a man. Marius, indeed, is an imposing figure; the costume and physiognomy of the Cimbri leader extremely picturesque; it marks the second era of Rome, when laws were no more, but when genius still exerted a vast control. Next come the days in which glory led but to misfortune and insult. The third picture is Belisarius, bearing his young guide, who had expired while asking alms for him; thus is the blind hero recompensed by his master; and in the world he vanquished hath no better office than that of carrying to the grave the sad remains of yon poor boy, his only faithful friend. Since the old school, I have seen no truer figure than that; the painter, like the poet, has loaded him with all kinds of miseries--too many, it may be, for compassion. But what tells us that it is Belisarius? what fidelity to history is exacted both of artist and spectator! a fidelity, by the way, often ruinous to the beautiful. In Brutus, we look on virtues that resemble crime; in Marius on fame causing but distress; in Belisarius, on services requited by the blackest persecution. Near these I have hung two pictures that console the oppressed spirit by reminding it of the piety that can cheer the broken heart, when all around is bondage.