Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two years’ labour in Paris, to return to Rome. Again settled there in his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life, living in great simplicity and privacy. Though suffering much from the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study, always striving after excellence. “In growing old,” he said, “I feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection.” Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later years. He had no children; his wife died before him; all his friends were gone: so that in his old age he was left absolutely alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665, bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life, amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy to his race, the great works of his genius. The career of Ary Scheffer furnishes one of the best examples in modern times of a like high-minded devotion to art. Born at Dordrecht, the son of a German artist, he early manifested an aptitude for drawing and painting, which his parents encouraged. His father dying while he was still young, his mother resolved, though her means were but small, to remove the family to Paris, in order that her son might obtain the best opportunities for instruction. There young Scheffer was placed with Guérin the painter. But his mother’s means were too limited to permit him to devote himself exclusively to study. She had sold the few jewels she possessed, and refused herself every indulgence, in order to forward the instruction of her other children. Under such circumstances, it was natural that Ary should wish to help her; and by the time he was eighteen years of age he began to paint small pictures of simple subjects, which met with a ready sale at moderate prices. He also practised portrait painting, at the same time gathering experience and earning honest money. He gradually improved in drawing, colouring, and composition. The ‘Baptism’ marked a new epoch in his career, and from that point he went on advancing, until his fame culminated in his pictures illustrative of ‘Faust,’ his ‘Francisca de Rimini,’ ‘Christ the Consoler,’ the ‘Holy Women,’ ‘St. Monica and St. Augustin,’ and many other noble works.