"human face divine," which eludes common observation, and is beheld only by him who has studied profoundly, that wonderful title page to the volume of mind. Nature, it is true, like a lovely and virtuous maiden, is seen and admired by all; but the blush which reveals her sweetest charm, is only perceived and felt by the devoted lover. That Lover is the artist. To him the revolving year, brings but a change of _beauty_. It is the element in which he breathes,--the aliment on which he lives; his eye detects each flitting shadow--and the whole world of real or imaginary things, is to his mind full of moving pictures, which he can, in a moment, transfix and perpetuate on his canvass. On him the graces attend, and wreathe the flowers of every season into garlands of beauty; the jocund spring strews buds and blossoms in his way, which he transplants to other climes, to live in unfading bloom, and flourish on the same wall with the fruits of summer, or mingle with the sober and varied hues of autumn. Even winter, with frosty locks and snowy visage, is compelled to linger in social companionship with the burning heats of tropical regions. Old Time, in his onward march, strews cities and temples in the path of the artist, but his pencil like the wand of the enchanter, bids their sculptured fragments remain forever, and they obey him. When Aurora comes forth in the chariot of day, and Cynthia lights her pale lamp at Diana's altar,--he snatches promethean fire from heaven, and like Joshua, commands the unwearied sun to stand still, and the glowing canvass receives it. He not only transfers "Italian skies to English walls," but by the magic of his pencil, the very faces and persons of the fair and the brave of ages gone by, come down to our day in the bloom of youth, and with the daring eye, as they lived and moved when Shakspeare wrote, or lovely Juliet died. Where do not the trophies of this incomparable art arrest our attention?--from the ruins of Pompeii to imperial Rome, or from the Vatican, where Raphael's immortal pencil traced the transfiguration, to Hampton Court, the gallery of the cartoons, and of that fair but frail society, of which England's voluptuous monarch was the sun and centre.[1] But these are neither black, nor daubed, nor smooth!--and yet they are excellent in art, and have been so esteemed for three hundred years. To these the painter may appeal as imbodying all that is noble in his profession, or like Sir Joshua, who felt and understood, what others only imagined, he may patiently submit to the ignorance of vanity--and the vanity of ignorance. When they talk of their Raphael, Corregio and Stuff, He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff. G. C. [Footnote 1: The cartoons of Raphael and the court of Charles II by Sir Peter Lely, form a part of the collection at Hampton court.] For the Southern Literary Messenger. A TALE FROM FLORIAN.