this spot once stood the cross erected by Edward the First, as a
memorial of affection for his beloved queen Eleanor, whose remains were
here rested on their way to the place of sepulture. It was formed from a
design by Cavalini, and destroyed by the religious fury of the
Reformers. In its place, in the year 1678, was erected the animated
equestrian statue which now remains. It was cast in brass, in the year
1633, by Le Soeur; I think by order of that munificent encourager of
the arts, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. The parliament ordered it to
be sold, and broken to pieces; but John River, the brazier who purchased
it, having more taste than his employers, seeing, with the prophetic eye
of good sense, that the powers which were would not remain rulers very
long, dug a hole in his garden in Holborn, and buried it unmutilated. To
prove his obedience to their order, he produced to his masters several
pieces of brass, which he told them were parts of the statue. M. de
Archenholtz adds further, that the brazier, with the true spirit of
trade, cast a great number of handles for knives and forks, and offered
them for sale, as composed of the brass which had formed the statue.
They were eagerly sought for, and purchased,--by the loyalists from
affection to their murdered monarch,--by the other party, as trophies of
triumph.

The original pictures of Morning and Noon were sold to the Duke of
Ancaster for fifty-seven guineas; Evening and Night to Sir William
Heathcote, for sixty-four guineas.

[Illustration: NIGHT.]

SIGISMONDA

----------------Let the picture rust,
Perhaps Time's price-enhancing dust,--
As statues moulder into earth,
When I'm no more, may mark its worth;
And future connoisseurs may rise,
Honest as ours, and full as wise,
To puff the piece, and painter too,
And make me then what Guido's now.

HOGARTH'S EPISTLE.

A competition with either Guido, or Furino, would to any modern painter
be an enterprise of danger: to Hogarth it was more peculiarly so, from
the public justly conceiving that the representation of elevated
distress was not his _forte_, and his being surrounded by an host of
foes, who either dreaded satire, or envied genius. The connoisseurs,
considering the challenge as too insolent to be forgiven, before his
picture appeared, determined to decry it. The painters rejoiced in his
attempting what was likely to end in disgrace; and to satisfy those wh