k his hand
hurriedly over the chords, and cried, in the shrill sharp tones, that
both the prisoners remembered too well, "A la mort! a la mort!" and in
ten minutes their bodies were lying headless, side by side, amidst the
hootings and howlings of ten thousand demons, exemplifying to astonished
Europe the perfection of civilization and philanthropy. Little more
needs to be said of the Sieur Lebrun. He lived through the dangers of
the Revolution; wrote odes and satires indiscriminately on friend and
foe; worshipped power to the last, and was the sycophant, and would have
been the murderer, of Napoleon, as he had been of Louis and Robespierre;
and died at last in receipt of a pension from the state, member (like
Lord Brougham) of the National Institute of France; and had his
panegyric pronounced on him by his successor, as if he had united the
virtues of Aristides to the genius of Homer. Whereas, we take him to
have been the true type of the Frenchman of his time--a monkey, till he
got the taste of blood, and then a tiger.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: In case we should have done injustice to the poetical
inspiration of the Dame Lebrun, we give the originals--

"Tu captives tous les suffrages,
Tes talens sont cheris des dieux;
Puisse ton nom, dans tous les ages,
S'immortaliser avec eux!
D'Apollon recois cette lyre,
Pour chanter au sacre vallon;
Dans tes mains meme on pourra dire,
C'est toujours cette d'Apollon!"]

[Footnote 4:

"Que les dieux te courronnent;
Moi, je n'ai qu'un verger;
Mais le coeur assaisonne
Les presens des bergers.
Si des fruits de Pomone
Tu devenais friand,
Je te promets, a chaque automne,
De t'en offrir autant."]

CENNINO CENNINI ON PAINTING.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY MRS MERRIFIELD.

So long ago as 1839, in the June number of this Magazine, we noticed M.
Merimee's posthumous work on oil-painting. It was ushered into the world
with no little parade, under the sanction and strong recommendation of a
committee of the Royal Institute of France; and in this country with the
somewhat authoritative and permitted dedication to the President of our
Royal Academy, by the editor and translator, Mr Sarsfield Taylor. We
should have cared little about reviewing such a work, had we not felt
persuaded that the public, and more especially artists, required some
caution, under the high influence of the mode of it