amels stooping, to unlade their riches to the spectator. On one side,
on an easel, stood Hippolito de Medici (a portrait by Titian), with a
boar-spear in his hand, looking through those he saw, till you turned
away from the keen glance; and thrown together in heaps were landscapes
of the same hand, green pastoral hills and vales, and shepherds piping
to their mild mistresses underneath the flowering shade. Reader, 'if
thou hast not seen the Louvre thou art damned!'--for thou hast not seen
the choicest remains of the works of art; or thou hast not seen all
these together with their mutually reflected glories. I say nothing of
the statues; for I know but little of sculpture, and never liked any
till I saw the Elgin Marbles.... Here, for four months together, I
strolled and studied, and daily heard the warning sound--'Quatres heures
passees, il faut fermer, Citoyens'--(Ah! why did they ever change their
style?) muttered in coarse provincial French; and brought away with
me some loose draughts and fragments, which I have been forced to
part with, like drops of life-blood, for 'hard money.' How often, thou
tenantless mansion of godlike magnificence--how often has my heart since
gone a pilgrimage to thee!

It has been made a question, whether the artist, or the mere man
of taste and natural sensibility, receives most pleasure from the
contemplation of works of art; and I think this question might be
answered by another as a sort of _experimentum crucis_, namely, whether
any one out of that 'number numberless' of mere gentlemen and amateurs,
who visited Paris at the period here spoken of, felt as much interest,
as much pride or pleasure in this display of the most striking monuments
of art as the humblest student would? The first entrance into the Louvre
would be only one of the events of his journey, not an event in his
life, remembered ever after with thankfulness and regret. He would
explore it with the same unmeaning curiosity and idle wonder as he would
the Regalia in the Tower, or the Botanic Garden in the Tuileries, but
not with the fond enthusiasm of an artist. How should he? His is
'casual fruition, joyless, unendeared.' But the painter is wedded to his
art--the mistress, queen, and idol of his soul. He has embarked his
all in it, fame, time, fortune, peace of mind--his hopes in youth, his
consolation in age: and shall he not feel a more intense interest
in whatever relates to it than the mere indolent trifler? Natural