as Winter, represented in the Deluge. This picture has
been, perhaps, the most praised of all Poussin's works. A narrow space,
and a very few persons have sufficed him for this powerful
representation of that great catastrophe. The sun's disc is darkened
with clouds; the lightning shoots in forked flashes through the air:
nothing but the roofs of the highest houses are visible above the
distant water upon which the ark floats, on a level with the highest
mountains. Nearer, where the waters, pent in by rocks, form a cataract,
a boat is forced down the fall, and the wretches who had sought safety
in it are perishing: but the most pathetic incident is brought close to
the spectator. A mother in a boat is holding up her infant to its
father, who, though upon a high rock, is evidently not out of reach of
the water, and is only protracting life a very little.

POUSSIN'S LAST WORK AND DEATH.

The long and honorable race of Poussin was now nearly run. Early in the
following year, 1665, he was slightly affected by palsy, and the only
picture of figures that he painted afterwards was the Samaritan Woman at
the Well, which he sent to M. de Chantelou, with a note, in which he
says, "This is my last work; I have already one foot in the grave."
Shortly afterwards he wrote the following letter to M. Felibien: "I
could not answer the letter which your brother, M. le Prieur de St.
Clementin, forwarded to me, a few days after his arrival in this city,
sooner, my usual infirmities being increased by a very troublesome cold,
which continues and annoys me very much. I must now thank you not only
for your remembrance, but for the kindness you have done me, by not
reminding the prince of the wish he once expressed to possess some of my
works. It is too late for him to be well served; I am become too infirm,
and the palsy hinders me in working, so that I have given up the pencil
for some time, and think only of preparing for death, which I feel
bodily upon me. It is all over with me." He expired shortly afterwards,
aged 71 years.

POUSSIN'S IDEAS OF PAINTING.

"Painting is an imitation by means of lines and colors, on some
superfices, of everything that can be seen under the sun; its end is to
please.

_Principles that every man capable of reasoning may learn:_--There can
be nothing represented,

Without light,
Without form,
Without color,
Without distance,
Without an instrument, or medium.

_Things which