exhibition of some of her sketches, she was
immediately elected an honorary academician, and received the first
diploma issued under the royal charter. "This proud distinction," said
the president, "is conferred in the hope that the fair artist may be
encouraged to rival the fame of those ladies already illustrious in
art." How far this hope was realized, Bermudez has omitted to inform us.

THE MIRACULOUS PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

The eminent American sculptor Greenough, who has recently (1853)
departed this life, wrote several years ago a very interesting account
of a wonderful picture at Florence, from which the following is
extracted:

"When you enter the church of Santissima Annunziata, at Florence, your
attention is drawn at once to a sort of miniature temple on the left
hand. It is of white marble; but the glare and flash of crimson hangings
and silver lamps scarcely allow your eye the quiet necessary to
appreciate either form or material. A picture hangs there. It is the
_Miraculous Annunciation_. The artist who was employed to paint it, had
finished all except the head of the Virgin Mary, and fell asleep before
the easel while the work was in that condition. On awakening, he beheld
the picture finished; and the short time which had elapsed, and his own
position relative to the canvas, made it clear (so says the tradition)
that a divine hand had completed a task which, to say the least, a
mortal could only attempt with despair.

"Less than this has made many pictures in Italy the objects of
attentions which our Puritan fathers condemned as idolatrous. The
miraculous 'Annunziata' became, accordingly, the divinity of a splendid
shrine. The fame of her interposition spread far and wide, and her
tabernacle was filled with the costly offerings of the devout, the showy
tributes of the zealous. The prince gave of his abundance, nor was the
widow's mite refused; and to this day the reputation of this shrine
stands untouched among all papal devotees.

"The Santissima Annunziata is always veiled, unless her interposition is
urgently demanded by the apprehension of famine, plague, cholera, or
some other public calamity. During my own residence at Florence, I have
never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought,
without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long
continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard
several persons, rather inclined to skepticism