or too despotic, or too gouty, or
too repentant, or too much the paterfamilias, to allow themselves such
useless luxuries: at the utmost, only a few vestiges have been
observable. The race of Kings' mistresses, therefore, may be said to be
greatly interrupted, even if not ended, and Mme. de Pompadour stands
before our eyes in history as the last as well as the most brilliant of
all.[19]

_Causeries de Lundi_ (Paris, 1851-57), Vol. II.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Here is an exact statement of the civil register of the State
relating to Mme. de Pompadour: Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, marquise de
Pompadour, born in Paris, Dec. 29, 1721 (Saint-Eustache);--married March
9, 1741, to Charles-Guillaume Lenormant, seigneur d'Etioles
(Saint-Eustache); died April 15, 1764; interred on the 17th at the
Capucines de la place Vendome. Her parish in Paris was la Madeleine; her
hotel, in the Faubourg Saint-Honore, now l'Elysee.

M. Le Roi, librarian of Versailles, has published, after an authentic
manuscript the _Releve des depenses de Mme. de Pompadour depuis la
premiere annee de sa faveur jusqu'a sa mort_. This statement, which
mentions the sums and their uses, presents a complete picture of the
marquise's varied tastes, and does not try too much to dishonour her
memory.

THE HAY WAIN

(_CONSTABLE_)

C.L. BURNS

A little strip of country on the borders of Essex and Suffolk, not ten
miles in length, and but two or three in breadth, presenting to the
casual observer few features more striking than are to be seen in many
other parts of England, but hailed with delight by painters for its
simple charm, has exercised a wider influence upon modern landscape
painting than all the noble scenery of Switzerland or the glories of
Italy; for here was nurtured that last and greatest master of that
school of English landscape painting, which made the Eastern Counties
famous in the annals of art. He was so essentially English, it might be
said local, in his feeling, that he never left his country, and produced
his greatest works within the narrow limits of his native valley; in
whom love of locality was indeed the very basis of his art.

[Illustration: THE HAY WAIN.]

Constable, for it was he, like Rembrandt, was the son of a miller, and
was born at a time when the winds and flowing waters were powers in the
land, bearing a golden harvest on their health-giving and invisible
currents, turning sails upon countless hill-tops, and wheels