do with such women? When they rehearse in the morning, Mrs. Billington persists in adopting a low key, and Madame Grassini a high one; between them they will drive me mad!' Of Mrs. Siddons Madame le Brun speaks most enthusiastically, comparing her 'enchanting voice' with that of Mdlle. Mars; she was also much interested by a visit to the studio of Benjamin West. Talking of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose Infant Samuel' she greatly admired, she says: 'I was told that when my portrait of M. de Calonne arrived in London, he went to see it, and praised it highly; upon which one of those present remarked that the portrait ought to be first rate, for it had cost 80,000 francs. "Well," replied Reynolds, "all I can say is that if I were offered 100,000, I could not paint one like it.” Before leaving England, she visited not only the principal environs of London, but also Stowe, Warwick Castle, and Blenheim, and was everywhere most cordially received; she appears, indeed, to have been greatly touched by the kindness and hospitality she had met with on all sides during her sojourn, as well as by the liberality with which her artistic efforts had been recompensed. Returning to Paris by way of Holland, direct communication with France having been closed since the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, she found an Emperor where she had left a First Consul, and was soon after informed that he was much displeased at her prolonged absence; however, he ultimately so far relented as to commission her to undertake the portrait of his sister Madame Murat. 'I did not venture to refuse,' she says, although the price offered me was less than half what I was accustomed to receive.' This task seems to have been no sinecure, the sitter being extremely capricious, and varying her style of dress and coiffure so frequently that the unfortunate artist was perpetually engaged in effacing and altering what she had done the day before. At last she could bear it no longer; and on one occasion, when her model had tried her patience more than usual, she turned to M. Denon, who happened to be present, and remarked, loud enough for Madame Murat to hear, that, though many real princesses had sat to her for their portraits, she had never been similarly tormented before!' In 1808, Madame le Brun started on a tour through Switzerland, a full description of which is given in her letters to the Countess Potocka; and on her return to France she purchased a villa at Louveciennes, not far from the ancient abode of Madame Dubarry. There and in Paris she henceforth alternately resided, enjoying the society of her daughter, Madame Nigris, who had left Russia (and her husband) in order to rejoin her, and of her brother's family. She witnessed the events of 1814, the Hundred Days, and the restoration of the Bourbons, and continued her professional labours for several years with unwearied assiduity. A widow since 1813, she was destined to survive both her daughter and her brother, the former of whom died in 1819, and the latter in 1820. From that period she lived comparatively in retirement, tended with affectionate solicitude by her two nieces, and breathed her last May 29, 1842, at the good old age of eighty-seven. 6 The works of this celebrated artist, any detailed notice of which would be out of place here, consist of six hundred and sixty portraits; fifteen paintings of various kinds, of which the Sybil' is perhaps the best known; and nearly two hundred landscapes: forming a total of upwards of eight hundred and seventy pictures. After her death, two of her happiest efforts were presented by her nieces to the gallery of the Louvre; namely, her own portrait with her daughter in her arms, and La Jeune Fille au Manchon.' The Fire Brigade. FIRE! There's a cry in the crowded street, A shout of men, a tramp of feet, A roll of wheels, as, straight and fleet, Fire!-Clear the way!-In generous strife Help!-Hear again that despairing cry, Hush!-See where the hissing engines play Saved!-and at last, in the fresh cool air, 464 Some Handom Notes of an Idle Excursion. BY MARK TWAIN. I. ALL the journeyings I had ever done had been purely in the way of business. The pleasant May weather suggested a novelty, namely, a trip for pure recreation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The reverend said he would go, too: a good man; one of the best of men, although a clergyman. By eleven at night we were in New Haven and on board the New York boat. We bought our tickets, and then went wandering around, here and there, in the solid comfort of being free, idle, and putting distance between ourselves and the mails and telegraphs. After a while I went to my state-room and undressed, but the night was too enticing for bed. We were moving down the bay now, and it was pleasant to stand at the window and take the cool night-breeze and watch the gliding lights on shore. Presently, two elderly men sat down under that window, and began a conversation. Their talk was properly no business of mine, and yet I was feeling friendly toward the world and willing to be entertained. I soon gathered that they were brothers, that they were from a small Connecticut village, and that the matter in hand concerned the cemetery. Said one: 'Now, John, we talked it all over amongst ourselves, and this is what we've done. You see everybody was a movin' from the old buryin' ground, and our folks was most about left to theirselves, as you may say. They was crowded, too, as you know,-lot wasn't big enough in the first place; and last year when Seth's wife died we couldn't hardly tuck her in. She sort o' overlaid Deacon Shorb's lot, and he soured on her, so to speak, and on the rest of us, too. So we talked it over, and I was for a lay-out in the new simitery on the hill. They wa'n't unwilling, if it was cheap. Well, the two best and biggest plots was No. 8 and No. 9. Both of a size; nice, comfortable room for twenty-six,-twenty-six fullgrowns, that is,-but you reckon in children and other shorts, and strike an everage, and I should say you might lay in thirty, or may be thirty-two or three, pretty genteel, no crowdin' to signify.' That's a plenty, William. Which one did you buy?' "Well, I'm coming to that, John. You see No. 8 was thirteen dollars, No. 9 fourteen 'I see. So's 't you took No. 8.' |