Oh the fierce sense Of hopelessness! The fault is done! No keen Not God himself can make it not have been ; Tho' Angels whisper peace, that thought comes in between.* Premeditation, writes Mr. Carlyle, is not performance, is not surety of performance; it is perhaps, at most, surety of letting whoso wills perform. From the purpose of crime, he adds, to the act of crime, there is an abyss; wonderful to think of. "The finger lies on the pistol; but the man is not yet a murderer; nay, his whole nature staggering at such a consummation, is there not a confused pause rather-one last instant of possibility for him? Not yet a murderer; it is at the mercy of light triflest whether the most fixed idea may not yet become unfixed. One slight twitch of a muscle, the death-flash bursts; and he is it, and will for Eternity be it ;-and Earth has become a penal Tartarus for him; his horizon girdled now not with golden hope, but with red flames of remorse; voices from the depths of Nature sounding, Wo, wo on him!" We may apply in this stern, solemn sense, what Oswald says in Wordsworth's tragedy: Action is transitory-a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle-this way or that— But this same Oswald is a daring sophist; and in his sneering disdain of compunctious visitings on the part of the man he is tempting to crime, he thus touches on the contingencies of criminal action— What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed, A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been This consideration of contingencies, this question of to be or not to be, is forcibly illustrated in Schiller's Wallensteins Tod. In the first act of that tragedy, Wallenstein soliloquises in this strain of quasi-fatalism: Can he no longer what he would? no longer draw back at his liking? he must do the deed because he thought of it? By the great God of Heaven! it was not Again and again he pauses, and remains in deep thought. Anon comes the reflection : * Chauncy Hare Townshend, The Mystery of Evil. † So Longfellow, in the context of a passage already cited: Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, part iii. book i. ch. iv. || Ibid., Sc. 6. My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom: And the scene of agitated hesitancy closes with the moody man's selfgratulation on his conscience being, thus far, free from crime: Yet it is pure-as yet!--the crime has come Happier he that can put himself in Hubert's case, and honestly affirm, Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,— Not painted with the crimson drops of blood. The dreadful motion of a murtherous thought.† A happiness only to be rated aright, perhaps, by an actual" murtherer," like the nameless one from whom Shakspeare wrings the most natural, most unavailing cry, O that it were to do !-What have we done?‡ Well it is, for all of us, that we cannot discern the thoughts and intents of the heart, one in another—cannot detect the almost culprit, the imperfect criminal, under the fair outside of the seemingly perfect gentleman. There is a poem of Barry Cornwall's, devoted to what some might consider a morbid analysis of a friend's "Interior" (that is the name of the piece), in which the person addressed, hitherto reckoned the "flower of jolly, gamesome, rosy friends," is bid Unloose your heart, and let me see What's hid within that ruby round. The result of the revelation is, that here "our ill-paired union ends.” At least, the intimacy is destroyed. The fellowship is, on second thoughts, allowed to continue-on slacker terms, indeed, and by a frailer tenure, but still a recognised existence, such as it may be. No, let's jog on, from morn to night; Owen Meredith--if that now transparent pseudonym is still to be used-in the opening soliloquy of his Clytemnestra, makes the guilty queen-guilty in thought, and not as yet in deed-meditate on the compunctious visitings that perturb her bosom, and ask herself the reason of all this incurable unrest. Wherefore to her to her, of all mankind, this retribution for a deed undone? *The Death of Wallenstein, Coleridge's translation, Act I. Sc. 4, passim. † King John, Act IV. Sc. 2. King Henry VI., Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. § B. W. Proctor, Dramatic Scenes, &c., p. 317. For many men outlive their sum of crimes, -It is the thought! it is the thought!... and men Let all Olympus out.* In fine, the gist of her wistful self-questioning is, why should she, an imperfect criminal, be tortured with remorse as for a perfected crime? But it comes across her, in an after-stage of her progress towards accomplished guilt, that Surely sometimes the unseen Eumenides Do prompt our musing moods with wicked hints, TINTORETTO. BY DR. MICHELSEN. In the French Gallery of Drawings in the last Exhibition (Kensington) there was seen a picture by Coignet, bearing in the Catalogue No. 401, and described simply "The Daughter of Tintoretto." It simply shows the latter taking the likeness of his child, who had just died. His countenance is stiff and stern, his eyes are dry, though his heart bleeds within him. But very few, if any, are acquainted with the melancholy and deeply romantic circumstances that brought about the death of the fair Alizia (that was her name) when hardly fifteen years old, as seen in the engraving, an episode-picture to which is still seen in the Louvre, entitled "Lavinia (daughter of Titian) and Tintoretto," where the latter is seen breaking to pieces, in violent rage, the guitar on which Lavinia had been playing before the guests of her father. These two pictures form the two extreme points in the romantic life of Tintoretto, and the reader will, perhaps, thank us for giving him the clue to them by a detailed narrative of the history of that celebrated painter of the sixteenth century. Giacomo Robusti was the son of a dyer in Venice. Already, at an early age, the boy evinced remarkable taste for drawing, and a peculiar fine sense for the effect produced by a due distribution of colours. His father accordingly apprenticed him to a modest painter of mediocre merit, in whose studio the boy learned to make pencil drawings from sculptured models, and occasionally, also, to handle the painting-brush. Titian, an old schoolfellow of the painter, frequently paid a visit to the studio of his *Clytemnestra (1855), p. 2. friend, with whom he used to converse on the topics connected with their art. On one occasion he was accompanied by his little girl, the fair, golden-haired Lavinia, who was running about from easel to easel of the numerous students, whilst her father was engaged in deep conversation with his friend. All of a sudden the deep silence that usually prevailed around them was broken by the girl, who, clapping her hands with childish mirth and loud laughter, pulled her father to the easel of young Robusti, and, pointing to his canvas, on which he was painting a scene from Paradise, exclaimed, "Look, papa, at the dyer (Tintoretto), who besmears his figures with such gay colours as if they were at a bal masqué! Is it not funny, papa?" All the pupils joined in the burst of laughter, and even the master himself could not help smiling at poor Robusti, who looked foolish and ashamed. Titian, however, approached the easel with a benign look at the poor boy, the laughing-stock of the company, and, having attentively examined the picture, said to his daughter: "You are right, Lavinia; the boy is now certainly only a Tintoretto, but he will one day become a glorious painter, or my name is not Titian!" And, turning to his friend, he said, "Would you give him over to me?" "With all my heart!" was the reply. "I know that Giacomo will soon beat me in the art. Take him, then, under your tuition, that your prophecy may be fulfilled." For four years Robusti worked hard in the studio, and under the immediate eye of Titian, and he made such wonderful progress that he soon became the favourite pupil of Titian, who secretly admired the power and boldness of his brush, assisted by a most lively imagination. The compositions of young Robusti, it is true, were frequently too bulky, his figures too open and widely spread, and his illuminations too dazzling, while the tone of his colouring still drew on him the sobriquet Tintoretto; yet every stroke betrayed a glowing fancy, a true artistic soul, and the seed of growing genius. Robusti became, little by little, so used to that nickname, that he soon passed by that name with all his friends and acquaintances at Venice. The child, however, who gave him first that name, had, in the mean while, after the death of her mother, the beautiful Violante Vechio, been sent for education to the convent of the Sisters of the Heart of Christ, at Padua, whence, after the lapse of four years, she returned to the palace of her father at Venice. From that period the life of Titian underwent many changes. A duenna (governess and companion) was taken into the house, and the fair Lavinia began to pay and receive visits, while the halls of Titian's mansion were now opened to gay and distinguished company. Titian himself rejoiced at the tribute of admiration paid to the talents and beauty of his golden-haired Lavinia, and he was lavish in dinner and evening parties, which were honoured by the richest and greatest of the land, and Titian may already, then, have indulged in the bright prospect of seeing his daughter married to some noble grandee or princely duke, for in those times it was considered an honour to be allied with an eminent artist. Titian was, however, soon to learn that the heart of woman does not always aspire to rank and wealth; its choice is of a more refined nature, apart from the gloss and glitter of social distinction. Young Lavinia cared but little about the admiration of the high and distinguished: her love was fixed on one whose social position was much inferior to that of any of her other suitors; he was only a young sculptor of Bologna, and by name Francesco Bologna, who had resided for some time at Venice. Lavinia's return to her paternal roof had produced a great change, not only in the mansion, but also in the studio of Titian, which she visited daily for a few moments; and during that short visit the pupils forgot their allotted task in the silent admiration of the new beauty, who walked from easel to easel like a stately princess in a picture-gallery. There was only one of the pupils with whom she exchanged a few friendly words on stopping at his easel, and that was Robusti, whom she had christened Tintoretto, and whose paintings she much admired. The consequence was that Robusti fell deeply in love with the girl, and fancied that his love was reciprocated. It was customary with Titian to invite his pupils to his evening parties, and you could see them there walking arm in arm with the great and noble of the land as with their equals, for the pupils of the great maestro were looked upon as titular nobility but little inferior to that of birth and family, and it was there that Robusti at last discovered the secret of Lavinia's heart-her love for the young sculptor-and since that discovery a thousand furies of hell had taken possession of his mind, his feelings of revenge and jealousy knew of no bounds, and he frequently, when overcome by such torments, left the studio in the midst of an unfinished task, threw himself into a gondola, and allowed himself to be rowed about, no matter whither, for several hours together. Lavinia guessed his love for her, but all she could return was the assurance of a sisterly affection-an affection that his heart did not covet. On one of those evenings when the guests had assembled at Titian's, the latter, with his fair daughter, were walking arm in arm up and down the grand saloon, at the side of the celebrated portrait-painter Sebastiano Piombo, with whom Titian was conversing on some topic of the day, when suddenly a ditty, sung by a manly voice and accompanied by a guitar, arrested the step of Lavinia. It was Bologna, who amused the company in the adjoining room with a few songs, accompanied by Lavinia's guitar, which had been lying on the table in that room. Releasing her arm from that of her father's, she stepped into the room whence the music proceeded. At her approach the singer stopped, and, bending one knee before her, he kissed the strings of the instrument, which he handed to her with the request to favour the company with a song. Lavinia did as requested, to the delight of the company, who always admired the sweetness of the voice and the skilful play of Lavinia, who had seated herself on a gold-embroidered stool, while the company, of both sexes, placed themselves on the floor around her. There was only one who stood erect among the seated company; he was leaning against one of the marble pillars, looking gloomily askant at his master's daughter. "Look at Giacomo Robusti!" exclaimed one of the company; "he alone seems to despise kneeling before the fairest of Venice." "Never mind,” replied Bologna; "he will soon fall to the dust of her |