And then the wretched man burst into a fit of horrid laughter. Go-go, leave me--I hate you-I hate your smile, I want to sleep -go, or I shall die—"

He started up suddenly, his hair standing on end, and raising his arms over his head, he cried, at the very top of his voice,

"By heaven!" Monsieur D'Onis, "I will kill you again!"

This was the last gleam of consciousness, subsequently his paroxysm became that of raving madness.

"What does this mean?" said the astonished priest, to the woman of the house, who, upon hearing the outbreak, had hurried up to the

room.

"It means, sir," said she, "that it is midnight; therefore your reverence had better go; your friend will be incapable of speaking to you till to-morrow. It is at this hour the fit comes on."

"What is the cause of all this ?" said D'Onis.

"Why," said the old woman, " I think he has been a bad one in his time, and is now repenting; but by what he says about the robe of a Carmelite, and all that, I think, saving your reverence's presence, he has run away with a nun. His uncle'

"What, has he an uncle then?" said the priest. does he lodge with you?"

Why, then,

"His uncle, sir," said the woman, "is one of the canons of the cathedral; it was on his account that he came here. But his reverence is too ill to stir out, and my lodger will neither live with him nor leave this house; he eats nothing but bread, and drinks nothing but water; and I am sure, unless you can do something to console him, he cannot survive much longer, for I see him waste away day by day."

In the best possible spirit, and with the most genuine feeling of piety and kindness, D'Onis, who was quite of the same opinion as the old landlady, as to the duration of Rostaing's existence, resolved to extend his stay a Rhodez for a few days longer. He paid the wretched man daily visits, and received from him many confessions, some of them of a nature most terrible; still his sense of duty overcame every other feeling, and he resolved to exert all his energies to restore the suffering sinner, by whose hand his own brother had fallen, to a state of tranquillity.

There was no time to be lost in the attempt. He sank gradually, but rapidly; and his once Herculean frame was now wasted to a shadow. His voice grew weaker, his body was bent; but, in his lucid intervals, the endeavour to awaken in his mind hope for the future, was vain; nevertheless, every day and night did the good man visit Rostaing, and incessant were his efforts to counteract the effects of the unhappy culprit's despair of forgiveness in another world. In vain were all the consolations of absolution proffered to him-his frenzied mind seemed in the midst of all his consciousness of quiet unfitted for sincere repentance; and although constantly employed in reading the Holy Scriptures during D'Onis's temporary absence, his Bible lay more frequently open at the history of the remorse of Judas, than at the penitence of St. Peter.

After some days, Rostaing certainly became more quiet; one night his excellent friend left him weak but composed, and expected to find him the next day in the same improved state. The night had been colder than

usual; a thick fog obscured the sky, and the weathercock shrieked in the shifting wind more then was its wont. D'Onis returned, and the penitent knew him when he approached him. He spoke to him; but his eyes remained riveted on a crucifix. D'Onis watched what he hoped was his devotion, fancying, however, that the end of his existence was not far distant.

In an instant came a paroxysm. Again he beheld the vision of St. Rose. Again he screamed-cried-tore his hair-uttered some unintelligible words-stretched forth his arms towards the spectre, at once the object of his love and dread; when, turning suddenly round, and starting from the floor on which he had fallen, he beheld his companion sitting on his bed, watching the progress of his delirium with intense anxiety and interest. The sight brought to his mind the thought of the corpse of Tiburcius upon the couch of Hellione. He started back with a cry of horror.

Totally ignorant of the cause of this new accession of fancy, D'Onis jumped up in order to console and support him, but he rushed from him with the greatest dread and alarm. He burst into tears, entreating pardon a thousand times over; but the instant that the good priest endeavoured to convince him of his delusion-whence arising he knew not-and caught him by the arm to allay his terror, his fury knew no bounds; he dashed himself violently against the walls of the room, and screaming in a voice which made the windows vibrate, "Tiburcius -Hellione-they are alive-they love each other!" fell senseless on the

floor.

D'Onis rushed to his assistance-all further care was superfluousThe elder branch of the House of Ganges, was extinct.

LA BELLA FORNARINA.

Or the history of this celebrated beauty, whose influence, both for good and bad, on the heart and genius of the "Prince of Painters," is recorded in so many of the godlike efforts of his pencil, but few details, and those few but meager and incomplete, have survived to posterity: and yet that influence will be found to have constituted, as it were, an era in pictorial art; more especially as regards that portion of it, the most important perhaps of all, that of the religious or devotional feeling and inspiration to which we are indebted for those great masterpieces of the Italian, or Catholic school: and to the comparative absence of which feeling (call it weakness, superstition, idolatry, or what not) in these our modern, and if we will have it so, more enlightened days, we must look as to the real source of the paucity, not to say the absolute dearth, of those sublime, soul-stirring, mind-absorbing works of art, for the production of which some other, and more powerful stimulus, than the mere thirst of gain, or even the nobler aspirations after glory and distinction, would appear to be indispensable.

This devotional feeling in art existed, it is true, in the works of his predecessors of the older school: the attenuated and severe type of the

Virgins and Madonnas of Duccio, Cimabue, and Mazzacio, had personified the idea of ascetic and austere existence; but conceptions of a warmer glow-a connecting link between the abstract beauty of earthly and corporeal form, and the pure imaginings of the merely spiritual, unimbodied and celestial-these were still wanting to the perfect delineation of the "Celestial Mother" :-nor was this want supplied, till at a later period the Virgins of Raphael assumed the voluptuous forms, the graceful contour, the rich but chastened outline of the Fornarina. Throughout his delineations of female loveliness, the image of the fair "Baker's daughter*" was ever present to the ardent imagination of the "great master"-a fairy vision of light and wrapt beatitude, which hovered over the canvass in his studio, or guided his hand as the magic styla furrowed out the deep and fervent inspirations of his genius on the plastic and yielding stucco. Do we wish for a type-a concentration of the enthusiasm in belief-the all-accepting faith-the questionless devotion of a woman's heart?-Look to the "Transfiguration"-to the female figure, kneeling in the foreground, and pointing to the boy it is the portrait of Fornarina. At the altar of his faith-the shrine of his contrition-or on the palace-wall of his princely or Papal Mecanas+-still do we meet with the image of his much-loved Fornarina-the beau-idéal of his dream-ay, and of such a dreamer. In the pavilion of the gardens of the Palazza Borghese, is still to be seen on the wall, and in fresco, a portrait by Raphael of his mistress; and another, in oil, is preserved in the Borghese collection: the latter, which is supposed to be, as a likeness, the most correct, and least flattered of all, is a kind of sitting figure, and remarkable for a certain strangeness and peculiarity of style. The colour of the hair is light brown, verging indeed, on yellow; from which we may suppose, that the taste of the old Italian painters, like that of their ancestors the Roman poets, ran strongly in favour of the "gowden hair"-the "flavam comam" of Horace, Ovid, Propertius, Catullus, and the rest, who have "wedded to immortal verse" the names and attractions of their mistresses-the Lesbias, the Pyrrhas, Saganas, and Canidias. In the Tribuno of the Gallery of Paintings at Florence, there is another exquisite portrait of the Fornarina by Raphael.

To the little that is known respecting the private history of the "Fornarina" the popular traditions of modern Rome supply a few, -unfortunately but too few-particulars. The true name of the lady

The word Fornarina is the diminutive of the Italian, Fornújo, a baker; or rather of Fornája, a baker's wife-i. e. " baker's daughter. Fornáce, a furnace, kilo, or oven, with its diminutives, Fornacélla, Fornacétta, and Foruéllo (Fr. four and fournaise) being derived from the Latin, Fornax, oven, and Fornix, a vault. The Latins, who had a presiding deity for every action of human life, assigned to the goddess Fornax the task and dignity of "Protectress of Ovens." (Ovid.) The Fornacalia were sacrifices performed whilst the grain was being dried in the kilns or ovens. (Ib.)

+ Whilst employed in painting, for the Pope, the celebrated Frescoes in the Vatican, the Fornarina, as at the Palazza Chigi, was Raphael's inseparable companion-the indispensable adjunct to his studies. There is a story extant on the subject, equally characteristic of the Pontiff and the Painter. The Pope was in the almost daily habit of honouring the artist with a visit, to inspect the designs, and observe the progress of the work; but on such occasions he invariably found the artist's fair and constant companion, the Fornarina, at his side. "Who is that woman, Raphael?" asked his Holiness one day, in a sharp and angry tone," she is always here!"-" An it please your Holiness, she is my eyes," replied the doting and enamoured painter.

is unknown; but to this day a little old-fashioned house, near the corner of a bridge and gateway, leading from the Strada Balbi, and still used as a baker's shop, is pointed out as the "Casa Fornarina;" and a marble or stone tablet inserted in the wall, bearing these words, would appear to be a sufficient voucher for its identity. The house is situated in what may be called a bye street, and unfrequented quarter of Rome; and to the bulk of visitors to the Eternal City, intent only upon sight-hunting and amusement, the little unpretending shop remains unknown, even as respects its very existence. There, however, may occasionally be seen some pale-faced, foreign-looking, studentgarbed pedestrian, most probably a German, who has performed his voluntary pilgrimage through streets and alleys, and turnings unknown, to visit a spot hallowed by his recollections of the great master: for on that spot it was, that the then scarcely more than student, Raphael Sanzio di Urbino, in the year of grace 1508, passing on his way to the mansion of the rich banker, Agostini Chigi, whose family chapel he was employed to decorate, first saw his Fornarina, as she served out rolls and pagnotte in her father's shop: there too it was, that, heedless alike of his unfinished sketch, and of the good advice and friendly remonstrance of his patron, these morning visits of the young painter became so frequent and prolonged, as seriously to interfere with the prosecution of those mighty works, which were in after days, under the designation of the Stanze di Raphaël, to immortalize his name. that Agostini Chigi, like a fine old princely banker as he was, and no mean judge of art, and as would appear of men as artists too, fairly, invited the beautiful baker's girl to his palace, in order that his young and love-sick Maestro might continue his pictorial labours without interruption.*

So

The world, with its characteristic injustice, has dealt but unfairly with the memory of "La Fornarina;" visiting upon her devoted head alone, the fault which has been conventionally supposed to have hurried the Great Master, in the meridian of splendour, to a lamented and untimely grave. The non-observance of the admonition conveyed in the old Italian proverb

"Giugno, Luglio, ed Agosto

Non toccar ne donna ne mosto❞—

has been popularly assigned as the immediate agent of a catastrophe by which the world's hope was for ever cozened of that bright harvest of miracles in art, of which the spring-time of the Urbinian's genius had given such glorious promise. But the page of biography is, unfortunately, too rife with the flattering but deceptive bloom, the rapid perfection and early decay of those individuals, the light of whose transcendant abilities, have blazed suddenly on mankind, with the dazzling and almost supernatural lustre of the comet; but, alas! too, with a

The painting of these rooms occupied nine successive years, beginning in 1508, and being completed in 1517, and they still retain the name of the "Stanze di Raphaël." It was whilst engaged in the decoration of this same Palazzo Chigi, or Ghighi, now, or until lately, the seat of the Neapolitan ambassador, that Michael Angelo (Buonarotti) once called on Raphael, and finding him gone out, left that famous sketch of a head upon the wall, which is there to this day; and is known among artists as "the visitingcard of Michael Angelo." Raphael, on seeing the head, exclaimed that Michael Angelo had been there; and he never painted over it

glare, as fleeting, as transitory, and comparatively as ephemeral. Such, in the annals of the sister art of music, was the fate of a Mozart,-a Weber; and other, and time-honoured names, in the history of literature, were not wanting to swell the brilliant but melancholy list. With beings thus pre-eminently and intellectually endowed-who, like the Julian star of the Roman poet, immeasurably outshine the lesser lights by whom they are surrounded,-the vivid thoughts, the bright conceptions, the glowing verve, and mind-consuming excitement of a whole existence, seem crowded into the space of a few, glorious indeed, but over-wrought and feverish years: the too ardent mind, has drawn by anticipation on the more inert or physical powers; the healthful equilibrium-the 66 mens sana in corpore sano," is destroyed, and both sink alike, to sudden, premature, irremediable decay. Since, therefore, the early close of Raphael's career may be fairly attributed to other causes, let us no longer upbraid the memory of his beloved Fornarina with his untimely loss: if the stern moralist must needs withhold his sympathy from the mistress, let him accord one kindly thought to her name, in favour of the painter; and whilst he traces some undying record of her beauty, in the pure outline of a " Madonna di Raffaelo," join in the exculpatory feeling of the poet :

"If to her share, some imperfections fall,

Look in her face, and then-forget them all."

From the period of Raphael's death, all trace, historical or traditional, is lost respecting the fate of his celebrated mistress. A kind of local persuasion, however, seems to be prevalent, of her having subsequently been attached to Giulio Romano, his favourite pupil; a surmise which may probably have originated in the striking similarity, discoverable in the female figures of the latter painter, with those of his great prototype. But this is by no means a peculiarity in the style of Giulio the Roman; it is common with most of the other pupils of Raphael: and may well be accounted for, in the ascendancy which the master-mind had obtained over the genius and imaginations of the followers of his school; and it is to the effects of this legitimate ascendancy, operating on the kindred genius and conception of his age-a feeling which it were unjust, in the case of Giulio, for instance, and of some other of Raphael's great contemporaries, to confound with the spirit of mere servile imitation, still less of plagiarism-that posterity is probably indebted for the multiplication of those alleged portraits of the Fornarina, which adorn the galleries of nearly all the connoisseurs and patrons of art, in Europe, at the present day: a glorious tribute of respect conceded to the might of genius-a strange caprice of fortune-which has made the effigies of a nameless girl, the humble offspring of a plebeian race-the inhabitant of an obscure and unfrequented suburb-a thrice welcome, priceless ornament on the walls of palaces-the cynosure of Princely, Pontifical, and Imperial eyes. How many a high-born and courtly beauty might envy the brilliant lot of the humble "Fornarina," with a Raphael for her limner, and successive generations for admirers ! G. M.

"Micat inter omnes, Julium sidus."-HOR.