in excellent preservation; and not one can be scrutinised without a conviction that Murillo's great teacher was Nature. The Fairs and Markets of his master, Juan del Castillio, were too ignoble for his ambition; he was too poor to go to Italy; and though he had access at Madrid to some of the works of Rubens and Vandyck, he was content with neither a pulpy Venus, nor a full-ruffed portrait, but betook himself to the study of the great Goddess. Exhibiting none of that mannerism, self-display, and pedantry, to which I alluded in the outset, he blends every thing harmoniously and naturally; and remembering that the object of his art is to please, he lends himself to the expression of amiable and tender sentiments with a felicity in which no artist has exceeded him. Let any unprejudiced person proceed from the annual exposition of the gaudy and theatrical French school at the Louvre to Marshal Soult's gallery of Murillos, and he will at once recognise the superiority of native untutored genius over the imitative pedantic efforts of • institutions, schools, and academies. THE CIVIC DINNER. THE guests assembled in Budge-row, Knives, spoons, and glasses, clitter-clatter, Like gluttons playing at cross-questions. What's that on Mrs. Firkin's head?— A rein-deer tongue-begins to chatter.- And Miss Augusta?-fried in batter.— How well he carves!-he's named by will My joint executor-the papers Say NOBLET's coming to fulfil Some mint-sauce, and a few more capers. But BIRCH is surely best for whips.- Knows all his letters down to Izzard.- A famous buttock-vermicelli→ Black puddings-pepper'd-dish'd—Belzoni ;— A glass of-Probert's pond with Thurtell ;— Lord Petersham-bad macaroni ; She's a most loving wife—mock-turtle.— pig's face—had caught his eye, Yes, Miss She loved his-mutton-chops-and so They jumped into—a pigeon-pie, Some kissing crust-and off they go. I eat for lunch-a handkerchief A green goose-lost at Charing-cross; And we both roll'd in-lobster-sauce. The Princess Olive-mushroom ketchup-* Poor Miss-red-herring-we must give her So Fanny Flirt is going to marry— A nice Welsh-rabbit-muffins-mummery- Crimp'd cod-crim-con-Crim Tartars-flummery. A RIDE IN A CUCKOO. "Why, what a cascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!— A horseback, ye Cuckoo; but afoot he will not budge a foot!" SHAKSPEARE. SIGHT-SEEING in hot weather is rather an awful enterprise: going over palaces is the most objectionable form of this painful pleasure; and the Château of Versailles, from its immense extent and total want of furniture, is perhaps the most wearisome of all these edifices to wade through. Others look like habitations: to a certain extent, they let us into the arcana of royalty's domestic life, and so possess some interest, as well as dignity of association; but here all is bare and empty however fatigued the visitant may be, there is not a single chair to relieve him; nothing has been renewed, but the ponderous overpowering gilding, which glisters to the eye like all the gilt gingerbread of all the Bartholomew Fairs; and when the servant in his gorgeous livery has shouted-" Salon de Mars!-Salon de Venus!-or Salon d'Apollon!" you have nothing to do but to walk on, until you have completed the round of the palace and the mythology. With the exception of some large pictures in the anteroom, principally of Paul Veronese, you encounter nothing in the way of art worth a moment's attention: there are none, indeed, but some flaring, glaring, theatrical daubs of the modern French school, and the paintings by Le Brun and others, with which the ceilings are every where profusely bedizened. In spite of the "os sublime" given to man, that he might contemplate the heavens, it may be doubted whether he was ever meant to strain his eyes perpendicularly upwards to stare at a coloured ceiling; and such is my antipathy to this exercise of the art, that I seriously doubt whether I should have saved Sir James Thornhill's life while employed upon the dome of St. Paul's, had I seen him upon the extreme edge of the scaffolding, and possessed the presence of mind recorded of his friend, who induced him to run forward by smearing his principal figure with a brush. One knows not which is in the most unnatural posture, the man below, half dislocating his neck to look up, or the sprawling fore-shortened goddess above, threatening to break hers by tumbling down; the former becoming red in the face, (or black, if he have a tight neckcloth,) in the hopeless attempt at reducing all the fine colours spread above him to something like an intelligible representation, while they most perversely continue to bewilder his vision with the semblance of a Turkey carpet. This misapplication of his time, and the muscles of his neck, seemed more painful to the writer, as he would have been well content to devote some more hours to the gardens, baths, and bosquets. However, he submitted to his fate without a murmur; and, having completed his task, and reduced his chin, though with some diffi culty, to its proper position, he prepared to return to Paris. Public stages, admirably conducted, depart from and return to Versailles every half hour; but for the sake of variety, and in the hope of seeing something of life among the lower orders, he betook himself to the corner of the Place d'Armes, where there is a stand of small carriages resembling cabriolets, and known by the names of Cuckoos, Pataches, petites voitures, and other designations which we hold it not quite decorous to commit to paper, though even belles and élégantes in France hear and name them without any offence to their unfastidious organs. As I approached the rendezvous of these humble vehicles, a tall gaunt-looking figure, with huge whiskers, a rabbit-skin cap upon his head, and a whip in his hand, pouncing upon me, inquired whether I was for Paris; and, on my answering in the affirmative, exclaimed-" À la bonne |