army, who caught cold a-travellin' in the same stage-coach at night with a wet nurse, and died of the quinzy sore-throat. I did n't hear of this, in time to put it in the catalogue; but they say the first thing a traveller does, when he gets to Venice, is to hire a horse, and ride out to look at it. How much for it?' The piece went for fifty dollars. 'You will find it,' said the auctioneer, 'a very cheap pictur'—and he did.
We remember to have seen an anecdote of an enthusiastic but ignorant lover of old paintings, of whose mania advantage was taken by every huckster of pictures for leagues around him; and his love of being deceived, may be gathered from the following colloquy with an amateur friend: 'Come up and see me to-morrow, my boy, and I'll show you a picture that is a picture—an undoubted original. I want your unbiassed judgment of it. Titian Smith was over to look at it, yesterday, and had the impudence to say that it was a copy—the ignorant ramus! By Jove! I'd like any other man to tell me so! Curse me, if I should n't be tempted to knock him down! But come up to-morrow, and give us your candid opinion of its merits. I'd like to know what you think of it.' There can be no doubt, we presume, that the painting was not considered a copy. An acquaintance of ours once encountered a different critic, in the person of an English gentleman, accomplished in a knowledge of the details of art, and the prominent features of all the great masters. He was invited, after dinner, to step up into the gallery of his host, which had been purchased without regard to the hole it made in a princely fortune. 'What do you think of 'em?' anxiously inquired the owner, from time to time, as his friend walked leisurely around the apartment, and surveyed, through his eye-glass, the canvass-hangings, in elaborately-carved frames, with which it was lined; 'what do you think of 'em, eh?' 'Upon my honor, my friend,' was the reply, 'I would n't give you a hundred dollars for the lot!' We think we have heard that the 'undoubted originals' were sold over again, at a great advance.
We are indebted for the ensuing lines, to a friend whose name was once frequently before the public, but who, of late, although we infer he has not ceased to write, has nevertheless hitherto ceased to publish. For the lesson inculcated, we need not ask the applause of the moral and christian reader:
GOD IN NATURE
