painter to attend the court at Augsburg. "It was,” he says, "the most flattering testimony to his excellence to behold, as soon as it was known that the divine painter was sent for, the crowds of people running to obtain, if possible, the productions of his art; and how they endeavored to purchase the pictures, great and small, and every thing that was in the house, at any price; for everybody seems assured that his august majesty will so treat his Apelles that he will no longer condescend to exercise his pencil except to oblige him."

Years passed on, and seemed to have no power to quench the ardor of this wonderful old man. He was eighty-one when he painted the Martyrdom of St. Laurence, one of his largest and grandest compositions. The Magdalen, the half-length figure with uplifted streaming eyes, which he sent to Philip II., was executed even later; and it was not till he was approaching his ninetieth year that he showed in his works symptoms of enfeebled powers; and then it seemed as if sorrow rather than time had reached him and conquered him at last. The death of many friends, the companions of his convivial hours, left him "alone in his glory." He found in his beloved art the only refuge from grief. His son Pomponio was still the same worthless profligate in age that he had been in youth. His son Orazio attended upon him with truly filial duty and affection, and under his father's tuition had become an accomplished artist; but as they always worked together, and on the same canvas, his works are not to be distinguished from his father's. Titian was likewise surrounded by painters who, without being precisely his scholars, had assembled from every part of Europe to profit by his instructions. The early morning and the evening hour found him at his easel; or lingering in his little garden (where he had feasted with Aretino and Sansovino, and Bembo and Ariosto, and "the most gracious Virginia," and "the most beautiful Violante "), and gazing

on the setting sun, with a thought perhaps of his own long and bright career fast hastening to its close; - not that such anticipations clouded his cheerful spirit, buoyant to the last! In 1574, when he was in his ninety-seventh year, Henry III. of France landed at Venice on his way from Poland, and was magnificently entertained by the Republic. On this occasion the King visited Titian at his own house, attended by a numerous suite of princes and nobles. Titian entertained them with splendid hospitality; and when the King asked the price of some pictures which pleased him, he presented them as a gift to his Majesty, and every one praised his easy and noble manners and his generous bearing.

Two years more passed away, and the hand did not yet tremble nor was the eye dim. When the plague broke out in Venice, the nature of the distemper was at first mistaken, and the most common precautions neglected; the contagion spread, and Titian and his son were among those who perished. Every one had fled, and before life was extinct some ruffians entered his chamber and carried off, before his eyes, his money, jewels, and some of his pictures. His death took place on the 9th of September, 1575. A law had been made during the plague that none should be buried in the churches, but that all the dead bodies should be carried beyond the precincts of the city; an exception, however, even in that hour of terror and anguish, was made in favor of Titian. His remains were borne with honor to the tomb, and deposited in the Church of Santa Maria de' Frari, for which he had painted his famous Assumption. There he lies beneath a plain black marble slab, on which is simply inscribed,

"TIZIANO VECELLIO."

In the year 1794 the citizens of Venice resolved to erect a noble and befitting monument to his memory. Canova

made the design; but the troubles which intervened, and the extinction of the Republic, prevented the execution of this project. Canova's magnificent model was appropriated to another purpose, and now forms the cenotaph of the Archduchess Christina, in the Church of the Augustines at Vienna.

This was the life and death of the famous Titian. He was pre-eminently the painter of nature; but to him nature was clothed in a perpetual garb of beauty, or rather to him nature and beauty were one. In historical compositions and sacred subjects he has been rivalled and surpassed, but as a portrait painter never; and his portraits of cele brated persons have at once the truth and the dignity of history.

THE POET'S HEART.

BY FREDERICK TENNYSON.

W

1.

HEN the Poet's heart is dead,

That with fragrance, light, and sound,

Like a Summer-day was fed,

Where, O, where shall it be found, —
In Sea, or Air, or underground?

11.

It shall be a sunny place;

An urn of odors; a still well,

Upon whose undisturbed face

The lights of Heaven shall love to dwell,

And its far depths make visible.

III.

It shall be a crimson flower

That in Fairyland hath thriven;
For dew a gentle Sprite shall pour
Tears of Angels down from Heaven,
And hush the winds at morn and even.

IV.

It shall be on some fair morn

A swift and many-voiced wind, Singing down the skies of June, And with its breath and gladsome tune Send joy into the heart and mind.

v.

It shall be a fountain springing,
Far up into the happy light,
With a silver carol ringing,
With a magic motion flinging

Its jocund waters, starry-bright.

VI.

It shall be a tiny thing

Whose breath is in it for a day,
To fold at Eve its weary wing,
And at the dewfall die away
On some pure air, or golden ray,

VII.

Falling in a violet-bloom;

Tombed in a sphere of pearly rain;

Its blissful ghost a wild perfume

To come forth with the Morn again,
And wander through an infant's brain;

VIII.

And the pictures it should set

In that temple of Delight

Would make the tearless cherub fret
With its first longing for a sight

Of things beyond the Day and Night.