I wish a common wish indeed
My purse were somewhat fatter,
That I might cheer the child of need,
And not my pride to flatter;
That I might make Oppression reel,
As only gold can make it,
And break the Tyrant's rod of steel,
As only gold can break it.

I wish that Sympathy and Love, And every human passion

That has its origin above,

Would come and keep in fashion; That Scorn, and Jealousy, and Hate,

And every base emotion,

Were buried fifty fathom deep

Beneath the waves of Ocean!

I wish

that friends were always true, And motives always pure;

I wish the good were not so few,
I wish the bad were fewer;
I wish that parsons ne'er forgot
To heed their pious teaching;
I wish that practising was not
So different from preaching!

I wish that modest worth might be
Appraised with truth and candor;
I wish that innocence were free

From treachery and slander;

I wish that men their vows would mind;
That women ne'er were rovers ;
I wish that wives were always kind,
And husbands always lovers!

I wish - in fine

that Joy and Mirth,

And every good Ideal,

May come erewhile, throughout the earth,

To be the glorious Real;

Till God shall every creature bless

With his supremest blessing,

And Hope be lost in Happiness,

And Wishing in Possessing!

THE GREAT PORTRAIT-PAINTERS

BY CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE.

HERE has never existed a great painter of History

Tor Poetry who has not been great in portrait. Even

Michael Angelo is no exception. There may not remain any painted portraits of known persons by his hand, but there are sculptured portraits by him, and it is impossible to look even at the engravings of the Prophets and Sibyls, without seeing that they are from a hand practised in portrait, a hand, too, that had acquired its power by the practice of literal exactness. "Fuseli distinguishes the styles, epic, dramatic, and historic, beautifully," says Mr. Haydon. But I think, as I do of such distinctions generally, that these are entirely imaginary; and that the style of Michael Angelo is distinguished, as are all others, by the peculiar mind of the artist only. Haydon adds that, "the same instruments are used in all styles, men and women; and no two men or women were ever the same in form, feature, or proportion. After Fuseli has said, 'the detail of character is not consistent with the epic,' he goes on to show the great difference of character between each Prophet, as decided as any character chosen by Raphael in any of his more essentially dramatic works. 'Nor are the Sibyls,' continues Fuseli, 'those female oracles, less expressive or less individually marked." Thus, though Haydon was unwilling to abandon the classifications of

Fuseli, the contradiction involved in them did not escape him.

There cannot be a doubt that Michael Angelo, had he devoted himself to portrait only, would have been a superlative portrait-painter; for in his works we find everything in perfection that portrait requires, dignity, the expression of character, the highest perception of beauty, in man, woman, and child; and not only in the unfinished marble that adorns our Academy library, but in the smaller compartments of the Sistine ceiling, the most natural and familiar domestic incidents treated in the most graceful manner. It is right this should be remembered, because painters (as they fancy themselves) of High Art, who really have not the talents portrait requires, must not be allowed to class themselves with Michael Angelo, as long as they cannot do what he, in perfection, could do.

Conspicuous as he stands among great portrait-painters, Vandyke is not first of the first. The attitudes of his single figures are often formal and unmeaning; and his groups, however finely connected by composition, are seldom connected by sentiment. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, stand or sit beside each other, as they stood or sat in his room, for the mere purpose of being painted; and it is therefore the nicely discriminated individual character of every head, the freshness and delicacy of his color, and the fine treatment of his masses, that have placed him high among portrait-painters. The Countess of Bedford, at Petworth, his Snyders at Castle Howard, his whole. lengths at Warwick and at Windsor, the noble equestrian picture at Blenheim, of Charles I., with its magnificent landscape background, and the whole length of Charles in the Louvre, are among the masterpieces of Vandyke; but he has nowhere shown such dramatic powers as are displayed by Velasquez, in his portrait picture of "The Sur

render of Breda."

The Governor of the town is presenting its keys to the Marquis Spinola, who (hat in hand) neither takes them, nor allows his late antagonist to kneel. But, laying his hand gently on his shoulder, he seems to say, "Fortune has favored me, but our cases might have been reversed." To paint such an act of generous courtesy was worthy of a contemporary of Cervantes. It is not, however, in the choice of the subject, but in the manner in which he has brought the scene before our eyes, that the genius and mind of Velasquez are shown. The cordial, unaffected bearing of the conqueror could only have been represented by as thorough a gentleman as himself. I know this picture but from copies. Mr. Ford says of the original, "Never were knights, soldiers, or national character better painted, or the heavy Fleming, the intellectual Italian, and the proud Spaniard more nicely marked, even to their boots and breeches; the lances of the guards actually vibrate. Observe the contrast of the light-blue, delicate page, with the dark, iron-clad General, Spinola, who, the model of a highbred, generous warrior, is consoling a gallant but vanquished enemy."

Another great portrait picture, the conception of which is equally dramatic and original, is at Windsor Castle. The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the Prince of Spain, mounted on chargers, are directing an assault in the battle of Nortlingen. The conventional manner, sanctioned indeed by great painters, of representing commanders of armies, whether mounted or on foot, quietly looking out of the picture, while the battle rages behind them, is here set aside. The generals are riding into the scene of action; and yet their attitudes are so contrived as sufficiently to show their features. Nearer to the spectator are halflength figures, the end of a long line of steel-clad infantry, diminishing in perspective up a hill to the fortress they are storming. All is action; and though we are only shown