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PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE OF FREDERICK WELLBURG. 



Frederick Wellburg was seated at his easel in a small room which 

 looked upon one of the most deserted streets of Florence. He was just 

 about putting the last touches to a painting upon which he had been for 

 some months occupied ; and, as he gazed upon the almost- finished work, 

 his mind was insensibly drawn away from the little attic, with its scanty 

 furniture, to a brighter and a happier home in the kingdom of fancy. 

 Frederick was young, and comparatively poor ; but the glow of health 

 upon his cheek, and the proud consciousness of genius which beamed 

 forth in every glance of his dark eye, told plainly the nature of the food 

 on which he lived — Hope, the best and purest emotion of which the 

 heart is capable, but, alas ! the most short-lived. 



He drew aside the little casement, and sat down to gaze upon the 

 bright blue sky, and — to dream. The sun was throwing his last splen- 

 dour upon the distant hills ; and a few clouds, which hung round the 

 horizon, were tinged with a mild glory, which deepened slowly into the 

 soft livery of approaching twilight. The stillness of the scene, when 

 contrasted with the turmoil of the city which lay immediately beneath, 

 awoke in the mind of the young painter an unconscious sadness. He 

 looked round his little chamber, and upon the dingy walls of the mud- 

 coloured buildings beneath — the narrow streets, dark and devious, with 

 here and there the remains of some noble edifice, which served only, by 

 its air of desolation and meanness, to point out the silent victory of decay 

 over the labours and the fortune of man ; and then, by some transition, 

 which was to himself unaccountable, he thought of his own native Rhine 

 and of his mother's dwelling. The happy memories of youth rushed 

 like a soft stream across his heart, and the pride of anticipated fame, 

 with the pain of present toil and poverty, were alike forgotten. 



Wellburg had come to Italy with little to rely upon besides his own 

 enthusiastic nature, and the hope of eminence in his profession. The 

 new religion which, about this time, spread itself through every part of 

 Germany, whilst it was embraced with transport by a great proportion 

 of the people, was received with equal dissatisfaction by others, whose 

 hearts still clung with a kind of reverence to the splendid rites of Catho- 

 licism, and to the associations of Romance, with which that creed has 

 ever dazzled the imagination, and excited the sympathies of its follow- 

 ers. To a mind imbued, as Wellburg's was, with the prejudices of this 

 latter class, heightened by the enthusiasm of an ardent nature, the shrines 

 and palaces of Italy possessed a charmed name. He viewed them not 

 only as the seat of his religion, but also as the home of all that was 

 noble in genius and art, and more especially in that to which he had 

 devoted the best energies of his youth. The noble paintings by which 

 they were adorned, and the liberal patronage which the church was ever 

 ready to afford to genius exerted in her cause, were the realities which 

 furnished the motive of his sojourn in Italy beyond the period of his 

 years of study ; Avhilst the romance of life and adventure, which had 

 diversified the history of her poets and her men of art, was the dream, 

 which contributed to feed the enthusiasm of his youthful imagination. 

 A distinguished painter was, in his estimation, greater than the kings of 

 tlie earth ; and, as he witnessed the homage bestowed upon the works of 



M.AI. Netv Sniex.—VoL.Xll. No. 72. 3 D 



