1829.1 the late Mr. Hermann Alsagcr. 149 



fresh with pasturage : would we, however, when once the sands are 

 fairly passed, retrace our steps, for the sake of enjoying, a second time, 

 the repose and the beauty of those few sunny spots ? Never — so says 

 instinct — so says experience. I, however, am an exception to this rule ; 

 for gladly would I retread the desart of my life, could I, by so doing, 

 enjoy once again the full happiness of the time passed in company with 

 Hortense. Every thing conspired to render this period a paradise. Not 

 an hoiu- passed without its particular avocation. During the day, my 

 mind — influenced by Herwaldsen's example, who was now busily en- 

 gaged in the composition of a poem for the university prize — was exerted 

 in the acquisition of sound and useful knowledge ; and, in the evening, 

 the hours flew rapidly away in the witching society of Hortense. 



Our usual mode of life was this. After the hall-dinner, Herwaldsen 

 would call at my lodgings, or I at his, when, over a glass of Alba Flora, 

 or Burgundy, we would converse on the subject of our morning's stu- 

 dies, comparing facts, suggesting ideas, commenting on style, and thus 

 mutually receiving and impai'ting instruction ; and, in the afternoon, we 

 would both walk, or ride, or row up to the cottage in time for coffee, 

 which Hortense had duly prepared, and over which we lingered, engaged 

 in light and desultory chit-chat, carried on chiefly in French, for the 

 sake of our pretty foreigner, who was yet but an imperfect linguist. As 

 the long, social, autumnal nights drew on, the shutters were shut early ; 

 the candles introduced ; the thick, warm, flowing curtains drawn ; the 

 sofa Avheeled round to the fire ; and Hortense, taking up her mandolin, 

 while Herwaldsen and myself sate beside her, M'ould play one of those 

 Italian airs whose tones, sweet and plaintive, like flutes heard across 

 waters on a still summer evening, still ring, and will ring for ever, in my 

 memory. To enhance our amusements, and steep them, if possible, in 

 a richer glow of colouring, we had every thing around us that taste or 

 even luxury could suggest. The library — so Hortense called a small 

 room, in which stood a tasty satin-wood book-case, with glass folding- 

 doors, lined with rich crimson silk — was stored with an elegant selection 

 of French, Swedish, and Italian authors. The drawing-room was hung 

 with the choicest works of art, the result of Herwaldsen's researches ; 

 Titian was there, with his warm, voluptuous colouring — Rembrandt, with 

 his glorious depth of light and shade — Claude, with his sylvan witcheries, 

 his sun-lit coasts, his classic fanes, splendid as a poet's ckeam, yet chaste 

 as the virgin's first sigh of love ; his dropping caves and emblazoned 

 woods, where the Dryads would by choice resort, and where attentive 

 Fancy might seem to hear the voice of Echo, like the music of the incar- 

 nate Apollo in the vales of Thessaly, swelling up, plaintively and sono- 

 rously, high above cliff", and glen, and waterfall, companioned by the 

 sighings of the pine-tree, and the gurglings of a thousand sti'eams ; — 

 there, too, was Salvator Rosa, the enchanter of the forest, the genius of 

 romance, whose gloomy spirit throws a more sombre hue over the desert 

 crag, the dun wood, the precipitous and tangled glen ; — Domenichino, 

 the most intellectual — and Vandyke, the most chivalrous, of portrait- 

 painters. On a light mahogany stand, made expressly for it, stood, at 

 one corner of the room, a cast from the Shell Venus ; and, at the other, 

 a model from Canova's Graces, sculptured by the nephew of our great 

 northern luminary, Thorwaldsen. I know not whether I am singular in 

 my <)[)inion, but I luivo always contended for the superiority of sculptine 

 over its sister art. In painting, the attention is iliverted and bewildered 



