Moonlight and Colour. 127 



appear, and when these showed themselves, the feet were first 

 freed, the limbs to which they were attached not being bent on 

 themselves, as were the foremost. The first closing of the gill 

 openings was not marked, but from observations made on 

 frogs it is supposed to take place at the time when they quit 

 the water for the land. 



The skeleton of the Natterjack differs much from that of 

 the common toad and frog. 



MOONLIGHT AND COLOUR. 



Whoevee visited the Exhibition of the Eoyal Academy for the 

 current year must have been struck by a remarkable painting 

 representing a young woman of bony construction and Dutch- 

 doll shape, standing in an old-fashioned bedroom in a flood of 

 green light, which gave her a ghastly aspect and imparted a 

 strange, half vital character to the heavy folds of a green dress 

 that had fallen about her feet. No picture in the collection 

 displayed so much force. If no name had been affixed to the 

 description in the catalogue, and the artist's previous works 

 had been unknown, every critic must have pronounced him a 

 man of genius and extraordinary skill, unhappily perverted by 

 a kind of Yezidism, or worship of the ugly, which is fortunately 

 rare. The name of the picture was the " Eve of St. Agnes/' 

 and the following quotation from Keats told what it was 

 about : — 



" Full od this casement shone the wintry moon. 



ijp Ijf »jf ^p ^p 



* * * Her vesper's done. 



Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 



Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ; 



Loosens her fragrant boddice ; by degrees 



Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees ; 



Half hidden like a mermaid in seaweed, 



Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, 



In fancy, fair Agnes in her bed ; 



But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled." 



The reader of Keats will not accept the picture as an illus- 

 tration of the exquisite fancy of the poet; the yodug 

 female, with pinched waist and wooden figure, bears not the 

 slightest resemblance to the "thoughtful Madeline,," "St. 

 Agnes' Charmed Maid;" nor does the stream of bottle-green 

 light, in which she and her drapery are involved, at all coin- 

 cide with the description of " innumerable stains and splendid 

 dyes," which the moonbeams in the story brought from the 

 " diamonded panes of quaint device." Our purpose, however, 



