FLITTINGS OF FANCY.

TERESINA.

As easy may'st thou fall

A drop of water in the breaking gulph,

And take unmingled thence that drop again,

As take from me thyself.

Comedy of Errors.

THE traveller who has spent his winter in Rome will not forget how much of his enjoyment in the contemplation of modern art was derived from the numerous students from the North, domiciliated under the general description of the German school. They have a devotion to their calling, which makes it interesting to all who come in contact with them; and the pride which they take in each other's genius, and the liberality of their mutual assistance, ( VOL. I.

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are traits sufficiently unusual amongst rivals to be worthy of admiration. My mornings were generally passed with one or other of them, and I was deep in the mysteries of half the unfinished pictures and statues of Rome—with their destinations and every thing relating to them.

The great patron, I found, and the one for whom they were all the most proud to labour, was a nobleman of the country, the Marchese di They spoke his name as a word of triumph, and praised him as though he had been one of the fraternity. Some few particulars which I accidentally heard of him awakened a curiosity to hear more, and by degrees I became possessed of his history.

Many years previous to the time of which I am speaking, there laboured, in a small studio on the Monte Cavallo, a young German student in sculpture. Like his fellows, he was seldom aware at the beginning of the month of the source from whence means were to be derived for carrying him to the end of it;—but in talent they allowed him to stand above them. Still his chief employment was to toil upon the works of artists of older standing, and to con

fer fame whilst he received the wages of mere labour. Thus the genius of Frederic was known only to his familiar associates, and the original exercise of it was, of necessity, confined to the hours which others devoted to repose or to festa days, when scarcely another hand was at work in the whole capital.

Yet, with all this resistance of 'every enjoyment but study, and notwithstanding the obscure prospect of fame beyond the circle in which he already possessed it, Frederic had too much of the energy of genius, and too intense a delight in the search for beauty, to feel depressed. True, his countenance had the pale hue and the knitted brows of reflection, but its handsome character was heightened by an animated feeling for all things of intellectual interest, and his heart was always free enough from selfish care to be acutely sensible to the concerns of others. Whenever the light but manly figure of Frederic made its rare appearance amongst his more jovial friends, it was the signal for increased hilarity and a double forgetfulness of their hardships. There were few of them whose works had not benefited by his

taste, and few who, while he never was seen in more pretending costume than his workman's cap and blouse, had not felt his off-hand, uncalculating generosity.

With such a character, amongst those so capable of duly appreciating him, it was no wonder if he found a ready reception from the few acquaintance whom he chanced to make in society more general. These consisted, for the most part, merely of the indigent, but, in many cases, well-born families established in charge of the palaces of public show, to the absentee or straightened possessors of which they might bear some remote affinity. In one of these temples to the genius of ancient days, Frederic professed to have found matter more conducive to excellence in his art than in any other which was open to him;—according to him, there were vestibules and galleries which contained the pride of Greece, and, according to his friends, there were more private apartments which contained the pride of Rome.

Both of these statements were correct. The palazzo belonged to the Marchese di ———, a nobleman of great wealth but retired habits,