He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes All this rush'd with his blood-shall he expire This is indeed the true poetic spirit in which a work of art should be gazed upon, and contemplated, and reverenced, until it becomes a real thing-till the marble warms into life, like Pygmalion's statue, and carries the spectator back with it, to the age and country, and state of society with which its attributes are connected. It was in the time of Alexander the Great that Grecian sculpture reached its highest perfection. He was himself a warm and munificent patron of the Fine Arts, as or learning and philosophy; and on this ground, his claim to the admiration of posterity is more strongly based than on that of his conquests, which soon escaped the grasp of his successors, and were only valuable as they extended civilization over the countries he subjected to his yoke. To enumerate the artists whose excellence sheds lustre on his annals, would far exceed our limits. How much have we to be grateful for, in so many of their works having come down to us; but alas! how much have we to lament, in so many more being irretrievably lost: still, even of those, the subjects are frequently preserved, in the engraved gems and coins of the same period; and as the Greeks were no less famous for these miniature marvels of genius and skill, than for their most imposing works-for a Pyrotegeles and a Tryphon, as for a Phidias and Praxiteles-we shall make a few remarks upon them, on a future occasion; not only on account of the exquisite beauty of their workmanship, and the ingenuity of their designs, under which some elegant allusion, or instructive lesson was continually conveyed, but also as the study of them from engravings, with appropriate explanations, which are to be found in works innumerable, when the objects themselves are not to be met with, will afford the surest guides to an acquaintance with the lofty meanings of which they are the symbols, and which give to works of art a mental value, far beyond that which their mere beauty may convey to the senses: for it should never be lost sight of that the Fine Arts ought to have a twofold purpose in view; to instruct, as well as to please: it is only by succeeding in which, that they have a right to claim a foremost place in the gratifications of a thinking and refined people, and it is only in this view that we press their study. SELF-DECEPTION; OR, THE HISTORY OF A HUMAN HEART. CHAPTER LIV. MANY circumstances, in the little village where Ella was now a resident, tended to confirm in her mind the idea that she might reasonably, and without any sacrifice of her own respectability, espouse the cause of a young man whose growing popularity already obtained for him admission into many of the neighbouring families, as a welcome, if not even a familiar guest. The spreading rumour of a prosperous issue likely to occur in the Grange trial tended very much to soften whatever prejudices might at one time have been entertained against the rightful heir. It was a very different thing for respectable families to open their doors to the lawful proprietor of a valuable estate, let the man himself be who he might, from what it would have been to show hospitality to the same individual standing in a questionable position amongst them, without an inch of ground in the neighbourhood to call his own. If real possession, according to popular phraseology, be nine points of the law, the prospect of possession, according to the same code, is unquestionably nine points of that moral law by which society is for the most part governed. Thus it was, then, that by degrees Arthur Grahame found himself an invited guest in many of the little parties which met beneath hospitable roofs in the village of Sundown and its neighbourhood. And yet, had he not found one paramount attraction there, these would have been perhaps the last places upon earth towards which his steps would have turned. These little gatherings were often tea parties, too; and if there was one species of endurance for which, beyond all others, the VOL. IV. young gentleman felt himself unprepared by any amount of fortitude, either natural or acquired-it was for that required by an ordinary tea party. To sit and sip coffee, and to talk with old ladies about the deaths and marriages of a little country village!-an hour at the bar of a way-side inn, or three hours in the stable, would have been luxury in comparison with that; and yet here he was, to his own unspeakable astonishment, as well as to the astonishment of some others. On these occasions, Alice Greyburn always knew his hat in the hall if he happened to have arrived before Ella and herself; or she detected his thundering knock at the door, and almost started from her chair when she heard it, after the sober party had taken their seats in some dull drawing room, seldom occupied except on these unfortunate occasions. The first time these parties met in an open and accredited manner was at the house of some very worthy spinster ladies, who seldom, in any action of their lives, deviated from the safest, and most approved line of conduct. Little did their guests, on the evening alluded to, think what consultations there had been, before it was decided to invite "the young man." Little did they imagine what inquiries had been instituted, what circuitous investigations had been set on foot amongst servants, washerwomen, and poor neighbours in general, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the individual in question had really been invited to the rectory, or not; but especially, whether he had dined, or taken any other meal there, for that, they said, made all the difference. Much also hung upon the probability, or the supposed probability of his regaining possession of the Grange property; "for if," said the prudent calculating ladies, "it should turn out at last that he is but a poor disinherited penniless youth, it would look very unsuitable for us to have had him at our house as an invited guest." It was really a very difficult case to decide upon; for, on the other hand, if things should turn out well, there was a sufficient love of patronage in the hearts of these ladies, to make them feel that it would be very pleasant to have been amongst the first to take successful merit by the hand. Rightly, too, did they observe, that it would not look well to come forward only when the case had concluded favourably; so, after much inquiry, and much consultation as to how the young man stood with their neighbours, they passed the Rubicon at last, and actually invited him to join their little party, taking care, however, that the clergyman should be there to meet him in case of any scandal being likely to arise out of the fact. It occasioned, at first, a little surprise to Mr. Cawthorne to find that Arthur Grahame filled a place in this select party, because it was the first time he had met him under similar circumstances; but as the ladies of the house were considerably past the meridian of life, besides being in themselves the pink of propriety, he was neither disconcerted nor made uneasy by this deviation of theirs from their accustomed course of prudence and circumspection. The party invited for that evening consisted of friends who were all disposed to meet on pleasant and social terms. The event itself was one of the most common-place character, and yet to Ella, it was fraught with deep interest, arising out of more causes than could have been calculated upon. Mrs. Lorrimer was one of the invited guests, and it happened, that as Ella was engaged in conversing with Mr. Cawthorne, she heard snatches of a kind of running chat between that individual and Arthur Grahame, both of whom were seated near her. She had acquired a strange habit lately of hearing all that Arthur Grahame said, even when he was conversing with other people, and when her own attention seemed to be otherwise engaged. Sometimes when he stood at quite a different part of the room, and while many persons were talking, she heard every word which he uttered, with a distinctness quite extraordinary to those who have never observed the same fact, nor looked into its cause, "You have lately been in Scotland, I think?" said Mrs. Lorrimer, on this occasion. "Yes," replied the gentleman. "I have been reviving my clanship there, for it was almost forgotten." "Ah, yes. You are of a Scotch family, to be sure. I might have known that." "It is delightful to be recognised anywhere as a human being particularly delightful to be received, as I have been, amongst those warm-hearted, hospitable people. Besides which, I have a little cousin there, who has just been taking the fatal matrimonial step." "I hope she has considered it well." "Oh, yes. No doubt about that. The Scotch are coolheaded, calculating people; and on the present occasion, the lovers were an immense time in making up their minds. Something went wrong, I fancy, in the early part of their acquaintance. It does happen sometimes, though very rarely, that the gentleman is less constant than the lady; and I believe it was so in this case. But all is right now, and a better-hearted fellow than the bridegroom I don't think one could easily find." Ella could not help listening to this conversation, although Mr. Cawthorne was still talking to her. He thought her attention wandered, but he did not know why; and Mrs. Lorrimer, always the most curious of women, went on asking questions. "I suppose," she said, "your cousin is one of those endless Macs, of one kind or other, or perhaps a Stuart or a Campbell ?" "She was a Stewart, but she is now a Cunningham," the gentleman replied. "Cunningham ?--Cunningham?" said Mrs. Lorrimer, as if some chain of association had been touched. And while she repeated this name, Ella's cheek was flushing with the deepest crimson; until Mr. Cawthorne, thinking she must be ill, proposed to her to walk in the garden, but she neither answered him, nor moved from her seat. Cunningham?" said Mrs. Lorrimer, again. "Was he in the army ?" "He should have been," replied the gentleman. “But it |