Nor were even his most sanguine desires disappointed. Wealth and employment after a little time flowed rapidly in upon him. So numerous, indeed, were his commissions, that he was enabled to charge his own prices and is said to have constantly received as much as 400l. for a picture, an enormous price in those days. He married the daughter of lord Ruthven, earl of Gowry, and though he received but little dowry with his lady, he maintained her in every way that became her station. After an almost unparallelled continuance of pecuniary prosperity he died at the early age of forty-two, leaving as much as 40,000l. behind him.

The paintings of Vandyck are distinguished for decision, breadth, and depth, having ever been universally esteemed, and some of them are very highly valued. The one representing his great patron, Charles I., on his grey charger, now in the hall of the Middle Temple, has been valued at as much as five thousand guineas.

GRATITUDE.

WHEN one man confers an obligation on another, the first thing that is expected is gratitude, and where a person is deficient in this, he is looked upon with contempt. Gratitude is natural; some possess it more than others. It is not a mere expression of words; real gratitude is in general recognised by actions-the mind is overpowered and cannot utter what it would wish to express. A man when he has conferred some great obligation upon another, in his own mind feels happy; he walks with an air of gratification,-not of self-pride. Many may impose obligations with bountiful hands before the world, merely from a vainglorious desire of fame; others conceal their actions from public notice, and trust to chance for their publication. A man puffed up by pride and vanity pretends to hide an obligation from the world, while he is secretly endeavouring to bring it forth-it is brought forth; this man's

bountifulness, magnanimity, and goodness of heart, are puffed up to the skies, and he passes before his fellows for a good man-he takes pride in this character, he knows that it is appreciated, and that "charity covers a multitude of sins." Every one admires a grateful heart, and as I have some where read, "what every one says must be true."

Gratitude is expected by JEHOVAH.-He made the heavens, the earth, the air, the sea, and all that in them is, he made man, and gave him permission to range over every part of the creation-made the beasts to be under his control; gave him every comfort. Yet did the creature disobey the behest of his Creator; sin entered the hearts of two persons, and it became general. At last sin got to such a height that the Almighty mercifully sent His Son, His only Son, to die for man. He did die, was crucified, that any one who believed in Him might be saved. Many have believed in Him, and were saved. Surely after all this mercy we ought to be grateful. If we are grateful to man for a trifling obligation, comparatively speaking, how much more so ought we not to be to our Creator, our Preserver? to HIM who gave us life, and preserved that life! Surely the first thing that ought to be done, is to fall on our knees and pour out our hearts to GOD in gratitude. But this is not done; we have left undone the things that we ought to have done. Reason and Revelation cry out against us. Shall we not awake from our lethargy.

No praises float with joy around

No hope is spread

Nor balm of holy music's sound,

To raise the head

IT is a common trick with infidels in their endeavours to delude the uninformed and thoughtless into the same unhappy condition as themselves, to deride death and laugh at eternity, as sophisms put before the world by superstitious and artful men, to serve their own interested purposes. Voltaire was one of these scoffers, one of the most constant and profane. But when he himself stood on the threshold of that unfathomable gulf which no eye can pierce, all his boasted philosophy forsook him. Truth in its naked majesty frighted his soul with the sublimity of its enduring terrors, and he sunk to the grave a howling and most miserable wretch; and so will Satan, either in time or out of it have all his dupes.

REMAINS OF THE CAPITOL OF ROME.

FEW places upon the face of the whole earth have excited, and justly excited more deep and continued interest than the capitol of Rome. The fallen columns, the ruined temples, and all those other relics of past grandeur, which are there so plentifully to be found, of part of which the engraving above is an excellent and forcible representation, bring back, with all the additional influence which is derived from the haze of distant ages, the mightiness and majesty of the great and extraordinary people, who so long held the government of the civilized world. This was the adytum of their glory. In the capitol of their imperial

metropolis were enshrined the choicest trophies of their most renowned exploits. Hither the processions of their citizen kings and their laurelled chiefs were directed, to consummate, in the eyes of the first nation of the earth, the high reward of a Roman triumph.

Hither the desponding eyes of the soul-sick barbarian were anxiously turned, as, in the native nobility of his soul, he wandered in spirit from the glittering crowd, of which he formed an ignominious and dishonoured appanage, to the scenes of far off happiness, where, a king and a prince, and a commanding chief, he swayed the destinies of countless tribes of his native land, who looked up to him in honour and in hope, in safety and in peace, and then turned again to the melancholy object which the chances of war had made him. Around, in the pride of their splendour, as if built for eternity, stood the temples of the diabolical nothingnesses which, while unceasingly robbing the Lord of his praise, were made the shame, and at length became the ruin of those who raised them. Brave in the panoply of their worldly glory, the shrines of “ Gods many, and lords many," reared their noble summits in the dark, deep blue calm of an Italian sky, gilt by the passing radiance of the golden light, and brilliant with the luminance of a southern sun. Truly, earth had few spots to match its beauty. But how are the mighty fallen? The desolation of desert solitude now sits brooding among those broken fanes where, once, supreme in her power, Rome on her Capitoline Hill controlled the world.

The appearance of this celebrated Hill is very different to that which it wore in the day of its might, though still bearing the impress of its former greatness. But desolation seems there to have set up its standard. The mound still remains, but its temple and its fortress have nearly disappeared, and the classic appellations of Capitol, Capitolium, and Mons Capitolinus, have degenerated into the modern name of Campidoglio. Rising on the eastern skirts of the modern habitations, it divides them from the