consulted a coterie of foolish women, and, listening to their malicious gossiping, he concluded that the nomination would not be popular in London, and so was afraid to ask for it.

"It now appears that the Foreign Office at Paris is an inquisition into the private affairs of those who have the misfortune to have any reference to it; a bad plan, when clever men are so scarce in France, and particularly those well born and well connected: a government like the present should be glad to catch any such that could be had. MARGT. BLESSINGTON."

No. VIII.

COUNT D'ORSAY AND RICHARD J. LANE.

The most eminent of English lithographic artists, Richard J. Lane, Esq., was a very intimate friend of the count. The portrait drawings by the late Count D'Orsay, to the extent of one hundred and forty representations of the Villa Belvidere, the Palazzo Negroni, the Hotel Ney, Seamore Place, and Gore House, were lithographed by Mr. Lane, and published by Mr. Mitchell, of Bond Street. This collection is so remarkable, and includes so many portraits of eminent persons, which are in vain to be sought for elsewhere, that it would appear desirable to have a correct list of those admirably executed portraits laid before the public.

COUNT D'ORSAY'S PORTRAITS.

Mr. Mitchell, of Bond Street, has published a series of the portrait drawings by the late Count D'Orsay, hitherto limited to private circulation: the entire series, with the exception of about twenty, is now given to the public, and has been received with general admiration.

* The number after the portrait denotes more than one drawing of the same person

Dr. Quin.

Dr. Currie.

Vicomte D'Arlincourt.

Baroness Calabrella.

Honorable Colonel C. B. Phipps.

Sir Edwin Landseer.

469

Each portrait may be had separately, price 5s., but the work complete at 4s. each. Size-14 inches high, 10 inches wide.

Knowing the great esteem and respect in which Mr. Lane was deservedly held by Count D'Orsay, on account of his worth and probity, no less than on account of his great merit as an artist and lithographer, I addressed a note to him, stating I was aware how intimately acquainted he had long been with Count D'Orsay, and requesting such aid and information as might help to enable me to set D'Orsay before the English public in a better light than that of a mere man of fashion, an arbiter elegantiarum of modish circles—a wit even, or a quasi artist, feeling he could jump into art with as much ease and elegance as he could vault into his saddle. And as the world had plenty of evidence of that sort of eminence and agility, I sought such testimony rather as might show him to have been something more and better than an exquisite or a dilettante-of his being an original thinking man, of some noble qualities, of a large heart, and a kindly, generous disposition.

LETTER FROM RICHARD J. LANE, ESQ., TO R. R. MADDEN, ESQ.

"DEAR SIR,-The request that you have made imposes on me a duty "3 Osnaburgh Terrace, October 27th, 1854. which I will endeavor to fulfill in a manner to do justice to the memory of Count D'Orsay on those points on which you have asked my opinion.

"As a patron, his kind consideration for my interest, and prompt fulfillment of every engagement, never failed me for the more than twenty years of my association with him; and the friendship that arose out of our intercourse (and which I attest with gratitude) proceeded at a steady pace, without the smallest check, during the same period, and remained unbroken, when, on his final departure from England, he continued to give me such evidence of the constancy of his regard as will be found conveyed in his letters.

"In the sketches of the celebrities of Lady Blessington's salons which he brought to me (amounting to some hundred and fifty or more), there was generally an appropriate expression and character that I found difficult to retain in the process of elaboration; and although I may have improved upon them in the qualities for which I was trained, I often found that the final touches of his own hand alone made the work satisfactory.

"Of the amount and character of the assistance of which the count availed himself in the production of his pictures and models I have a clear notion, and I rejoice to think that you will make evident before your readers what I believe I have already impressed on you.

"When a gentleman would rush into the practice of that which, in its mechanism, demands experience and instruction, he avails himself of the

help of a craftsman, whose services are sought for painting-in the subordinate parts, and working out his rude beginnings. In the first rank of art, at this day, are others who, like the Count D'Orsay, have been unprepared, excepting by the possession of taste and genius, for the practice of art, and whose merits are in no way obscured by the assistance which they also freely seek in the manipulation of their works; and it is no less easy to detect, in the pictures of the count, the precise amount of mechanical aid which he has received from another hand, than the graces of character and feeling that are superadded by his own. I have seen a rough model, executed entirely by himself, of such extraordinary power and simplicity of design, that I begged him to have it moulded, and not to proceed to the details of the work until he could place this first model side by side with the cast in clay, to be worked up. He took my advice, and his equestrian statue of the first Napoleon may fairly justify my opinion.

"For art he had a heartfelt sympathy, a searching eye, and a critical taste, fostered by habitual intercourse with some of our first artists.

“I cheerfully place at your disposal one letter of his, especially valued by me, of the 21st of February, 1850, and another very remarkable letter, written from Paris soon after the elevation of the Prince NAPOLEON LOUIS to the Presidency of the French Republic.

"I have the honor to remain, dear sir, your very faithful servant,

"RICHARD J. LANE."

LETTERS FROM COUNT D'ORSAY TO RICHARD J. LANE, ESQ.

"I rejoice to read your opinions of the prince. I well remember the circumstance you mention,* and his visits to you when you did my two lithographs of him.† . . . .

....

". . . . . The last election was even more wonderful than the first, for then he had the whole army with him. Rely upon it, he will do more for France than any sovereign has done for the last two centuries, if only they give him time."+

* I reminded him that, on the morning of the day of the first election of the president, he came to my house before church time, and diverted me from graver duties, to listen to his confident anticipations of the result of that memorable day. "Think," said he, "what is the ordinary November weather in Paris; and here is a beautiful day. I have watched the mercury in my garden. I have seen where is the wind, and I tell you, that on Paris is what they will call the sun of Austerlitz. To-morrow you shall hear that while we are now talking, they vote for him with almost one mind, and that he has the absolute majority."-R. J. L. + October, 1839.

+ D'Orsay's efforts to gain over public opinion in England for Louis Napoleon were as unceasing as his endeavors to inspire private friends with favorable sentiments in relation to the prince and his pretensions. I have a letter of his now before me, dated the 18th of June, 1846, addressed to a literary man of great eminence, connected with one of the leading London newspapers, earnestly entreating of him to use his influence with some of the principal writers in the London journals, and editors of them, to get them to abstain from writing against Louis Napoleon. "Do you think," he says, "you could prevent — to write these atrocious, false nonsenses against Prince Napoleon? The fact is, that

"Paris, 21st February, 1850.

"MY DEAR LANE,-I can not really express to you the extent of my sorrow about your dear and good family. You know that my heart is quite open to sympathy with the sorrows of others. But judge, therefore, how it must be, when so great a calamity strikes a family like yours, which family I always considered one of the best I ever had the good fortune to know. What a trial for dear Mrs. Lane, after so many cares, losing a son like yours, just at the moment that he was to derive the benefit of the good education you gave him. Poor Miss Power is very much affected, I assure you. There is no consolation to offer. The only one that I can imagine is to think continually of the person lost, and to make one's self more miserable by thinking. It is, morally speaking, a homœopathic treatment, and the only one which can give some relief. You can not form an idea of the soulagement that I found in occupying myself in the country (at Chambourcy) in building the monument which I have erected to dear Lady Blessington's memory. I made it so solid and so fine, that I felt all the time that death was the reality, and life only the dream of all around me. When I hear any one making projects for the future, I laugh, feeling as I do now, that we may to-morrow, without five minutes' notice, have to follow those we regret. I am prepared for that, with a satisfactory resignation. I am sure that you have those feelings. Give my most affectionate regards to your dear family, and believe me always, far or near, your sincere friend, D'ORSAY."

No. IX.

COUNT D'ORSAY'S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

The Count Marcellus, who was French chargé d'affaires at the court of London during the ministry of Chateaubriand, in his work "Politique de la Restauration en 1822 et 1823" (Paris, 1853), makes mention of a ball he gave in London, at the period of the invasion of Spain by the Legitimists, when the London mob had made an attack on the hotel of the French minister. The ball, he says, was attended by the Duke of Wellington-various representatives of the Congress of Verona-all the world of fashion were thereand, "lastly, D'Orsay brought in his train the ordinary circle of dandies who made his escort."

This is the earliest mention I have seen in any published work of D'Orsay's sojourn in London previously to the return of Lady Blessington from the Continent in 1831. At the time of his visit to England, his brother-in-law, the Duke de Grammont (then Duc de Guiche), who, during his exile from France, had served in the English army (in the tenth dragoons), was sojourning in London, and D'Orsay's visit on that occasion was to his sister and her husband. At the period of Count D'Orsay's second visit to London, some months

is the ame damnée de Guizot and Louis Philippe, and the articles upon France are a great deal more than ridiculous."-R. R. M.