studies, drawn by the celebrated Blenkinsop,
when a young man. And I am consoled in
parting with such treasures by the conviction
of the assistance they will prove to you, in
acquiring a knowledge of the most
important branches of your profession, my
young friend. There! don't say a word"
(pushing me towards the door, and
cramming the "studies" into my hands). "You
quite deserve them for the pains you have
taken with the Angelica Kauffmann, and the
group of smugglers. Not a word, I beg,
not a word. There! bless you, my boy. No,
really, now—not a word, I insist—remember
me at home—remember me kindly at-home."
The door closed between us!

And it was for this, I had slaved at that
dreary Angelica? For this, I had encountered
that awful dinner? For a bundle of drawings,
such as I, in common with every student,
had to execute before we could be students
at all!

I battered the detested "studies" with all
my strength against every lamp-post I
encountered on my road, and finally sent the
fragments flying over a canal-bridge which I
passed on my way home—not without reflecting
whether I should not do well to follow
them myself.

I did not follow them myself. I have
lived long enough since, to be glad that I
abstained from executing the intention with
which I awoke the next morning, of abandoning
the profession of painting altogether. I
have had patrons since those early days, who
have shown their approval of my exertions
by more substantial tokens than bundles of
bad anatomical drawings. But, however long
I may live, and however prosperous I may
become, I shall never forget the hard pinches
that genteel poverty gave me in my student
days; and I shall never cease to think that
my First Patron might have paid me, at
least, for the canvass on which I painted for
him, even if he thought it unnecessary to
remunerate me for the time I devoted to
his service.

I have never seen my First Patron since
that memorable day of the dinner, and I
do not even know whether he is alive or
dead at this moment. If he be alive, I warn
all my fellow-students to beware of an
accomplished amateur, who stands on a very
stiff pair of legs, and who admires no great
artists but the great artists of a hundred
years ago.

SLEEP.

WHEN friends were cruel, and threaten'd to forsake,
She came by night, with little griefs oppress'd,
And sleep received her, as the mountain lake
Takes home the brook and hushes it to rest;
Now, where her childish step was wont to pass,
By winding hill-path or in shady lanes,
Sweet violets pine unpluck'd, and on the grass
The daisies miss her hand, and grow entwin'd in chains.
She will not wake; the memory-hallow'd stream
May pour near her green bed its noisy flood;
For once there enter'd the small head a dream,
Conceal'd from us, like fair hues in the bud:
In sleep she went to heaven, and linger' d there,
Rapt with the music of the heavenly lay,
'Till angels gave her a bright crown to wear,
And chain'd her so with love, she cannot come away.

THE SHELL-MOTH.

THE shell-moth is a moth of a group, the
females of which live in shells. The naturalists
of the day have a most extraordinary
controversy among themselves, at present,
respecting the habits and manners of these
moths, controversy always accompanying
mystery. I shall leave them to fight it out
before I trouble myself with it. The fact,
however, of the females living in shells is
clear, positive, and well known. I have
studied specimens of them, which are exposed
to the view of all the world, in the Museum
of Natural History, at Paris. They are
placed in phials with a back-ground of black
wood or of coloured glass, to bring out their
characteristics by the contrast of colours.
These shells are of different kinds. There are
shells which are mere sheaths or cases coated
with earth or sand. There are shells which
are sheaths or cases formed of earth gummed
together, and with small bits of withered
twigs stuck upon them, and, as a sailor who
saw them in Western Africa once described
them, "all raking aft." The bits of withered
twigs, indeed, all rake aft, or slant from the
mouth towards the end of the case or sheath,
like the quills of a porcupine. The Roman
lictor was a sort of beadle, who carried a
bundle of rods, and these insects have been
classically and fancifully called lictors;
because the insect drags about a bundle of
sticks. This female moth is without wings,
and, it is said, never leaves her shell. When
she wishes to change her locality she projects
her head and her six legs out of her case, and
drags after her, wherever she goes, her tiny,
little bundle of dry twigs. She is, I suspect,
the original of the little old woman who
went to the wood for a bundle of sticks.
The little rods are of different lengths, the
longest being at the end of the sheath. There
are species which are found suspended upon
the dried rhenaster bushes, whose tiny sticks
are arranged in three regular sets, being
thickest at the head, thinner in the middle,
thinnest at the end, and tapering almost to a
point. The species which feeds upon the
yellow flowers of the everlastings has regular
rows of very tiny sticks around its sheath.
There are species coated with earth, whose
shells curl spirally, and which have been
called from the resemblance of their shells to
the shells of snails, Helicinella.

I use the word Shells in the sense of an
external crust or hard covering. There are
many kinds of shells. These shells resemble