Bertini, a Milanese artist well known in all parts of Italy, engaged in putting the last touches to a series of frescoes which form the principal ornamentation of the room.  The four largest paintings commemorate the glories of Italy in the history of human discovery.  In one the monk, Guido of Arezzo, the inventor of modern musical notation, is teaching a class of four boys to sing from the page of an illuminated missal—­a really charming composition.  In another Columbus is showing to the Spanish monarchs the natives of the newly-found world whom he had brought home with him.  In a third Galileo is showing to the astonished pope, by means of a telescope, the wonders of that other newly-found world of which he was the discoverer.  The fourth shows us the very striking and lifelike figure of Volta explaining the wonders of the “pile” to which he has given his name to the First Napoleon.  The whole of these, as well as of the other decorations of the room, are in “real fresco”—­that is to say, the colors are laid on while the mortar is yet wet (whence the name fresco), and thus become so entirely incorporated with the substance of the wall that the painting is indestructible save by the destruction of at least the coating of the latter.  Of course, it is evident that a painting so executed admits of no second touch.  The hand of the artist must obey his thought with absolutely unfailing fidelity or the work is worthless.  Hence the special difficulty of this description of art, and the necessity of a very high degree of mastery in him who attempts it.  In the present case Signor Bertini has succeeded admirably.  But I was especially struck by the taste and liberality of the Milanese banker, who, instead of making his room gorgeous with damask hangings and satin and velvet, which any man who has cash in his pocket may have, is giving encouragement to the art of his country, and doing at this day exactly that which the Strozzi, the Borghesi, the Medici and so many other bankers and merchants did three hundred and odd years ago, and by doing made Italy what it was.

T.A.T.

A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE ROLE OF ENOCH ARDEN.

The conventional romance of the long-lost husband returning home just in time to interrupt the second nuptials of his wife is told of Samuel Cranston, governor of Rhode Island, who died in 1727, after being elected to that office thirty-two times in succession.

It appears that when quite a young man Mr. Cranston married Mary, a granddaughter of Roger Williams.  Soon after the marriage he went to sea, was captured by pirates and carried to some country—­Algiers, it is supposed—­where he was detained for several years without being able to communicate with his family.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Cranston, believing him to be dead, accepted an offer of marriage, and was on the eve of the nuptial ceremonies when her first husband arrived in Boston.  There he heard