Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture, which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become.  He called it “The End of All Things,” and made it sensational to the verge of that flexible characteristic.  It represented popes and emperors tumbling headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world’s benefactors were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene.  A representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as coryphees and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet.  A capital portrait of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as a compliment to Brown.  In contradistinction to the portrait of Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist’s own private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the coup d’etat, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world.

In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to Florence, where he died very suddenly.  Much mystery overhangs his last days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his vast property.  His cicerone robbed him of his gold watch and all his personal effects and disappeared.  His remains lie buried in the Protestant burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto di Sebastiano.  His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head being sculptured upon it in alto relievo, and on the opposite side an artist’s palette and brushes.

EARL MARBLE.

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

  The air was still o’er Bethlehem’s plain,
    As if the great Night held its breath,
  When Life Eternal came to reign
    Over a world of Death.

  The pagan at his midnight board
    Let fall his brimming cup of gold: 
  He felt the presence of his Lord
    Before His birth was told.

  The temples trembled to their base,
    The idols shuddered as in pain: 
  A priesthood in its power of place
    Knelt to its gods in vain.

  All Nature felt a thrill divine
    When burst that meteor on the night,
  Which, pointing to the Saviour’s shrine,
    Proclaimed the new-born light—­

  Light to the shepherds! and the star
    Gilded their silent midnight fold—­
  Light to the Wise Men from afar,
    Bearing their gifts of gold—­

  Light to a realm of Sin and Grief—­
    Light to a world in all its needs—­
  The Light of life—­a new belief
    Rising o’er fallen creeds—­

  Light on a tangled path of thorns,
    Though leading to a martyr’s throne—­
  Light to guide till Christ returns
    In glory to His own.