The afflicted lover immediately laid his cause before the king, but received an unfavorable answer.  Nothing daunted, he then went to Rome, and succeeded in obtaining from the Pope a commission to the Patriarch of Lisbon, empowering him to inquire into the facts of the case; and that prelate’s report being favorable, the lover was made happy with a bull annulling the religious vows of the nun, and authorizing their marriage.  It is uncertain how long this affair remained undecided; but a Portuguese Jesuit having warned Vieira that at home he ran the risk of being punished by confiscation of his property, for obtaining a bull without the consent of the civil power, he prolonged his residence at Rome to six years, that the affair might have time to be forgotten at Lisbon.  During this period he continued to exercise his pencil with so much success that he was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke.

After such a probation, the energy and perseverance of the lover is almost unparalleled.  He finally ventured to return to his native Tagus, and accomplished the object of his life.  Disguising himself as a bricklayer, he skulked about the convent where Ignez lay immured, mingling with the workmen employed there, till he found means to open a communication with her and concert a plan of escape.  He then furnished her with male attire, and at last successfully carried her off on horseback (though not without a severe wound from the brother of his bride), to another bishopric, where they were married in virtue of the Pope’s bull.  After residing for some time in Spain and Italy, however, Vieira was commanded to return to Portugal, and appointed painter to the king.  Being the best artist in that kingdom, his talents soon obliterated the remembrance of his somewhat irregular marriage, and during forty years he painted with great reputation and success for the royal palaces at Nafra and elsewhere, for the convents, and the collections of the nobility.  It will doubtless be pleasing to the fair readers of these anecdotes, that all this long course of outward prosperity was sweetened by the affection of his constant wife.

ESTEBAN MARCH’S STRANGE METHOD OF STUDY.

Esteban March, a distinguished Spanish painter of the 17th century, was eccentric in character and violent in temperament.  Battles being his favorite subjects, his studio was hung round with pikes, cutlasses, javelins, and other implements of war, which he used in a very peculiar and boisterous manner.  As the mild and saintly Joanes was wont to prepare himself for his daily task by prayer and fasting, so his riotous countryman used to excite his imagination to the proper creative pitch by beating a drum, or blowing a trumpet, and then valiantly assaulting the walls of his chamber with sword and buckler, laying about him, like another Don Quixote, with a blind energy that told severely on the plaster and furniture, and drove his terrified