that incomparable Deluge of Caracci!  Ah! my friend, I must quit all these.  Farewell, dear pictures, that I loved so dearly, and that cost me so much!” His friend surprised him slumbering in his chair at another time, and murmuring, “Gueriaud has said it!  Guenaud has said it!” A few days before his death, he caused himself to be dressed, shaved, rouged and painted, “so that he never looked so fresh and vermilion,” in his life.  In this state he was carried in his chair to the promenade, where the envious courtiers cruelly rallied, and paid him ironical compliments on his appearance.  Cards were the amusement of his death-bed, his hand being held by others; and they were only interrupted by the visit of the Papal Nuncio, who came to give the cardinal that plenary indulgence to which the prelates of the sacred college are officially entitled.  Mazarin expired on the 9th of March, 1661.

Lardner’s Cyclopaedia, vol. xv.

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“GOD SAVE THE KING” IN ITALY.

On the 26th of December last, the King and Queen of Sardinia went in state to the Carlo Felice Theatre at Genoa, and presented to the public, says an Italian correspondent, his niece, the betrothed bride of the heir-apparent of the house of Austria.  At seven the court arrived, the curtain rose, and displayed the whole corps dramatique, who sang Dio Salve il Re; or an Italian version of the words and music of our “God save the King,” in which Madame Caradori took the principal part.  Thus our national anthem is getting naturalized in Italy, the parent of song, and once the manufacturer of it for all Europe.  It is already adopted in Russia, I am told, and is well known in France, though not likely to supplant the fine national air, “Vive Henri Quatre.”—­Harmonicon, Feb. 1.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHAKSPEARE.

[Illustration:  FLINT CASTLE.]

This Castle is, or rather was, situated on an insulated rock, in a marsh on the river Dee, which still, at high tides, washes its walls.  It is a site of considerable historical interest, being the place where the unhappy King Richard II was delivered into the hands of his rival, Bolingbroke.  The unfortunate monarch, it appears, finding himself deserted, had withdrawn to North Wales, with a design to escape to France.  He was, however, decoyed to agree to a conference with Bolingbroke, and on the road was seized by an armed force, conveyed to Flint Castle, and thence led by his successful rival to the metropolis.

Shakspeare has perpetuated Flint Castle by its frequent mention in his “Life and Death of King Richard the Second.”  He has indeed invested it with high poetical interest.  Thus, in Scene 2 of Act iii. where occurs that touching lament of unkingship—­

          ——­Of comfort, no man speak: 
  Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, &c.