82 Foachim the Mimic.

wonderful ufe the Genie’s gift was to him then.
Once turned in a right direction and towards wor-
thy objects, he found it like a fort of friend at his
right hand, helping him forward in fome of the
moft interefting purfuits of life. Ah! all the
energy he had once beftowed on imitating lifps
and ftuttering, was now engaged in catching the
founds of foreign tongues, and thus taking one ftep
towards the citizenfhip of the world. And inftead
of wafting time in gazing at the finging matfter’s
face, that he might ape its unnatural diftortions—
it was now the {weet tones of fkilful harmony to
which he bent his attention, and which he ftrove,
and not in vain, to reproduce.

The portfolio which he brought home to his Mo-
ther at the end of another half-year, was crowded
with laborious and careful copies from the beft
models of beauty and grace. And not with thofe
only, for many a face could be found on its pages
in which the Mother recognized fome of her fon’s
old companions. Portraits, not of the mere for-
mation of mouths and nofes, which in fo many
cafes, viewed merely as forms, are defective and
unattractive, but portraits of the fame faces, upon
which the character of the inward mind and heart
was fo ftamped that it threw the mere fhape of the
features far into the background.

Thus with the purfuit of his favourite art, Jo-
achim combined “ that moft excellent gift of cha-
rity ;” for it was now his pride and pleafure to
make the charm of expreffion from “ the good