LETTER LXXI.

Florence.

I

HAVE generally, fince our arrival at Florence, paffed two hours every forenoon in the famous gallery. Connoiffeurs, and those who wish to be thought fuch, remain much longer. But I plainly feel this is enough for me; and I do not think it worth while to prolong my visit after I begin to be tired, merely to be thought what I am not. Do not imagine, however, that I am blind to the beauties of this celebrated collection; by far the most valuable now in the world.

One of the most interefting parts of it, in the eyes of many, is the series of Roman Emperors, from Julius Cæfar to Gallienus, with a confiderable number of their Empreffes, arranged oppofite to them. This feries is almost complete; but wherever the

buft

buft of an emperor is wanting, the place is filled up by that of fome other distinguished Roman. Such an honour is beftowed with great propriety on Seneca, Cicero, or Agrippa, the fon-in-law of Auguftus. But, on perceiving a head of Antinous, the favourite of Adrian, among them, a gentleman whifpered me,-that minion, pointing to the head, would not have been admitted into fuch company any where but in Florence. It ought, however, to be remembered, that the Gallery is not an Ægyptian court of judicature, where Princes are tried after death, for crimes committed during their life. If the vices of originals had excluded their portraits, what would have become of the series of Roman Emperors, and particularly of the buft of the great Julius himself, who was husband to all the wives and

The gallery is facred to art, and every production which the avows has a right to a place here.

Amidst those ncble fpecimens of ancient fculpture, fome of the works of Michael Angelo are not thought undeferving a place. His Bacchus and Faunus, of which the well-known ftory is told, have been by fome preferred to the two antique figures reprefenting the fame.

The beautiful head of Alexander is univerfally admired by all the virtuosi: though they differ in opinion with regard to the circumftance in which the sculptor has intended to represent that hero. Some imagine he is dying; Mr. Addison imagines he fighs for new worlds to conquer; others, that he faints with pain and loss of blood from the wounds he received at Oxydrace. Others think the features exprefs not bodily pain or languor, but forrow and remorfe, for having murdered his faithful friend Clitus. You fee how very uncertain a bufinefs this of a virtuofo is. I can hardly believe that the artist intended fimply to represent him dying; there was nothing

13

very

very creditable in the manner he brought on his death. Nor do I think he would choose to reprefent him moaning or languishing with pain or fickness; there is nothing heroic in that; nor do we sympathise fo readily with the pains of the body, as with those of the mind. As for the ftory of his weeping for new worlds, he will excite still lefs fympathy, if that is the cause of his affliction. The laft conjecture, therefore, that the artift intended to reprefent him in a violent fit of remorse, is the most probable. The unfinished buft of Marcus Brutus, by Michael Angelo, admirably expreffes the determined firmness of character which belonged to that virtuous Roman. The artist, while he wrought at this, feems to have had in his mind Horace's Ode,

Juftum et tenacem propofiti virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus inftantis tyranni

Mente quatit folidâ, &c *.

*The man in conscious virtue bold,
Who dares his fecret purpofe hold,

This

Unfhaken

This would, in my opinion, be a more fuitable infcription for the buft, than the concetto of Cardinal Bembo, which is at prefent under it *. Michael Angelo, in all probability, was pleafed with the expreffion he had already given the features, and chose to leave it as an unfinished sketch, rather than risk weakening it by an attempt to improve it.

The virtuofi differ in opinion refpecting the Arrotino, or Whetter, as much as about the head of Alexander. A young gentleman faid to an antiquarian, while he contemplated the Arrotino, "I believe, “Sir, it is imagined that this ftatue was "intended for the flave, who, while he was whetting his knife, overheard Ca

Unfhaken hears the crowd's tumultuous cries,

And the stern tyrant's brow

-defies.

FRANCIS.

* Dum Bruti effigiem Michael de marmore fingit,

In mentem fceleris venit, et abftinuit.

While Michael was forming this ftatue, fhocked with the recollection of Brutus' crime, he left his defign unfinished.

VOL. II.

Bb

"tiline's