corded to them since their deaths: and each succeeding year exhibits increasing crowds of strangers flocking from remote corners of the earth to dwell with delight on their works, and to offer the tribute of affection and reverence to the master spirits who created them. Raphael, Titian, Correggio, and a host of others, are no longer names vaguely known to us; but are regarded as the hosts, if not the friends, who have bidden us to banquets, where we have richly feasted, and laid by a store of grateful and beautiful recollections. 20th.-Examined the cabinet near the Tribune, appropriated to the bijouteries of the fifteenth century; some portions of which, the work of Benvenuto Cellini, are exquisitely beautiful; and all as costly as precious stones, gold, and rare workmanship can render them. Earth and ocean seem to have been ransacked to enrich this collection of Lilliputian treasures; which look as if formed to gratify the caprices of some spoiled child of royalty. What profanation of genius thus to employ it! when the hands that modelled the beautiful trifles that resemble fairy gifts, which I this day saw, possessed the power of producing the Perseus and Medusa. Benvenuto Cellini, in his Memoirs says, "The Duchess* was lavish of her caresses to me, and would gladly have had me work for her alone, and neglect the statue of Perseus, and every thing else." But although I reflect with regret on the time of a genius like Cellini having been frittered away on the bijouterie I beheld to-day, I confess that, with the admiration of my sex for such gems, I was inclined to covet their possession: and more than once wished that they were safely lodged in a certain antique cabinet, in a certain boudoir, in a certain mansion, in St. James' Square. This rare and beautiful collection contains vases of the most delicate proportions, formed of the precious metals; and of lapis-lazuli, onyx, sardonyx, agate, malachite, jasper, porphyry, and rock crystal, enriched with gold * Eleonore de Toledo, wife of Cosmo I. 66 arabesque work, in which are set diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. The whole looks as if meant to decorate the palace of some baby king, not yet out of petticoats; rather than that of persons arrived at full maturity. Such exquisite toys seem as if made to be presented to a fairy queen, and might well justify the longing of an earth-born one. What imperial lady might not desire to possess the golden vase designed by Benvenuto Cellini, and executed by the brothers Giovanni Paolo, and Domenico Poggini, which he describes as follows— "I set them to make a little golden vase, wrought with a basso-rilievo of figures and other ornaments; this belonged to the duchess, and her excellency had it to drink water out of." Well might the duchess have told him, when he brought her the diamond purchased of his enemy, Bernardone Baldini, that she set as high a value on the work as on the diamond, which cost twenty-five thousand crowns. Yet this same work, as Benvenuto relates, they (the duke and duchess) had afterwards taken from it, that the jewel might be re-set by a German, or other foreigner, in compliance with the suggestion of the envious Bernardone. No wonder, that, after having experienced the princely condescension and courtesy of the chivalrous Francis I of France, the proud and fiery nature of Benvenuto chafed beneath the indignities heaped on him by the tracasseries of the Florentine court. 21st. I entered the Gabinetto Fisico to-day, and though I only remained a few minutes in it, I carried away a sense of loathing that has not yet left me. Surely some restriction should exist to preclude women and men from examining these models together! I entered with a female companion only, but retreated when I observed men and women, some of them too, young ones, contemplating objects which, although highly useful for scientific purposes, are certainly of a character unfit for this promiscuous exhibition. It is meet that we should know that we are fearfully and wonderfully created; but not that we should witness the disgusting details of the animal economy in all its hideous and appalling nakedness and truth. What a lesson for personal vanity does this exhibition convey! yet probably few view it in this light. For me, I fear that its fearful images will recur to my memory when I behold some creature, in the zenith of youth and beauty, who almost believes she is not formed of the perilous stuff so shockingly delineated in the Gabinetto Fisico. 22d.-Paused to-day before the portrait of my old friend Cosway, which is among those of the artists who have presented their resemblances to the gallery. Poor Cosway! how like, and yet how unlike the original, is this picture! Idealised, and Parmigiano'd even as much as those charming female portraits he used to paint; of which I have often heard him say, "I represent them not as they are, but as they ought to have been." "Alas! poor Yorick, where be your gibes now? your gambols? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar?" How well do I remember the last day he dined with me! when he literally did set the table in a roar, by the seriousness of countenance, yet comicality of manner, with which he maintained his paradoxes. Half offended was he that some of his most valued frieuds who were present could doubt his startling assertions: one of which was, that those only died, who had not made up their minds firmly to resist the grim tyrant. Lords Mulgrave and Harrington, Sir George Beaumont, General Phipps, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Mr. Locke of Norbury, were the party; and all laughed too heartily, I am sure, ever to forget it. I sigh when I reflect that the advanced age of some of these estimable individuals precludes the hope of their being left long to adorn the society of which they are such agreeable members. Perhaps this dread endears them still more to their friends. 23d. Saw the Laurentian Library to-day, which contains many rare and very valuable manuscripts. Among them is a Virgil, and the Pandects of Justinian; some Greek and Latin classics of the 11th century; and richly illuminated manuscripts, the colors of which are as vivid as if only recently laid on. The Missal of the Florentine Republic was the book which most interested me, for it contains portraits of the Medici family, introduced into the margin. Many of the Greek manuscripts which were shown to me, were, I dare say, those brought to Cosimo, the justly named, Father of his country, by Chalcondilas, Agyropyle, Lascaris, and Guzu; who rescued these precious memorials from the flames, when, in 1453, the Turks took possession of Constantinople, and consigned them to destruction. The liberality of Cosimo de' Medici, and the encouragement he extended to literature, induced the erudite Greeks, I have named, to seek protection at Florence, and to bring with them these remains of their former treasure. The esteem created in my mind by the character of Cosimo, invests his degenerate successors with an interest which their own demerits were well calculated to destroy, and softens the asperity with which they ought to be judged. A Petrarch was shown me, with portraits of the poet and his Laura, said to be drawn from life. Neither possesses any of the attributes supposed to distinguish beauty or genius; but this may have been the fault of the artist who has perpetuated their countenances. The finger of Galileo is among the treasures of this library. It is placed under a glass case, and points to the skies, which his daring and vigorous mind contemplated, until its mysteries were solved by him, and the wonderful phenomena of its movements explained to his contemporaries. It saddens the mind to reflect on the treatment experienced by Galileo; and makes one rejoice that the terrible engine of superstition and bigotry, the Inquisition, has been destroyed. 24th.-Saw the church of Santa Croce, which contains the tombs of Galileo, Michael Angelo, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Alfieri. That of the last, is by Canova, and is adorned by a female figure representing Italy, which has rather a theatrical effect. There is something calm and, though sad, soothing to the mind, in contemplating the last earthly resting-place of men whose works have often beguiled many an hour. The facility with which churches are entered in Italy, and the opportunity thus afforded to the living of standing by the narrow homes of the illustrious dead, are most conducive to reflections of a salutary nature. The feverish excitements of life are calmed during such visits; and we return to the busy haunts of men, less disposed to participate in, yet more charitable to, their follies. The positive enjoyment of the balmy air, blue skies, and all the charms of ever beautiful nature, are felt too with á keener zest when they are encountered after an hour or two passed in "the dim religious light" of a church, and the contemplation of the dwellings of the dead. A sentiment of pity, that they who once as keenly tasted the pleasures we now experience, are shut out forever from them, is mingled with our feelings, and a sense of the brevity of existence is forced on us, that, to some minds, is not without a charm, though it be a mournful one. Florence and its environs, beautiful as they are, acquire fresh attraction from the memories with which they are blended. What English visitors can look at Faesolé without remembering that our own Milton has visited it too; and commemorated it and Galileo in his Paradise Lost? "His ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, At evening from the top of Fesolé, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe." Who can forbear dwelling with deep interest on the meeting of two such master minds as those of the “starry Galileo and Milton, and fancying their conversation? Galileo, already with impaired vision in those eyes which had so long contemplated the heavens, and made such discoveries in their starry lore, that, dazzled by the wonders they descried, they became at a later period |