viously treated by other writers, assuming a new aspect, from the peculiarity of the individual through whose mind they have passed. I like a picture or a book that awakens a fresh train of ideas, and compels reflection; but for those works that satisfy only the eye or the reason, without exciting the imagination, I feel little interest.

Rubens' fine picture, the Four Philosophers, may justly be considered one of the most perfect of his works. It is rich in colouring, faultless in drawing, and full of vigour and expression. Andrea del Sarto's St. John in the Wilderness, and Fra Bartolomeo's St. Mark, are admirable works; but among the magnificent collection of the Pitti Palace, Vandyke loses none of his attractions,-witness his superb portrait of the Cardinal Bentivoglio. Vandyke seemed to be, of all the artists of his own time, or since, the peintre, par excellence, of lords and ladies, and rarely failed to convey to his canvas an air of dignity, and an expression of proud decorum, indicative of high birth and station.

Bronzino's pictures please one.

There is a trans

parency in the colouring of his flesh, that is very

beautiful; but there is much more of animal than

of intellectual beauty in his women. They look as if fed on milk and the richest fruits of the earth, and as if they had never been exposed to a rude breeze. In short, they are the personifications of youth and healthful comeliness, without a care, and nearly without a thought.

28th. Again to the Pitti Palace. Canova's Venus does not please me. How immeasurably inferior it is to the Venus de' Medici! I never see a female statue of his without being reminded of his first attempt having been executed in butter; for there is an appearance of softness about them,-strange as it may be to attribute the semblance of such a quality to so hard a substance as marble, that makes them look as if modelled by the hand in some malleable substance, rather than chiseled in marble. There is something affected and meretricious, too, in the air and attitude of his female statues, which conveys the notion that his models have been taken from the Opera House, ere they had lost their roundness of contour by excess of dancing. They look languishing and coquettish; and seem conscious of their nudity and their charms, rather than really

modest. Yet Canova works marble as no other sculptor of modern times has done. The very appearance of softness on which I have remarked, is a proof of his rare excellence in his art; and it is only to be regretted that he did not select models more free from affectation, and with less of the air petite-maitresse.

How many recollections of the olden time are awakened by the apartments in the Pitti Palace! many of which have been the scenes of such stirring events in the lives of the family who enriched it with treasures of art. Hither it was that Cosimo, the first Duke of the house of Medici, removed, that he might exhibit the vanity and ostentation which formed such striking features in his character, more splendidly than in the residence which reminded his subjects of the liberty of which he had deprived them. Here it was that his Duchess, Eleonore de Toledo, gave birth to offspring whose crimes entailed no less misery on themselves than on others. From this palace went forth that gorgeous procession, the first exhibition of his ambition to play the sovereign, on the occasion of the baptism of his first-born, Mary; when the Abbess of the

celebrated Convent of Marata, followed by one hundred ladies of the most ancient and noble houses of Florence, habited in their richest robes and jewels, accompanied the infant to the baptismal font. Here it was that, in possession of enormous wealth, rank, station, and consideration, he pined forwhat? To have precedence of the Duke of Ferrara, and to have the title of Grand attached to his Duchy. Poor human nature! never to be satisfied -ever desiring some fancied good

"That little something unpossessed,

Corrodes and leavens all the rest."

PRIOR.

In this palace was solemnized the marriage of Lucretia, the third daughter of Cosimo, with the Duke of Ferraro; and hither was brought the body of his second son, the Cardinal John, murdered, as was believed, by the hand of his brother Garcia. In one of these vast apartments the body was laid in state, the face covered; and the wretched father became the executioner of Don Garcia, having stabbed him to the heart, as he was demanding pardon on his knees, in presence of his unhappy mother, who in vain tried to prevent the fearful

catastrophe. The superstitious narrators of this event assert, that Don Garcia denied the deed; and that Cosimo having forced him to approach the body of his murdered brother, the blood gushed afresh from the wounds of the corse, which was considered by the father to be so irrefragable a proof of the guilt of Don Garcia, that he slew him on the spot. Eleonore, the wretched mother, followed her children to the grave in a few days, having died of a broken heart. This domestic tragedy was generally credited, and propagated by the multitude, notwithstanding that every thing was done to have it believed that the brothers perished of the plague, which at that period had caused many deaths. Cosimo's own letters to his eldest son, Francisco, then in Spain, detailing all the circumstances of the illness and deaths of his sons and wife, are very curious; for they are so exceedingly circumstantial as to convey a notion that he must have had some strong motive for entering into them at a period when his bereavement was so very recent. Here it was that Cosimo, following the example of Charles V., resigned the reins of empire to his son, Prince Francisco, who became regent; and in this