storing of Arson is a and painted character, expresne, as I string and ama, but conscribed ; that of Tasso is large, free, and *ng, es mit tat there is a checked express in ist of its $ w, wh 4 krng the letters dida a Vila Arem: ass than one expected from the It is the symbed of an and carnet Ed, exceeding at times its t, and aimed to return by the f the waters of Elvom strung upa its You know I always seva 10 erter is a " rivett «d, win s.c- time, zi frend, the I the mark w! sự At the entra is, we were I empletely envi white flannel: there was 3 a his eyes, 80 25 imagine that ti suffer this pensi to himself and exhibition is a s the Cathole surg He passed, ratu... Adieu.—You w arrive at Naples. LE T mat I see the manifestati n of seething bey of the present an i targutie oë jeet; and as we do not amem phix an my, so we may n tarve now. But my lesinees is to relate my own sensanons, arint to attempt to inspire others with them. Seref the MSS. of Tasso were seabets to his persecutor, which evetain a great deal of what is called flattery. If Alonso's gl st were asked how he felt ti, se prases now, I wonder what he wall say. But to me there is much more to pity than to evni mn in these entreaties and praises of Tasso. It is as a bit prays to and praises, tus god, whom he knows to be the most remorse- ! Jess, cap ricinus, and inflexible of tyrants, but whom be in ws also to be omnipotent. Tasso's situation was wil-ly different from that of any persecuted being of the present day; for, from the depth of dungeons, publie opinion might now at length be awakened to an echo that would startle the, a commonplace-boo oppressor. But then there was no hope. There is something irresistibly pathetic to me in the sight of Tasso's own hand-writing, moulding expressions of adulation and entreaty to a deaf and stupid tyrant, in an age when the most heroic virtue would have exposed its possessor to hopeless persecution, and-such is the alliance between virtue and genius—which unoffending genius could not escape. We went afterwards to see his prison in the hospital of Sant' Anna, and I enclose you a piece of the wood of the very door, which for seven years and three months divided this glorious being from the air and the light which had nourished in kim those influences which he has communicated, MY DEar P,—I here churches, p pictures; and my a portfolio of an a something of what requires, if it will obe we went to the cathe remarkable, except a marble canopy, load supported on four må then to a palace-I am it-where we saw a lai course, in a picture gal pictures you forget, fo remember, however, a Guido, of the Rape Proserpine casts back * These penitents ask almi souls in purgatory. unwilling eyes, as it were, to the flowers she had left ungathered in the fields of Enna. There was an exquisitely executed piece of Correggio, about four saints, one of whom seemed to have a pet dragon in a leash. I was told that it was the devil who was bound in that style-but who can make anything of four saints? For what can they be supposed to be about? There was one painting, indeed, by this master, Christ beatified, inexpressibly fine. It is a half figure, seated on a mass of clouds, tinged with an etherial, roselike lustre; the arms are expanded; the whole frame seems dilated with expression; the countenance is heavy, as it were, with the weight of the rapture of the spirit; the lips parted, but scarcely parted, with the breath of intense but regulated passion; the eyes are calm and benignant; the whole features harmonised in majesty and sweetness. The hair is parted on the forehead, and falls in heavy locks on each side. It is motionless, but seems as if the faintest breath would move it. The colouring, I suppose, must be very good, if I could remark and understand it. The sky is of a pale aerial orange, like the tints of latest sunset; it does not seem painted around and beyond the figure, but everything seems to have absorbed, and to have been penetrated by its hues. I do not think we saw any other of Correggio, but this specimen gives me a very exalted idea of his powers. We went to see heaven knows how many more palaces-Ranuzzi, Marriscalchi, Aldobrandi. If you want Italian names for any purpose, here they are; I should be glad of them if I was writing a novel. I saw many more of Guido. One, a Samson drinking water out of an ass's jaw-bone, in the midst of the slaughtered Philistines. Why he is supposed to do this, God, who gave him this jaw-bone, alone knows--but certain it is, that the painting is a very fine one. The figure of Samson stands in strong relief in the foreground, coloured, as it were, in the hues of human life, and full of strength and elegance. Round him lie the Philistines in all the attitudes of death. One prone, with the slight convulsion of pain just passing from his forehead, whilst on his lips and chin death lies as heavy as sleep. Another leaning on his arm, with his hand, white and motionless, hanging out beyond. In the distance, more dead bodies; and, still further beyond, the blue sea and the blue mountains, and one white and tranquil sail. There is a Murder of the Innocents, also, by Guido, finely coloured, with much fine expression but the subject is very horrible, and it seemed deficient in strength-at least, you require the highest ideal energy, the most poetical and exalted conception of the subject, to reconcile you to such a contemplation. There was a Jesus Christ crucified, by the same, very fine. One gets tired, indeed, whatever may be the conception and execution of it, of seeing that monotonous and agonised form for ever exhibited in one prescriptive attitude of torture. But the Magdalen, clinging to the cross with the look of passive and gentle despair beaming from beneath her bright flaxen hair, and the figure of St. John, with his looks uplifted in passionate compassion; his hands clasped, and his fingers twisting themselves together, as it were, with involuntary anguish; his feet almost writhing up from the ground with the same sympathy; and the whole of this arrayed in colours of a diviner nature, yet most like nature's self. Of the contemplation of this one would never weary. There was a "Fortune" too, of Guido ; a piece of mere beauty. There was the figure of Fortune on a globe, eagerly proceeding onwards, and Love was trying to catch her back by the hair, and her face was half turned towards him; her long chesnut hair was floating in the stream of the wind, and threw its shadow over her fair forehead. Her hazel eyes were fixed on her pursuer, with a meaning look of playfulness, and a light smile was hovering on her lips. The colours which arrayed her delicate limbs were etherial and warm. But, perhaps, the most interesting of all the pictures of Guido which I saw was a Madonna Lattante. She is leaning over her child, and the maternal feelings with which she is pervaded are shadowed forth on her soft and gentle countenance, and in her simple and affectionate gestures-there is what an unfeeling observer would call a dullness in the expression of her face; her eyes are almost closed; her lip depressed; there is a serious, and even a heavy relaxation, as it were, of all the muscles which are called into action by ordinary emotions: but it is only as if the spirit of love, almost insupportable from its intensity, were brooding over and weighing down the soul, or whatever it is, without which the material frame is inanimate and inexpressive. There is another painter here, called Franceschini, a Bolognese, who, though certainly very inferior to Guido, is yet a person of excellent powers. One entire church, that of Santa Catarina, is covered by his works. I do not know whether any of his pictures have ever been seen in England. His colouring is less warm than that of Guido, but nothing can be more clear and delicate; it is as it he could have dipped his pencil in the hues of some serenest and star-shining twilight. His forms have the same delicacy and aerial loveliness; poed y ane moulistun which as the baffling my shels a potfolion in it of an inevammensosle kind. We saw some pictures of Domenichino, Caracci, Albano, Guercino, Elizabetta Sirani. The two former, remember, I do not pretend to taste-1 cannot admire. Of the latter there are some beautiful Madonnas. There are several of Guercino, which they said were very fine I dare say they were, for the strength and complication of his figures made my head turn round. One, indeed, was certainly powerful. It was the representation of the founder of the Carthusians exercising his austerities in the desert, with a youth as his attendant, burcling beside him at an altar: on another altar stood a skull and a crucifix; and arocni were the rocks and the trees of the wlderness. He VidỀ baw auch a figure as this f ■. I His face cast of a a: 1 fare were jaui. up such pr ur cannot p softene 1, a: diminishend, in the sky, i monk, and a tEnough of Guido and Eburied. This twenty-six, by course. Our that we might Well, good-t to fresh fields at To-day we firs of Raffael and Ge mountains, behin dedicated to the choly to see that restoring some some had been ↑ These are sympto perhaps, few of than paintings. 54 twenty centuriesas they were. Bu productions of mari Sophocles and Sh reproduced for eve paintings! and m Zeuxis and Apelles a bore the same reis: that those of Guids a Petrarch. There pondency of this ex part, indeed, of the they survive in the brances connected from generatin them in his creati. De are modeled to re cpinion, that demikia influence: men decem the unseen seeds are perhaps thus sown, which shall produce a plant more excellent even than that from which they fell. But all this might as well be said or thought at Marlow as Bologna. It The chapel of the Madonna is a very pretty Corinthian building-very beautiful indeed. commands a fine view of these fertile plains, the many-folded Apennines, and the city. I have just returned from a moonlight walk through Bologna. It is a city of colonnades, and the effect of moonlight is strikingly picturesque. There are two towers here--one 400 feet high-ugly things, built of brick, which lean both different ways; and with the delusion of moonlight shadows, you might almost fancy that the city is rocked by an earthquake. They say they were built so purpose; but I observe in all the plain of Lombardy the church towers lean. on Adieu. God grant you patience to read this long letter, and courage to support the expectation of the next. Pray part them from the Cobbetts on your breakfast table-they may fight it out in your Rome, November 20th, 1818. MY DEAR P., Behold me in the capital of the vanished world! But I have seen nothing except St. Peter's and the Vatican, overlooking the city in the mist of distance, and the Dogana, where they took us to have our luggage examined, which is built between the ruins of a temple to Antoninus Pius. The Corinthian columns rise over the dwindled palaces of the modern town, and the wrought cornice is changed on one side, as it were, to masses of wave-worn precipices, which overhang you, far, far on high. I take advantage of this rainy evening, and before Rome has effaced all other recollections, to endeavour to recall the vanished scenes through which we have passed. We left Bologna, I forget on what day, and passing by Rimini, Fano, and Foligno, along the Via Flaminia and Terni, have arrived at Rome after ten days' somewhat tedious, but most interesting journey. The most remarkable things we saw were the Roman excavations in the rock, and the great waterfall of Terni. Of course you have heard that there are a Roman bridge and a triumphal arch at Rimini, and in what excellent taste they are built. The bridge is not unlike the Strand bridge, but more bold in proportion, and of course infinitely smaller. From Fano we left the coast of the Adriatic, and entered the Apennines, following the course of the Metaurus, the banks of which were the scene of the defeat of Asdrubal: and it is said (you can refer to the book) that Livy has given a very exact and animated description of it. I forget all about it, but shall look as soon as our boxes are opened. Following the river, the vale contracts, the banks of the river become steep and rocky, the forests of oak and ilex which overhang its emerald-coloured stream, cling to their abrupt precipices. About four miles from Fossombrone, the river forces for itself a passage between the walls and toppling precipices of the loftiest Apennines, which are here rifted to their base, and undermined by the narrow and tumultuous torrent. It was a cloudy morning, and we had no conception of the scene that awaited us. Suddenly the low clouds were struck by the clear north wind, and like curtains of the finest gauze, removed one by one, were drawn from before the mountain, whose heaven-cleaving pinnacles and black crags overhanging one another, stood at length defined in the light of day. The road runs parallel to the river, at a considerable height, and is carried through the mountain by a vaulted cavern. The marks of the chisel of the legionaries of the Roman Consul are yet evident. We passed on day after day, until we came to Spoleto, I think the most romantic city I ever saw. There is here an aqueduct of astonishing elevation, which unites two rocky mountains,-there is the path of a torrent below, whitening the green dell with its broad and barren track of stones, and above there is a castle, apparently of great strength and of tremendous magnitude, which overhangs the city, and whose marble bastions are perpendicular with the precipice. I never saw a more impressive picture; in which the shapes of nature are of the grandest order, but over which the creations of man, sublime from their antiquity and greatness, seem to predominate. The castle was built by Belisarius or Narses, I forget which, but was of that epoch. From Spoleto we went to Terni, and saw the cataract of the Velino. The glaciers of Montanvert and the source of the Arveiron is the grandest spectacle I ever saw. This is the second. Imagine a river sixty feet in breadth, with a vast volume of waters, the outlet of a great lake among the higher mountains, falling 300 feet into a sightless gulf of snow-white vapour, which bursts up for ever and for ever from a circle of black crags, and thence leaping downwards, made five or six other cataracts, each fifty or a hundred feet high, which exhibit, on a smaller scale, and with beautiful and sublime variety, the same appearances. But words |
