urope. There are now eight or ten of our painters and
sculptors in Florence, some of whom, I do not hesitate to say, take the
very first rank among living artists.

I have been highly gratified in visiting the studio of Mr. G.L. Brown,
who, as a landscape painter, is destined to take a stand second to few,
since the days of Claude Lorraine. He is now without a rival in
Florence, or perhaps in Italy, and has youth, genius and a plentiful
stock of the true poetic enthusiasm for his art, to work for him far
greater triumphs. His Italian landscapes have that golden mellowness and
transparency of atmosphere which give such a charm to the real scenes,
and one would think he used on his pallette, in addition to the more
substantial colors, condensed air and sunlight and the liquid crystal of
streams. He has wooed Nature like a lover, and she has not withheld her
sympathy. She has taught him how to raise and curve her trees, load
their boughs with foliage, and spread underneath them the broad, cool
shadows--to pile up the shattered crag, and steep the long mountain
range in the haze of alluring distance.

He has now nearly finished, a large painting of "Christ Preaching in the
Wilderness," which is of surprising beauty. You look upon one of the
fairest scenes of Judea. In front, the rude multitude are grouped on one
side, in the edge of a magnificent forest; on the other side, towers up
a rough wall of rock and foliage that stretches back into the distance,
where some grand blue mountains are piled against the sky, and a
beautiful stream, winding through the middle of the picture, slides away
out of the foreground. Just emerging from the shade of one of the
cliffs, is the benign figure of the Saviour, with the warm light which
breaks from behind the trees, falling around him as he advances. There
is a smaller picture of the "Shipwreck of St. Paul," in which he shows
equal skill in painting a troubled sea and breaking storm. He is one of
the young artists from whom we have most to hope.

I have been extremely interested in looking over a great number of
sketches made by Mr. Kellogg, of Cincinnati, during a tour through
Egypt, Arabia Petraea and Palestine. He visited many places out of the
general route of travelers, and beside the great number of landscape
views, brought away many sketches of the characters and costumes of the
Orient. From some of these he has commenced paintings, which, as his
genius is equal to his practice,