mph of art
that a being whose nature trembles on the very verge of the grotesque
should walk through Hawthorne's pages with such undeviating grace. In
the Roman dreamland he is in little danger of such prying curiosity,
though even there he can only be kept out of harm's way by the admirable
skill of his creator. Perhaps it may be thought by some severe critics
that, with all his merits, Donatello stands on the very outside verge of
the province permitted to the romancer. But without cavilling at what is
indisputably charming, and without dwelling upon certain defects of
construction which slightly mar the general beauty of the story, it has
another weakness which it is impossible quite to overlook. Hawthorne
himself remarks that he was surprised, in re-writing his story, to see
the extent to which he had introduced descriptions of various Italian
objects. 'Yet these things,' he adds, 'fill the mind everywhere in
Italy, and especially in Rome, and cannot be kept from flowing out upon
the page when one writes freely and with self-enjoyment.' The
associations which they called up in England were so pleasant, that he
could not find it in his heart to cancel. Doubtless that is the precise
truth, and yet it is equally true that they are artistically out of
place. There are passages which recall the guide-book. To take one
instance--and, certainly, it is about the worst--the whole party is
going to the Coliseum, where a very striking scene takes place. On the
way they pass a baker's shop.

'"The baker is drawing his loaves out of the oven," remarked Kenyon. "Do
you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge for
the desecration of her temples) had slyly poured vinegar into the batch,
if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in the
acetous fermentation."'

The instance is trivial, but it is characteristic. Hawthorne had
doubtless remarked the smell of the sour bread, and to him it called up
a vivid recollection of some stroll in Rome; for, of all our senses, the
smell is notoriously the most powerful in awakening associations. But
then what do we who read him care about the Roman taste for bread 'in
acetous fermentation?' When the high-spirited girl is on the way to meet
her tormentor, and to receive the provocation which leads to his murder,
why should we be worried by a gratuitous remark about Roman baking? It
somehow jars upon our taste, and we are certain that, in describing a
New