er, if he
thinks it worth his while, must explain and complete for himself.
Perhaps, too, a fear of the ridicule which an exhibition of modesty in
man might draw down from certain slender witlings, from the young
gentlemen, or even the young ladies, of Copenhagen, may have, in part,
deterred him from a faithful portraiture. To people of reflection, who
have learned to estimate at its true value the laugh of coxcombs, and
the wisdom of the so-called man of the world--the shallowest bird of
passage that we know of--such a portrait would have been attractive for
the genuine truth it contains. It would require, indeed, a master's hand
to deal both well and honestly with it.

The descriptions of Italy which "The Improvisatore" contains are
sufficiently striking and faithful to recall the scenes to those who
have visited them; which is all, we believe, the best descriptions can
effect. What is absolutely new to a reader cannot be described to him.
If all the poets and romancers of England were to unite together in a
committee of taste, they could not frame a description which would give
the effect of mountainous scenery to one who had never seen a mountain.
The utmost the describer call do, in all such cases, is to liken the
scene to something already familiar to the reader's imagination. Though
generally faithful, we cannot say that our author never sacrifices
accuracy of detail to the demands of the novelist, never sacrifices the
actual to the ideal. For instance, his account of the _Miserere_ in the
Sistine Chapel, is rather what one is willing to anticipate it might be,
than what a traveller really finds it. To be sure, he has a right to
place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him
from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his
perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can
afford, and that overpowering _sentiment_ which he finds in the great
picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which
addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a
description more from imagination than experience.

A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as
agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite
welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present
instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans
Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enoug