day about eleven or twelve in the Tribune,
seated opposite to the Venus, which appears to be the exclusive object
of his adoration; and gazing, as if he hoped, like another Pygmalion,
to animate the statue; or rather perhaps that the statue might animate
_him_. A young Englishman of fashion, with as much talent as
espieglerie, placed an epistle in verse between the fingers of the
statue, addressed to Rogers; in which the goddess entreats him not to
come there _ogling_ every day;--for though "partial friends might deem
him still alive," she knew by his looks that he had come from the
other side of the Styx; and retained her _antique_ abhorrence of the
spectral dead, etc. etc. She concluded by beseeching him, if he could
not desist from haunting her with his _ghostly_ presence, at least to
spare her the added misfortune of being be-rhymed by his muse.

Rogers, with equal good nature and good sense, neither noticed these
lines nor withdrew his friendship and intimacy from the writer.

* * * * *

Carlo Dolce is not one of my favourite masters. There is a cloying
sweetness in his style, a general want of power which wearies me: yet
I brought away from the Corsini Palace to-day an impression of a head
by Carlo Dolce (La Poesia), which I shall never forget. Now I recall
the picture, I am at a loss to tell where lies the charm which has
thus powerfully seized on my imagination. Here are no "eyes upturned
like one inspired"--no distortion--no rapt enthusiasm--no Muse full of
the God;--but it is a head so purely, so divinely intellectual, so
heavenly sweet, and yet so penetrating,--so full of sensibility, and
yet so unstained by earthly passion--so brilliant, and yet so
calm--that if Carlo Dolce had lived in our days, I should have thought
he intended it for the personified genius of Wordsworth's poetry.
There is such an individual reality about this beautiful head, that I
am inclined to believe the tradition, that it is the portrait of one
of Carlo Dolce's daughters who died young:--and yet

"Did ever mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?"

* * * * *

_Nov. 15._--Our stay at Florence promises to be far gayer than either
Milan or Venice, or even Paris; more diversified by society, as well
as affording a wider field of occupation and amusement.

Sometimes in the long evenings, when fatigued and over-excited, I
recli