which enslaved the ocean's lord? Methinks that in this wild
mythological fiction, in the terrific vengeance which Minerva takes
for her profaned temple, and in the undying snakes which for ever hiss
round the head of her victim--there is a deep moral, if woman would
lay it to her heart.

In Guercino's Endymion, the very mouth is asleep: in his Sybil the
very eyes are prophetic, and glance into futurity.

The boyish, but divine St. John, by Raffaelle, did not please me so
well as some of his portraits and Madonnas; his Leo the Tenth, for
instance, his Julius the Second, or even his Fornarina: and I may
observe here, that I admire Titian's taste much more than Raffaelle's,
_en fait de maitresse_. The Fornarina is a mere _femme du peuple_, a
coarse virago, compared to the refined, the exquisite La Manto, in the
Pitti Palace. I think the Flora must have been painted from the same
lovely model, as far as I can judge from compared recollections, for I
have no authority to refer to. The former is the most elegant, and the
latter the most poetical female portrait I ever saw. At Titian's Venus
in the Tribune, one hardly ventures to look up; it is the perfection
of earthly loveliness, as the Venus de' Medici is all ideal--all
celestial beauty. In the multiplied copies and engravings of this
picture I see every where the bashful sweetness of the countenance,
and the tender languid repose of the figure are made coarse, or
something worse: degraded, in short, into a character altogether
unlike the original.

I say nothing of the Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti; which is not a
collection so much as a _selection_ of the most invaluable gems and
masterpieces of art. The imagination dazzled and bewildered by
excellence can scarcely make a choice--but I think the Madonna Della
Seggiola of Raffaelle, Allori's magnificent Judith, Guido's Cleopatra,
and Salvator's Catiline, dwell most upon my memory.

* * * * *

_Nov. 24._--After dinner, we drove to the beautiful gardens of the
Villa Strozzi, on the Monte Ulivetto, and the evening we spent at the
Cocomero, where we saw a detestable opera, capitally acted, and heard
the most vile, noisy, unmeaning music, sung to perfection.

_Nov. 26._--Yesterday we spent some hours at Morghen's gallery,
looking over his engravings; and afterwards examined the bronze gates
of the Baptistery, which Michel Angelo used to call the gates of
Paradise. We then ascended the Camp