y resolute defence the Isle of Cyprus,
which has owned your sway for a century, you might have saved it by
the easy and obvious expedient of allowing the Sultan to receive at a
cheaper rate his annual supply of its delicious wines, and by refusing
to shelter in the harbour of Famaugusta the Christian corsairs who
capture the beauties destined for the seraglio. The sweet island of
Love is now lost for ever to the state of Venice, and its incomparable
wines become every year more rare and costly throughout Italy."

The keen edge of his remarks touched me sensibly, and wounded all my
pride of birth and country. This revulsion of feeling did not escape
the quick perceptions of my guest: the recollection that he was
speaking thus unguardedly to the son of a Venetian senator seemed to
flash upon him, and he closed the discussion by remarking, with a
smile, that we were in Venice, that Venetian walls possessed the
faculty of hearing, and that there would be discretion in a change of
subject. I briefly assented to the necessity of being guarded in the
vicinity of Venetian domestics, who were occasionally agents of the
police; and, after a pause of recollection, he resumed.

"It is time," said he, "that I should speak of myself and of my object
in Venice. I am a native of Florence, and a painter. Wearied and
disgusted with the skeletons of Florentine art, I came here to study
the flesh and blood of the Venetian school. The works of Titian
realise everything which is valuable and essential in the art of
painting, and the student who does not pursue the track of this great
master will never attain high rank as a painter. In Venice, the public
voice has supreme jurisdiction in matters of taste and fine art,
and the artists collectively exercise little influence on public
opinion. Titian fascinates all amateurs, and every artist admits his
incomparable excellence in the great essential of painting, which is
truth of colouring."

"I am still too much a novice in the theories of your beautiful art,"
I replied, "to contend this point with you; but you will pardon me if
I suggest the probability that you are disgusted with the severity of
the Tuscan school. Your abhorrence of the yoke you have escaped from
impels you to the other extreme, and your admiration of Venetian art
is heightened by contrasting the flesh and blood of Titian with the
bones and sinews of Michael Angelo. Nevertheless, I will hazard a
prediction, that instead of