reak the
expanse of azure and shew the gilding. I thought how like a sky of
Guercino's it was; other painters remind one of nature, but nature when
most lovely makes one think of Guercino and his works. The Ruspigliosi
palace boasts the Aurora of Guido--both are ceilings, but this is not
rightly named sure. We should call it the Phoebus, for Aurora holds only
the second place at best: the fun is driving over her almost; it is a
more luminous, a more graceful, a more showy picture than the other,
more universal too, exciting louder and oftener repeated praises; yet
the other is so discriminated, so tasteful, so classical! We must go see
what Domenichino has done with the same subject.

I forget the name of the palace where it is to be admired: but had we
not seen the others, one should have said this was divine. It is a
Phoebus again, _this_ is; not a bit of an Aurora: and Truth is springing
up from the arms of Time to rejoice in the sun's broad light. Her
expression of transport at being set free from obscurity, is happy in
an eminent degree; but there are faults in her form, and the Apollo has
scarcely dignity enough in _his_. The horses are best in Guide's
picture: Aurora at the Villa Ludovisi has but two; they are very
spirited, but it is the spirit of three, not six o'clock in a summer
morning. Surely Thomson had been living under these two roofs when he
wrote such descriptions as seem to have been made on purpose for them;
could any one give a more perfect account of Guercino's performance than
these words afford?

The meek-ey'd morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled East
Till far o'er aether spreads the widening glow,
And from before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away: with quicken'd step
Brown Night retires, young Day pours in apace
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

As for the Ruspigliosi palace I left these lines in the room, written by
the same author, and think them more capable than any description I
could make, of giving some idea of Guido's Phoebus.

While yonder comes the powerful King of Day
Rejoicing in the East; the lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountains brow
Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad; lo, now apparent all
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,
And sheds the shining day.

So charming Thomson wrote from his lodgings at a milliner's in
Bond-stre