ut for the beauty of execution in this picture, it is unsurpassed. It
is in this respect like the most beautiful things ever painted by
Raphael,--like the Madonna del Cardellino, whose face has light within,
"_luce di dentro_," as is the expressive Italian phrase,--and is also
like another picture that I have seen, attributed to Raphael, in the
collection of the late Baron Kestner at Rome.

Visiting the extremely curious and valuable gallery of this gentleman,
the Hanoverian Minister at Rome, after making us begin at the beginning,
among the very early masters, he led us on with courteous determination
through his specimens of all the schools, and made us observe the
characteristics of each school and each master, till at last we rested
in the last room, where hung a single picture covered with a silken
curtain. This at last, with sacred and reverent ceremony, was drawn
aside, and revealed a portrait by Raphael,--the portrait of a lady,
young and beautiful, and glowing with a tender sentiment which recalled
to my remembrance these heads by Allston, not alone in the sentiment,
but in the masterly beauty of the painting. M. Kestner told us he
supposed the picture to be a portrait of that niece of Cardinal Bibbiena
to whom Raphael was betrothed. The picture had come into his possession
by one of those wonderful chances which have preserved so many valuable
works from destruction. At a sale of pictures at Bologna, he told us he
noticed a very ordinary head, badly enough painted, but with very
beautiful hands,--hands which betrayed the work of a master; and he
conjectured this to be some valuable picture, hastily covered with
coarse work to deceive the emissaries of a conqueror when they came to
select and carry off the most valuable pictures from the galleries of
the conquered city. He gave his agent orders to purchase it, and when in
his possession a little careful work removed the upper colors and
discovered one of the most beautiful heads ever painted even by Raphael.
Though it may and will seem extravagant, I am satisfied that there are
several heads by Allston that would lose nothing by comparison with this
admirable work. Indeed, though M. Kestner's picture is a portrait, it is
a work so entirely in the same class with the "Beatrice," the "Rosalie,"
the "Valentine," and some other works of Allston, in sentiment and
execution, that the comparison is fairly challenged.

"Rosalie" is different from "Beatrice." She seems