ference. It is divined, as the Neapolitans say; that
is, the painter has intuitively conceived the feelings of the two
animals; the one blind with reckless fury, the other supremely confident
in his own agility and superior strength.

And now I come to the human form. Here we have endless variety; and all
kinds, from the caricature to the epic effort, are attempted and
exhausted,--the wagon laden with an enormous goat-skin full of wine,
which slaves are busily putting into amphorae; a child making an ape
dance; a painter copying a Hermes of Bacchus; a pensive damsel probably
about to dispatch a secret message by the buxom servant-maid waiting
there for it; a vendor of Cupids opening his cage full of little winged
gods, who, as they escape, tease a sad and pensive woman standing near,
in a thousand ways,--how many different subjects! But I have said
nothing yet. The Pompeians especially excelled in fancy pictures.
Everybody has seen those swarms of little genii that, fluttering down
upon the walls of their houses, wove crowns or garlands, angled with the
rod and line, chased birds, sawed planks, planed tables, raced in
chariots, or danced on the tight-rope, holding up thyrses for balancing
poles; one bent over, another kneeling, a third making a jet of wine
spirt forth from a horn into a vase, a fourth playing on the lyre, and a
fifth on the double flute, without leaving the tight-rope that bends
beneath their nimble feet. But more beautiful than these divine
rope-dancers were the female dancers, who floated about, perfect
prodigies of self-possession and buoyancy, rising of themselves from the
ground and sustained without an effort in the voluptuous air that
cradled them. You may see these all at the museum in Naples,--the nymph
who clashes the cymbals, and one who drums the tambourine; another who
holds aloft a branch of cedar and a golden sceptre; one who is handing a
plate of figs; and her, too who has a basket on her head and a thyrsis
in her hand. Another in dancing uncovers her neck and her shoulders, and
a third, with her head thrown back, and her eyes uplifted to heaven,
inflates her veil as though to fly away. Here is one dropping bunches
of flowers in a fold of her robe, and there another who holds a golden
plate in this hand, while with that she covers her brows with an
undulating pallium, like a bird putting its head under its wing.

There are some almost nude, and some that drape themselves in tissues
quit