Gleanings in Europe

Mode of living, and uncleanliness of houses, unjustly censured.—Palazzo Borghese.—State of Society.—Cecisbeism.—Females of Rome.—Higher and lower classes of Italians.—The English disliked.—Hopes of advancing Romanism in America.—Religious bigotry diminished.—Disrespect of Protestants in attending the Singing at St. Peter’s.—Buffoonery of Servants of a Cardinal at devotion.—Magnificence of Church Architecture.—Roof of St. Peter’s.—The Lateran.—The Vatican.—Frescoes of Raphael.—Celebrated Pictures.—Statuary.—The Apollo, and the Laocoon.—Fresco by Michael Angelo.

The close of the last letter reminds me of the propriety of saying something of the mode of living in Rome. Nothing has surprised me more than the accounts given in English books of the filth, nastiness, and other pretended abominations of the princely abodes here, as well as of the mode of life within them. The English, as a people, have been singularly unjust commentators on all foreign usages and foreign people; though they are fast losing their prejudices, and beginning to discriminate between customs. Neither the Italians, nor any other Continental nation, deem the English snuggeries indispensable to happiness. They admire a rich parquet, or a floor of imitation mosaic, more than a pine or an oaken floor carpeted. Their staircases are broad architectural flights, on which a stair-carpet and brass rods would be singularly misplaced; and the great size of their houses renders the minutiæ of our pigmy residences not only unnecessary, but would render them excessively troublesome and expensive. Certainly the English and the Americans are neater in their houses than the French or the Italians; but a large portion of what has been said against the higher classes of the two latter countries may, I think, be fairly explained in this way. As between the labouring classes of England and America on the one side, and those of the Continent of Europe in general on the other, there is no comparison, on the score of civilization and its comforts; the advantage being altogether with the former. The mass of no nation can have domestic comforts, or domestic cleanliness, when the women are subjected to field labour. Exactly in the proportion as the females can turn their attention within doors, does the home become comfortable and neat, other things being equal. But, beyond this, false notions exist. The Englishman of rank, through the perfection of the manufactures and the commerce of his country, has a detail of comforts of a certain class, and perhaps of a wider class than the Continental nobility; but, on the other hand, there are other essential points in which he falls far behind them. What, for instance, are the chamber comforts and elegancies of an English townhouse, compared to those of an Italian townhouse? Compare the baths, dressing-rooms, and ante-chambers of a French hotel, or an Italian palazzo, with the same things in a London residence! The baths, dressing-rooms, cabinets, and ante-chambers of our lodgings in Florence were as spacious, and much more elegant than our entire lodgings in London; and I think all our rooms in the latter town had not more space than one of the principal rooms in the former. I paid thirty-five dollars a week for the London house, and forty-two dollars a month for the Florence lodgings!

Travellers are too much in the practice of describing under the influence of their early and home-bred impressions. As a man sees the world, his prejudices diminish, his diffidence of his own decisions increases, and with both, his indisposition to write. Many a man has commenced travelling with a firm intention of faithfully describing all he saw, and of commenting, as he conceived, impartially, but who has gradually suffered this intention to escape him, until he gets to be too critical in his distinctions to satisfy even himself. Thus, the English cockney, who has never seen a house with more than two drawing-rooms, fancies it extraordinary that an Italian with a palace larger than St. James’s, should not always occupy its state apartments, although his own king is guilty of the same act of neglect. Instead of saying that the Princes Doria, Chigi, Borghese, Colonna, Corsini, &c., have vast palaces like George IV., and that their state apartments are liberally thrown open to the public, while, like King George and all other kings, they occupy, in every-day life, rooms of less pretension and of more comfort, they say, that these Roman nobles have huge palaces,—a fact that cannot be denied,—while they live in corners of them. This false account of the real state of the case arises simply from the circumstance that an English nobleman occupies his best rooms. The question whether the second-rate rooms of an Italian palace are not equal to the best apartments of an ordinary English dwelling, never suggests itself.

I visit in the Palazzo Borghese, which stands in our neighbourhood. The prince himself resides altogether at Florence, where he has another noble house, and in which he receives magnificently; but, here, a large part of the building is filled with pictures, in order to be exhibited to strangers. It is true the appartamente nobile, or first floor, is not now opened, for the family of the Prince Aldobrandini is here merely on a visit: he is a younger brother, and his proper residence may be called Paris, the princess being a French lady of the family de la Rochefoucauld. Accordingly, when admitted, I certainly do not enter the state apartments, but am shown into what we call the third story, where I find the family. A pretty picture might be made of this, but it would mislead you. Here is a princely family, with an enormous house, it might be said, that lives in a corner of it, even on the second floor, leaving all the principal rooms unoccupied. This is the ordinary English version of the custom, and, of necessity, the ordinary American. In point of fact, however, the ascent to this third story is far more imposing, and quite as easy, as the ascent to a common London drawing-room; and, with but very few exceptions, I have never seen an English nobleman so well lodged in London, in his best rooms, as the present occupants of the Palazzo Borghese are in their corner. The misconception has arisen from the difference in the habits of the two countries, and we have adopted the error, as we adopt all English mistakes that do not impair our good opinion of ourselves: in other words, we swallow them whole.

There are Italian nobles, out of doubt, who are not rich enough to keep up their vast palaces; and there are English nobles in the same predicament. In such cases, the Englishman retires to the Continent in order to live cheap; and the Italian retires to his attic, or mezzinino, which is frequently better than the first floor of an English townhouse. The latter can live cheapest at home.

As to the filth on the staircases, which the English accounts had led me to expect, I have seen none of it, in any palace I have entered. It is possible that some deserted staircase, or that the corridor of one of these huge piles, may occasionally be defiled in that way, for it has happened in London to the best houses; but, as a distinctive usage, the accounts are altogether false, so far as eighteen months’ experience of Italy can authorize me to decide. There are certain disadvantages belonging to magnificence, which is never so comfortable and so minutely nice as snugger modes of living; but if one cannot have snugness with magnificence and taste, neither can one have magnificence and taste with snugness. Homilies might be written on the moral part of the question; but to understand the physical merits, it is necessary to enter into all these distinctions.

I know too little of Italian society to say anything new about it, or even to speak very confidently on any of the old usages. The daughters of particular families, I believe, are getting to have more of a voice in the choice of husbands than formerly; though France is still much in advance of Italy in this respect. I take this one fact to be the touchstone of domestic manners; for the woman who has freely made her own selection will hesitate long before she consents to destroy the great pledge of connubial affection. Cecisbeism certainly exists, for I have seen proofs of it; but I incline to the opinion that foreigners do not exactly understand the custom. By what I can learn, too, it is gradually yielding to the opinions of the age. A foreigner married to an Italian of rank, and who has long been resident in Italy, tells me its social tone is greatly impaired by the habits of the women, who are so much disposed to devote themselves to their sentiment in favour of particular individuals, as to have no wish to mingle in general society. Whether these individuals were the husbands or not, the lady did not appear to think it necessary to say.

The females of Rome are among the most winning and beautiful of the Christian world. One who has been here a week can understand the bocca Romana, for no females speak their language more beautifully. The manner in which they pronounce that beautiful and gracious word “grazie,” is music itself. A Frenchwoman’s “merci” is pretty, but it is mincing, and not at all equal to the Roman “thanks.” After all, as language is the medium of thought, and the link that connects all our sympathies, there is no more desirable accomplishment than a graceful utterance. Unfortunately, our civilisation is not yet sufficiently advanced to see this truth, or rather the summerset habits of America cause us to forget it; for I can remember the time when a lady deemed an even, measured, and dignified mode of speaking, necessary to a lady’s deportment. It is a little odd, in a country so ambitious of mere social distinctions as our own, distinctions that must exist in some shape or other, since social equality is incompatible with civilisation, and in which girls can and do milk cows in silks and muslins, that so few think of setting up elegance, as a means of distinction! My life on it, those who succeeded would have it all their own way for a good many lustres.

Rome, just at this moment, contains a congress of all the people of Christendom. Its most obvious society, perhaps, is the English; but it is by no means the best, as it is necessarily much mixed. I was lately at a great ball given by the Prince of ——, and it certainly was faultless as to taste and style. I do not remember ever to have been in a society so uniformly elegant and high-toned. The exceptions were very few, and not very obtrusive. The apartments were vast and magnificent, and the supper equal to the rest. But the Italians of condition may be generally considered a polished and amiable people, whatever is thought of their energy and learning. In the latter there is no very apparent deficiency; though they attend less to this point, perhaps, than some other countries of Europe. In the studious classes, it strikes me, there is much learning; not a knowledge of Greek and Latin quantities merely, but a knowledge of the sciences and of the arts, and a strong sympathy with the beauties of the classics.

In the lower classes I have been agreeably disappointed. Strangers certainly see the worst of them; for a kinder and quicker witted, and a more civil people, than most of the country population, is not usually seen. Had we formed our notions by even the first nine months observation, it would have misled us, for subsequent experience has made us acquainted with several dependents of the most excellent character and disposition.

Few foreigners, however, see much of Italian society; the great inroad of strangers causing them to be cautious of opening their doors, while the number of the strangers themselves is apt to make them satisfied with their own associations. It is said that there are some thousands of travellers in Rome at this moment; and you can judge of their effect on the modes of living of so small a town. The English, as a matter of course, predominate, at least in the public places and in the hotels. At the ball I attended, however, there were but three English present, though half the other nations of Christendom were fully represented. This fact was observed, and I ventured to inquire of a Roman the reason. The answer was, that the master of the house did not like the English; and although the entertainment was given to a prince of a royal family nearly connected with the royal family of England, but three of the latter country were invited. I was told that the disposition to force their own opinions and habits on the strangers they visited rendered the English unpleasant, and that there was a general feeling against receiving them. This may be just enough as respects a portion, perhaps the majority of those who come here; but it is singularly unjust as respects the better class of them, and it is the Romans who are the losers.

It is said the English bachelors here got up a ball lately, with a view to manifest a kind feeling towards their hosts, and that the invitations were sent out as “at homes;” a freedom that the Roman ladies resented by staying away. So much from not understanding a language; though delicacy and tact in conferring obligations and in paying compliments are not singularly English virtues.

We have had a dinner, too, in honour of Washington, at which I had the honour to preside. You will be surprised to hear that we sat down near seventy Yankees (in the European sense) in the Eternal City! We were very patriotic, but quite moderate in its expression.

I have ascertained that strong hopes exist here of advancing the Religion of this government in America. If this can be done, let it, for I am for giving all sects fair play; but as such expectations certainly exist, it may be well for those who think differently to know it. One of the last things that an American would be likely to suspect, is the conversion of his countrymen to the Roman Catholic faith; and yet such a result is certainly here brought within the category of possibilities. I would advise you to take large doses of Calvinism, or you may awake, some fine morning, a believer in transubstantiation.

You will be surprised also to learn that there is less religious bigotry in Rome itself than in many of the distant provinces subject to her canonical sway. The government being in the hands of ecclesiastics, as a matter of course, no open irreligion is tolerated; but beyond this, and the great number of the churches and of the ecclesiastics themselves, a stranger would scarcely suspect he was living purely under an ecclesiastical government. The popes are not the men they once were: nepotism, cupidity, and most of the abuses incident to excessive temporal influence, are done away with; and as the motive for ambition ceases, better men have been raised to the papal chair. Most of the last popes have been mild, religious men, and, so far as man can know, suited to their high religious trusts; though the system is still obnoxious to the charge of more management, perhaps, than properly belongs to faith in God and his church. But all establishments are weak on this point, and the general assemblies, &c. of America are not always purely a convocation of saints.

Strangers are no longer expected to kneel at the appearance of the Host in the streets, or even in the churches. The people understand the prejudices of Protestants, and, unless offensively obtruded, seem disposed to let them enjoy them in peace. I saw a strong proof of this lately;—A friend of mine, walking with myself, stepped aside in a narrow street, for a purpose that often induces men to get into corners. He thought himself quite retired; but, as I stopped for him to rejoin me, a crowd collected around the spot he had just quitted. Without his knowing it, the image of a Madonna was placed in the wall, directly above the spot he had chosen, and of course it had been defiled! I saw all this myself; and it is a proof of the change that exists in this particular, that I dared to remain to watch the result, though my friend himself thought it prudent to retire. A priest appeared, and the wall was sprinkled with holy water, while the people stood looking on, some at the wall and some at me, in grave silence. Thirty years ago such a blunder might have cost us both our lives.

Indeed, liberality, in some respects, is carried to a fault. The singing of St. Peter’s has a reputation far and near, and strangers are accustomed to go there to hear it. There is a particular chapel in which a service is sung, (vespers, I presume,) every Sunday afternoon, and where one can hear the finest vocal church music in the world, music even finer than that of the Royal Chapel at Dresden. At the latter place, however, the music is chiefly instrumental; whereas here it is principally by voices. One who has never seen such a temple, or heard such a combination of science, skill, and natural, I may say artificial power, can form no just notion of the sensations that arise on walking among the wonders of the church and listening to the heavenly chants. Sometimes I withdraw to a distance, and the sounds reach me like the swells of airs in another world: and at times I go near the door of the chapel, and receive the full bursts of its harmony. Operas, concerts, and conservatoirs sink into insignificance before this sublime union of the temple and its worship; for both may be considered as having reached the limits of human powers, so far as the senses are concerned.

Around the door of this chapel, which is, I believe, called the Chapel of the Choir, strangers assemble in crowds. Here, I regret to say, they laugh, chat, lounge, and amuse themselves, much as well-bred people amuse themselves in an evening party any where else. There is not much noise certainly, for well-bred people are not often noisy; but there is little or no reverence. After making all possible allowance for the difference between Catholic and Protestant worship, this want of respect for the altar and the temple is inexcusable. Happily, I have never yet seen an American indulging in this levity. The fact speaks volumes in reply to those who heap obloquy on the nation as wanting in religion. The larger American sects manifest a great disrespect for the mere house of God: they hold political meetings in their churches, even concerts and exhibitions, all of which I deem irreverent and unsuited to the place; but whenever any thing like worship is commenced, silence and decency prevail. This feeling they have brought abroad with them; but other Protestants, especially the English, who are such observers of the decencies at home, do not appear to entertain the same feelings.

Still, it must be admitted that the Catholics themselves do not always set a good example. I was strolling lately through the vast temple, equally impressed with reverence and delight, when a cardinal entered by a side door. He was a young man, with a marked air of gentility; and I presume his early rise in the church was owing to his high birth. He was in his official dress, and carried the red hat pressed against his bosom. As he entered from the Vatican, I presume he had just been in the presence of the Pope. Four attendants followed, two of whom were in black, and were a species of clerical esquires, though their official appellation is unknown to me; and two were common livery servants. The cardinal advanced to the great altar, beneath the celebrated baldachino, and, kneeling, he prayed. Nothing could be better than his whole manner, which was subdued, gentle, and devout. So far all was well. The two esquires kneeled behind the cardinal on the pavement, put their hats to their faces, and appeared also to pray. The two lackqueys kneeled behind the esquires, the distance between the respective parties being about twenty feet: and they too raised their hats before their faces,—but it was to laugh and make grimaces at each other! This buffoonery was so obvious as to amount to mockery, and one near them might see it.

You know my passion for the poetry of the Roman worship. The odour of the incense, the vaulted roofs, attenuated aisles and naves, the painted windows, and the grand harmonies of the chants, are untiring sources of delight to me. It is true, at Rome one sees no Gothic architecture; but its place is nobly supplied. The riches as well as the number of the churches are incredible, and one can only become reconciled to the apparent waste by remembering that the pretence is to honour God. A temple in the human heart is certainly better than one of stone; but I see no incompatibility between the two. These are distinctions into which I do not enter; or, if sometimes tempted to make them, I feel persuaded that it is quite as possible to strip the altar of its dignity and decencies, as it is to overload it with useless ceremonies and pageants.

No one who has not visited Rome can have a just appreciation of the powers of Dominichino and Guido, or perhaps of Raphael,—though the latter is to be seen to advantage elsewhere,—of any idea of the pass to which men have carried the magnificence of church architecture. I do not now allude solely to the unrivalled grandeur of St. Peter’s, but to the splendour of the churches in general, and especially to that of the private chapels. These private chapels have been ornamented by different families for ages, and the result is, that they have literally become architectural gems, though less in the sense of a pure taste, perhaps, than in that of an elaborated magnificence. That of the Corsini, in St. John of the Lateran, the richest I have seen; and I feel persuaded that I speak within bounds when I say, the money that would be necessary to build such a thing in America would cause ten or a dozen of our largest churches to be constructed. The great resources of Rome in antiques, columns, precious stones, and marbles, render these expenses less onerous than elsewhere; but their value even here is immense. The Prince of —— showed me a mosaic ornament in his vestibule, that had now been there some ages; and he told me that the precious stones it contained would sell for a very large sum.

Vasi has a list of one hundred and thirty-three churches; and as he describes them all, I presume the little chapels that have been made out of the ancient temples, of which there may be a dozen or two, are not included. The smallest of these churches, if the little temples are excluded, are as large as the largest of our own; and each of the basilicæ, of which there are now six, is nearly, if not quite as large, in cubic contents, as all the churches of New York united. St. Peter’s, of course, is much larger; and, if the colonnade be included, I feel persuaded all the public buildings of New York might stand on its area,—to say nothing of the height.

We have lately ascended to the roof of this wonder of the world. It resembles a table-land on a mountain, and I was strongly impressed with the notion of having a horse to gallop about it. The two small domes rise from the plane-like churches, and the great dome looks like a mountain. The sacristy of this church is of itself a great edifice, and it is rich beyond all American notions.

St. John in Laterano is said to get its name from Plautius Lateranus, whose house stood at the same place. The Lateran Palace joins the church, as the Vatican joins St. Peter’s. The present palace was built by Sixtus V; but Constantine resided here. There is a very ancient baptistery in the group of buildings, in which it is pretended that emperor was baptised; though a man who had made up his mind to be a Christian, would hardly wait to build a church to perform the initiatory ceremony in, I think. The term “councils of the Lateran” came from their being held in this palace, as that of the “thunders of the Vatican” from the circumstance that the popes, who issue the bulls, usually live here.

St. Peter’s of the Vaticano, as well as the palace, to which it is annexed, if such a term may be used, gets its name from the ancient Roman appellation of the spot. Nero had his circus and gardens here; and it is said that this is the place in which most of the Christians were martyred. The first church was relatively small, though subsequently much enlarged; but it was removed when the present building had got to be advanced. The palace is very ancient, though much changed, for Charlemagne lived in it while at Rome to be crowned, which was more than a thousand years ago. It fell into ruins, however, and was restored by Celestinus III. two centuries later. It has certainly been in its present form more than three centuries, as Raphael and Michael Angelo have left memorials on its walls not to be mistaken. The latter essentially roofed and raised St. Peter’s, and it follows that the present palace is older than the present church. In truth, the latter was erected as an accessory to the former!

The Vatican is an immense structure, covering more ground than St. Peter’s itself; though it is a succession of courts and palaces rather than a single edifice. Vasi gives its dimensions at about 1100 by near 800 feet. This includes the courts, but not the gardens. I have somewhere read, that if the buildings of the Vatican were placed in a line, they would reach a mile.

The palace and the church are incorporated in one edifice; but, owing to the noble colonnade by which one approaches St. Peter’s, its unity and vastness, particularly its height, and the fact that the Vatican has no great visible façade, the latter is almost lost in the coup d’œil of the other, although it covers most ground of the two, unless the area of the vacancy between the colonnades be thrown in on the side of the church.

It is usual to say, the conclaves are held in the Vatican; but I understand here, that the last election of the pope was held in the Quirinal, or rather in the building adjoining the Quirinal. The palace of the Quirinal is called the Pontifical Palace, and I believe most of the time of the pope is passed in it. His apartments are very plain, so much so as to excite surprise: but here are the noble bas reliefs of Thorwaldsen.

The frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican, and those of the Sistine Chapel, in the same palace, by Michael Angelo, are deemed the respective chefs d’œuvre of these artists. The loggie of Raphael contain some extraordinary things. The paintings are on the ceilings of compartments, in what we should call piazzas, or open galleries. The subjects commence with the Creation. On one, God, in the form of a venerable old man, is throwing himself into the midst of chaos, in order to separate and reduce to order the materials of the universe. The sublimest conception of this subject, the only one that will bear critical examination, is that of a being whose will and knowledge, without an effort, can create a universe. The simple language of the Bible can never be surpassed. The representation of this majesty of a will might possibly be partially portrayed by the pencil; but few could enter even into the sublimest conceptions of the countenance of a being filled with so much power, admitting the success to be equal to the thought, in the application of the means. Failing this, we are driven to some such imagery as this of Raphael’s. His idea is noble, and, considered in connexion with the usual means of his art, perhaps one of the best that could have been suggested. The idea of the Deity’s throwing himself into chaos, to separate light from darkness, and to reduce the materials of the universe to order, is magnificent, and it might be made to tell in poetry. It never can equal the majesty of the exercise of the pure will; but, descending from this severe grandeur, it is one of the finest of the thoughts that follow. What a different thing it appears reduced to visible agencies! An old sprawling man, casting his body, with open palms and extended arms, into a chaotic confusion of gloomy colours, is not without the wild and indefinable feeling of poetry, I admit; but how much is it inferior to mere thought, or even thought as it may be expressed in language! Had Raphael painted that sublime verse of the Bible—“And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” in this compartment of the gallery, he would have commenced his subject as well, perhaps, as by human means it can ever be presented to human senses.

It is wondered that one who could conceive of even the old man throwing his body into chaos, should have fallen so low as the idea of the next picture. In the compartment of the gallery that follows, the same old man is represented starting a planet in its orbit with each hand, and setting the moon, or some other heavenly body, in motion, with a kick of his foot! Criticism applied to such a thought would be thrown away.

I am not going the rounds of the galleries and museums with you; but you will be curious to know what impression the great works of art have produced on me. Six or eight of the most celebrated easel pictures of the world are in the Vatican. They are kept in a room by themselves, for the convenience of being copied. The Transfiguration is at their head; and the Communion of St. Jerome is placed at its side, as its great rival. Of these pictures I prefer the last; though the delineation of an old man certainly admits most of the trickery of the art. I think, were the choice mine, I would select many pictures before the Transfiguration. Still, it is a great picture, and in some respects, perhaps, unequalled. Its beauties, too, are of a high order, being principally intellectual, and its faults are more mechanical. I must think, however, that this picture owes a portion of its great reputation to the fact that it was the last the artist painted; and he died, as one may say, with its subject in his mind.

Most of the statuary is placed in long galleries, through which one walks for hours with absorbing interest. The precision and nature with which the ancients wrought brutes is surprising; more especially dogs in attitudes which, while they are both natural and beautiful, are seldom long maintained. This skill denotes a German minuteness that one hardly expects from the Romans. But the most precious of the statues are in a tribune, beautifully arranged as to light, and so placed as to permit the spectator, virtually, to see but one at a time. This is a great improvement on the ordinary gallery disposition; for the crowd of objects usually causes confusion rather than delight, on a first visit. A great number of grave-stones of martyred Christians have been collected, and are preserved here. They are recognised by the cross, which, it is known, was carved on them.

Certainly, it was a sensation when I first found myself in the gallery of this tribune,—perhaps it is better to call it a colonnade, or a portico. This place contains many minor attractions; but its principal works are the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Antinous, with the Perseus, and the Boxers of Canova.

It is unfortunate that the Perseus should be so near the Apollo, for the points of resemblance are sufficiently obvious. This latter statue surpassed all my expectations, familiar as one becomes with it by copies; and yet it is now conjectured that it is itself merely a copy! I write with diffidence on so delicate a point; but such is the suspicion that it is whispered so loud that any one may hear it. It is said it has been ascertained that the marble is of Carrara, a circumstance that at once destroys its Greek origin. If this be a copy, the original was probably of bronze, and is now corroding somewhere in the earth, if, indeed, it be not melted down. The polished roundness of this statue, which shows a pretty even surface for want of muscles, may account for a copy of so much beauty. The expression is principally in the attitude, which might be imitated with mathematical accuracy; and though the most pleasing, and, in some respects, the noblest statue known, I should think it one of those the most easily reproduced by skilful artists. For your comfort I will add, that the casts and copies of this statue that are usually seen in America, bear some such resemblance to the original as a military uniform made in a country village bears to the regulation suit ordered by government and invented by a crack town-tailor. You get the colour, facings and buttons, with such a cut and fit as Providence may direct. The Dying Gladiator and the Faun are in the collection of the Capitol. I think this distribution of the chefs d’œuvre unfortunate.

Whatever may be the truth as respects the Apollo, one would find it almost impossible to believe the Laocoon a copy; though I believe the profane have whispered even this calumny. There are one or two good copies of this work, but it struck me that no one could closely imitate the surface. It is true, we have no original to compare it with, and may fancy that perfect, which, strictly would prove to be otherwise; for men are often deceived in the details, when there is great merit in the principal features of a work. Certainly, I think the Laocoon the noblest piece of statuary that the world possesses.

Pliny mentions this statue, or at least one of the same nature, as the masterpiece of Grecian art that was then to be found in Rome. He ascribes it to three statuaries! If this fact were well authenticated, I should hesitate about believing it any thing more than a copy from the bronze. Is not Pliny’s authority enough, you may be inclined to ask, to settle a question like this?—I think not. Pliny wrote about the year 90. Winkelman refers this statue to the age of Alexander the Great; who died four centuries earlier. Now, you may judge how much more likely Pliny, in the condition of the world in his time, would be, than we ourselves, to get at the truth of a similar fact of an old date. Europe is filled with pictures that the imputed artists never saw. The celebrated “Belle Jardinière” of the Louvre is said to be a copy surreptitiously obtained by Mazarin; and I remember one day, when admiring the beautiful Marriage of St. Catharine, in the same gallery, to have been almost persuaded against my will that it was a copy, and yet Correggio has not been dead three centuries.

While writing this letter, I find proof of the doubtful character of authorities. The work of Mrs. Starke is well known, and it certainly has great merit in its way. This lady, however, like most of her sex, has no definite notions of distances, surfaces, &c. Few mere writers have; for they usually are not practical people. In speaking of the Vatican, Mrs. Starke, whom I had consulted with the hope of being able to give you something in feet and inches, says, its “present circumference is computed to be near seventy thousand feet.” To adopt this lady’s own mode of expressing admiration, “!!!!” A mile contains five thousand two hundred and eighty feet; and this will make a circumference of rather more than thirteen miles which is but little short of the circuit of the existing walls of Rome. Seven thousand feet may be true; though even that appears a large allowance to me.

As respects the comparison between manuscripts and books, the latter are more to be depended on for accuracy, since, although liable to errors of the press, the number of the editions leaves more opportunities for correction than the system of publishing by written copies. The last edition of a standard work is always chosen for its correctness, especially if printed during the author’s life; but who can say when the few manuscripts of Pliny that we possess were written out? when, or by whom, or under what correction? To lay much stress, therefore, on a fact that must necessarily be traditional, or taken at second-hand, and which rest altogether on the testimony of a book, is far from safe. There are things of public notoriety in particular places, at the time of their publication, on which a writer may generally be trusted; but when we come to matters of second-hand intelligence, or which are less notorious, it is wiser to believe a circumstance, than to believe a sentence in a book, however well turned. If the Apollo be truly of Carrara marble, for instance, it is scarcely probable it can be a Grecian statue, and then it is at once reduced to the rank of a copy; for no Roman sculptor could have made it. The alternative is to suppose it the work of some Greek, in Italy. It is just possible, it is true, that a block of Carrara marble may have found its way to Greece; but, admitting this, it would scarcely have been used by the artist of the Apollo, on an original of so much merit and importance.

The fresco painting of the Last Judgment, by Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, is one of the most extraordinary blendings of the grand and the monstrous in art. You know the anecdote of this painter’s coming into the Farnesina Palace here, when Raphael was employed on its celebrated frescoes, among which is the Galatea, and finding no one in the room, by way of contempt for the prettiness of the divine master, his sketching a gigantic head in a cornice with coal. This head still remains, Raphael, having had the good-nature not to disturb it, and every one sees it as a proof of the rivalry of these celebrated men. Michael Angelo has painted the Last Judgment with the same ideas of the grand as he sketched the Farnesina head. It is not a pleasing picture, the subject scarcely admitting of this; but it is certainly an extraordinary one. I never see the works of these two men without thinking what an artist Buonarotti would have made had he possessed Raphael’s gentleness and sensibility to beauty; as one is apt to fancy what Shakspeare might have done with Milton’s subject, had he enjoyed the advantages of Milton’s learning and taste. There would have been no stealing from Virgil, through Dante, in the latter case.

I refer you to the regular books for the detailed accounts of the treasures of art with which not only the Vatican, but all Rome abounds, my own gleanings being intended for little more than my own feelings and ruminations.