louis; and of which, though it is a capo d' opera of Titian, as I am no connoisseur, I say little, and thought less, except of one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and some very fine Giorgiones amongst them, etc., etc. There is an original Laura and Petrarch, very hideous both. Petrarch has not only the dress, but the features and air of an old woman, and Laura looks by no means like a young one, or a pretty one. What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day amongst the existing Italians. The queen of Cyprus 1 and Giorgione's wife,2 particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, — and, to my mind, there is none finer.

You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of painting; and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think it possible to see, for which [reason] I spit upon and abhor all the Saints and subjects of one-half the impostures I see in the churches and palaces; and when in Flanders, I never was so disgusted in my life as with Rubens and his eternal wives and infernal glare of colours, as they appeared to me; and in Spain I did not think much of Murillo and Velasquez. Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is the most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture

1 Catharine Cornaro, on whose abdication, in 1489, the island of Cyprus was acquired by Venice.

2 An error: Giorgione was unmarried.

or the statue

which came within a league of my concep

tion or expectation; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it, besides some horses; and a lion (at Veli Pasha's) in the Morea; and a tiger at supper in Exeter 'Change.

TO JOHN MURRAY

VENICE, April 14, 1817.

The third act is certainly damned bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which savoured of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be published in its present state. I will try and reform it, or rewrite it altogether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making anything out of it. I would not have it published as it is on any account. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is the only part of this act I thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me.

I am very glad indeed that you sent me Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction.2 Do you suppose me such a Sotheby as not to be very much obliged to him? or that in fact I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense?

I shall try at it again: in the meantime, lay it upon the

1 "Manfred."

2 Murray sent Byron Gifford's objections to act iii of "Manfred," which, Murray says, "he does not by any means like."

shelf (the whole drama, I mean): but pray correct your copies of the first and second acts by the original MS.

I am not coming to England; but going to Rome in a few days.1 I return to Venice in June: so, pray, address all letters, etc., to me here, as usual,- that is, to Venice. Dr. Polidori this day left this city with Lord Guilford for England. He is charged with some books to your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same address, both for my sister.

Recollect not to publish, upon pain of I know not what, until I have tried again at the third act. I am not sure that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed, if I do; but I am very sure, that (as it is) it is unfit for publication or perusal; and unless I can make it out to my own satisfaction, I won't have any part published.

TO JOHN MURRAY

FOLIGNO, April 26, 1817.

At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for Rome, to which I am thus far advanced. However, I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The Venus2 is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which for the first time at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant, and what Mr. Braham calls "entusimusy" (i. e.

1 Byron left Venice soon after the middle of April, passing through Ferrara, Florence, and Foligno, on his way to Rome. He returned to Venice towards the end of May.

2 Venus dei Medici.

enthusiasm) about those two most artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the mistress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici gallery - the Venus; Canova's Venus also in the other gallery: Titian's mistress is also in the other gallery (that is, in the Pitti Palace gallery); the Parcæ of Michael Angelo, a picture; and the Antinous the Alexander and one or two not decent very groups in marble; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, etc., etc. I also went to the Medici chapel1-fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten carcases. It is unfinished, and will remain so.

The church of "Santa Croce" contains much illustrious nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo Galilei, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy. I did not admire any of these tombs beyond their contents. That of Alfieri is heavy, and all of them seem to me overloaded. What is necessary but a bust and name? and perhaps a date?—the last for the unchronological, of whom I am one. But all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies in the statuary of the reigns of Charles, William, and Anne.

TO JOHN MURRAY

ROME, May 5, 1817.

DEAR SIR, By this post (or next at farthest) I send

you, in two other covers, the new third act of Manfred. I 1 See "Childe Harold," IV, stanza lx.