Venus di Medici-Titian's Venuses-Death of a Child.

FLORENCE, May.

DEAR E.-I do not design to write you often from Florence, since the great attraction here are the paintings and statuary, and those cannot be written about. You wish, of course, to know what I think of the Venus di Medici. Like all others I am disappointed at first sight. The head and face certainly are inferior in expression and power to the rest of the figure. But the form itself grows on one the oftener he sees it, till it becomes a part of the world of beauty within, and enters into all his after creations. The Tribune, as it is called, or circular room, in which it stands, is a rare spot. A row of the choicest statuary surrounds it, while the walls are hung with exquisite paintings. The two naked Venuses by Titian, hanging behind the Venus di Medici, are admirably painted, but to me disgusting pictures, from their almost beastly sensuality. I should think Titian might have conceived the design of them when half drunk, and took his models from a brothel. I have no patience with such prostitution of genius. The marble Venus has something of the goddess about her. There is an atmosphere of purity-divinity if you please—surrounding it, that holds you as by a spell.

The Flora, so called, of Titian, in another apartment of this gallery, is surpassingly lovely. I would give his two Venuses, nay, a hundred of them, for this single picture. The group of Niobe disappointed me. With the exception of Niobe herself and her two daughters, the figures struck me as commonplace. This whole royal gallery is a wealth of art. It was once offered to PITT for a reasonable sum, but that statesman had got England too deep under water already to plunge her deeper by the purchase of works of art.

In the cabinet of antique bronzes is an eagle of the 24th Roman Legion. I do not know when I have seen an object that interested me more. Long, long ago, when Rome was in her glory, it had soared aloft amid the smoke of battle and the shock of armies, the sign and hope of this glorious old legion, leading it on to victory and triumph. It had survived all who bore it, and, like the legion itself, had now sunk to rest. Its brazen wings will no more float over the field of the slain, nor its victorious beak bathe itself in the blood of its foes. It is now only a relic like the tombs of the Cæsars themselves.

The Pitti gallery, in the Ducal Palace, is the finest collection of paintings in the world, but I shall not describe one-only, if you ever go there, inquire out a head said to be by Vandyke, because they don't know to whom else to attribute it. Every artist will know what you mean. I consider it the most perfect head and face ever painted.

This evening I went to the "Cascine," or royal farms, constituting the great public drive and promenade of Florence. The Duke's family were strolling around, quite at their ease, and the whole place was as lively as Hyde Park at 5 o'clock in the evening. I walked home by the Arno, and entering the city, witnessed one of those spectacles that are constantly intruding themselves in our brighest dreams, and turning this world into a place of tears. As I was passing along the street, a little child hung playfully across the sill of a window, in the fourth story; suddenly it lost its balance, and came like a flash of light to the pavement. Its delicate form was crushed into one common mass by the blow. The mother rushed down like a frantic creature, and snatching it to her bosom, hurried with it into the house. A few spectators gathered around the pool of blood it had left on the pavement. I turned away sick at heart, and thinking how little it took to turn this beautiful world into a gloomy prison house.

But sauntering shortly after into a café, I forgot the mother, in the gay groups that surrounded me. Here I met my friend Ferguson, a noble man, whose face always made me think better of my race. I afterwards crossed the Arno, and spent the evening with an English family, composed of some seven or eight in all, and intimate friends of Carlyle. The conversation turned

on America, and I could not restrain a smile, at the queer and endless questions put me of our country; though I must say, none of them were quite so absurd as a remark once made to one of my most distinguished country women when in England. Speaking of the United States, this English lady very profoundedly observed that the climate in our country must be delightfully cool in the summer, from the winds blowing over the Cordilleras mountains. Most of their questions were of our Indians, and their forest and prairie life; how they looked, walked, and talked, and what they wore. (With regard to the latter, I could have much better told what they did not wear.) At last I went over their mode of warfare, and when I came to speak of their terrific war-whoop the signal of the onset-a sweet creature of fifteen, who had hitherto sat in perfect silence, and staring eyes, and lips apart, suddenly exclaimed, "Oh! cannot you show us how that war-whoop sounds?" I stopped and thought a moment, and it was well I did, for the temptation was almost irresistible to send that excitable creature, like a startled pigeon, from her seat by a sudden whoop, which, whether Indian-like or not, would most certainly have met with a response. I had slightly learned the art, when a boy, from an old Indian, to whom I used to give a cent a whoop, just to feel my blood shiver, as, with his fingers rapidly beating his lips, he sent that wild, wavering cry, with startling power along the mountains; and I felt a most wicked desire just then to test my gifts. Why is it one feels at times this irresistible impulse to do some out-of-the-way thing, just to witness its effect? Just then Carlyle, with his massive head, rose before me; and I imagined him quietly asking me if I called that " а well authenticated whoop."

Late at night I left this circle of kind friends, with whom I had spent many a pleasant hour in Italy, and with the full round moon riding over the quiet city, and throwing its silver beams on the waters and bridges of the Arno, turning them all into poetry and beauty, I passed along through the deserted streets, to the Piazza della Santa Croce. The sound of my own footsteps, echoing amid the silent palaces; and the glimmering moonlight, bathing all in its saddening beams, filled me with strange feelings, almost

like forebodings; and I arrived at my lodgings as different a man from the one I was when amid my Indian battles, as if I had changed souls within the last half hour. Metempsychosis does not seem at times so strange a belief, after all.

Truly yours.

STROLL THROUGH FLORENCE.

207

LETTER XLII.

Stroll through Florence-A Dominican Friar.

FLORENCE.

DEAR E.-The Duomo, beautiful as it is, I shall not attempt to describe, nor the Chapel of the Medici. Oh, what a strange history is that of the family of the Medici! What bloody murders and vice stain its greatness! If that Pitti palace could give back all the revels and groans it has heard, no man would enter its portals.

The gardens around Florence are beautiful, and the "Giardino di Boboli" a fairy land. You can stroll for hours through it without satiety. Florence is livelier than most of the Italian towns, and I should prefer it far before any other portion of Italy, as a place of residence. The custom of putting a marble tablet over the doors of houses, where some distinguished character has lived or died, saves one a deal of trouble. Thus you sec where Dante was born-Corinna lived-Americus Vespucci(the discoverer of America, as the inscription states)-made it his home-and last, though not least, on the hill near Galileo's tower, the house where the great astronomer died.

To-day has been one of my strolling days, and I have wander ed hither and thither in search of incident and new objects. In the morning I went to Fiesoli, perched on a hill-top, and overlooking the gardens of Florence and the rich plain through which the Arno winds. I forgot its Etruscan relics in the lovely view that was spread out below me. From this point, Florence looks like a beautiful picture framed in a garden, which is itself framed by the beautiful hills.

Walking in the afternoon along the main street, I met Mr. C-a, an Italian exile. I had not seen him since he left the United States, and did not expect to meet him here. As he recog