LETTER LXVII.

CORSINI PALACE-FARNESINA, AND THE FARNESE.

You may generally form a tolerably correct conjecture of what a gallery will contain, as to subject, before you enter it.

A certain quantity of Landscapes, a great many Holy Families, a few Crucifixions, two or three Pietàs, a reasonable proportion of Saint Jeromes, a mixture of other Saints and Martyrdoms, and a large assortment of Madonnas and Magdalens, make up the principal part of all the collections in Rome; which are generally composed of quite as many bad as good paintings, like this at the Corsini Palace.

How much more pleasure there would be in seeing them, if the good were placed apart for your inspection, and you were not sickened and disgusted with the quantity of rubbish you must sift, to find those really worth looking at !

I have been persecuted all this morning with a connoisseur, full of the cant of connoisseurship without one particle of real feeling for the beauties of

the art—a man who walks about the world, seeing, and thinking, and feeling, with other people's eyes, and understanding, and taste-who does not say what he thinks, but thinks what he shall say-who is, in short, a determined dilettanti by rule. But, perhaps, what he is to me I am to you, for, though no connoisseur, I may be sufficiently wearisome; and as one's own sufferings dispose one to pity those of others, I will endeavour to mitigate yours, and give you a very short account of a very large gallery of pictures.

The first we saw was the Ecce Homo of Guercino, a painting which, notwithstanding the painful nature of the subject, and all its hackneyed representations, is full of such deep and powerful expression, is so elevated in its conception, and so faultless in its execution, that it awakens our highest admiration, and leaves an indelible impression on the mind.

There are two fine portraits, Paul III., when Cardinal Farnese, and Julius II., by Raphael. If the last be an original, which I am inclined to think, it is a triplicate, for I have seen one at Florence and another at Naples. There is besides an admirable portrait by Giorgione, and a Rabbit and a Cardinal by Albert Durer; two Cardinals by Domenichino, and a Pope by Velasquez—all good, though Velasquez does not, in this effort, reach his usual excellence in portrait-painting; and Scipione di Gaeti has left a portrait here which would certainly not entitle him to the name of "the Vandyke of the Roman School."

Tintoretto's portrait of a Doge, I could not be brought to admire. That most rapid of painters was also the most unequal, and his inequality was unpardonable, because wilful. With more avidity for money than fame, he would paint pictures to any price, and proportion their merit to their cost; and he, who could finish historical pieces faster than others could conceive them,* would throw portraits off his hands that would have disgraced his meanest apprentice. One of the Albani's in this collection, in which Cupid is supplicating Venus to restore his arrows which she has taken from him, is full of grace and beauty..

Morillo's Virgin and Child is a splendid piece of colouring, and nature itself; but there is nothing elevated or ideal in it. Let us fancy it a mother and baby in the lower walks of life, and there will be no fault.

To Caravaggio's Holy Family the same remark applies. There is nothing holy in it; but it is a beautiful painting in its way, and true to nature. Fra' Bartolomeo's Holy Family is of a much higher class, and is one of the best of his works in Rome. Many other good, though not first-rate paintings, are dispersed about the rooms; amongst these, a spirited Tyger Hunt, by Rubens, in his best style,

* He completed his grand composition in the Scuola di San Rocco, before the other artists employed to paint the rest of the hall had half done their sketches. Nobody can judge of Tintoretto out of Venice, any more than of Raphael out of Rome.

caught our attention. tle landscapes by Salvator Rosa, without his usual mannerism and blackness. But the real treasures of the collection are the landscapes of Gaspar Poussin; one, in particular, which they call Rinaldo and Armida, certainly has something of the witchery of the enchantress about it, for it charmed me so much, that I returned to the palace again and again to look at it. A Judith, with the head of Holofernes, which I saw this morning, reminded me a little of that exquisite painting by Bronzino,* of the same subject, in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence. The extreme calmness and placidity which Judith usually wears after perpetrating a deed of such blood and horror, is surely unnatural and disgusting. Perhaps there is nothing so revolting as the semblance of cruelty in woman. Painters would do well to remember Aristotle's precept to the sex, "that women should never leave their natural character, nor appear invested with cruelty or bold

There are two beautiful lit

This palace was the habitation of Christina of Sweden, who certainly did not follow that excellent precept. The room in which she died is distinguished by two columns of yellow painted wood. This collection of paintings has been formed since her death. So also has the library, which is a very

* His proper name was Cristofolo Allori, dêtto il Bronzino, -a title sometimes also given to his brothers, who were paint

ers.

fine one, and possesses a most valuable collection of prints; but I will spare you the description. Do not, however, forget to see it.

With that liberality characteristic of the Italians in every thing relating to literature and the arts, this library is open to the public.

The gardens are quite in the Italian style, very stiff and formal, divided with high evergreen hedges, decorated with bad statues, and furnished with multifarious Giuochi d'Acqua. The war is carried on most successfully against nature and taste; and the grounds are more frightful than you would, à priori, have thought it possible to have made them, beneath such a sky as this.

They extend to the summit of Mount Janiculus, and the view from the Casino at the top, is said to be very beautiful, though inferior to that from St Pietro in Montorio. I will not speak of what I have not seen-accidental circumstances have prevented me from visiting it, but I have no doubt the prospect would amply recompense the toil of the

ascent.

THE FARNESIA.

The Corsini is one of the many uninhabited palaces in the deserted region of Trastevere. Exactly opposite to it, in the long, wide, and grassgrown street of the Lungara, stands the Farnesina, a melancholy Casino, which was originally built for the scene of a grand entertainment, given by a rich Roman banker to Leo X. But it now, unfortu