ROME.

LETTER I.

FLORENCE, December 5, 1816.

WE are here to-day," as my uncle Toby says,

"but

gone to-morrow;" at least I hope so-for Rome, the object of all our thoughts and desires, which we have so long ardently wished, and so little, till lately, expected ever to see-Rome is at length before us, and the nearer we approach to it, the more impatient we become to reach it; so that, in spite of all the attractions of Florence, and all the entreaties of our friends, though we only arrived last night, we set off to-morrow morning.

We had resolved to see nothing here till our return: but it is easier to form such resolutions than to keep them; and we found it impossible to resist giving a passing glance to a few of the many farfamed objects of interest this seat of art contains. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, we set off

to pay a visit to the Venus di Medicis, whose morning levee we found already crowded with a circle of the ardent admirers who daily pour forth their rapturous adoration at her feet. With feelings of high-wrought expectation we entered the presencechamber; a crimson, octagonal hall of the gallery called the tribune, where, bright in eternal youth and matchless beauty, "stands the statue that enchants the world."

But my expectations had been so highly raised, and, I suppose, so far exceeded possibility, that my first sensation, I confess it with shame, was disappointment ;-nay, I am by no means sure that it was not in some degree my last; for although new beauties continually rose upon me as I contemplated her form of perfect symmetry and more than feminine grace, the soul was wanting; the expression, the sentiment I sought for, was not there; she did not come up to the soul-seducing image in my mind. It was not a goddess, nor a celestial being that I saw before me-it was a woman, a lovely and graceful woman certainly ;-but still I think that I have actually seen women, real living women, almost as beautiful, and far more interesting; and, indeed, to confess the truth,-I thought her legs were rather thick, and her face very insipid. But remember, that in giving you my undissembled opinion, I make an honest avowal, not a presumptuous criticism; I know that the censure I would pass on her recoils on myself-that it does not prove her want of beauty, but my want of taste; and, convinced of this mortifying truth, I quitted her

presence at last, with no small vexation to find that I could not feel, as I ought, the full force of that unapproached perfection, which has rendered this renowned statue the idol of successive generations, the triumph of art, and the standard of taste.

I suppose, after confessing myself disappointed in this, it signifies not what I can say of any thing else; but I cannot pass wholly unnoticed the beautiful Grecian statues, the pride of Florence, that, inferior only to its boasted Venus, are ranged around her, like satellites around a planet. I say inferior, for beautiful as they are, they are not to be compared with her. The dullest perception, and the most perverted taste, must be struck with her superiority. Far as she fell below my perhaps extravagant expectations, as far she surpasses every statue that I have ever seen, or perhaps ever may see. But I expected the distance that divided her from the rest to be more immeasurable and I found, or fancied, defects, when I looked for nothing but perfection.

But let us turn from the Venus, to the Whetter, or Rémouleur, or Arrotino, or by whatever name, English, French, or Italian, the famous statue of a kneeling slave, whetting his knife, is be to called. This admirable figure is represented in the act of suspending his employment, and looking up as if to listen to something that is said to him. It is generally supposed that he represents a slave overhearing the conspiracy of Catiline: but I cannot remember that any slave did overhear that conspiracy, neither do I see how any body can be so very

sure that he is overhearing any conspiracy at all. To me his countenance expresses none of that astonishment, horror, and eager curiosity, that the surreptitious listener to such a dark and momentous plot would naturally feel.-If he must needs be overhearing a conspiracy, the supposition that it was that formed by the sons of Brutus, which really was discovered in this manner, is surely more probable. Livy, (you will please to observe, I am fresh from reading him) Livy tells us that a slave, who had previously suspected, and even learnt something of their plans, overheard the conspirators at supper, talking over their treasonable designs, and obtained the means of convicting them, by finding out where and when their letters might be seized.* Now the expression of this statue seems to me to accord perfectly with this situation. The full confirmation of his suspicions; the conviction that he had the traitors in his power; the certainty that he could give the information that would ruin them, and make his own fortune-all this I fancied I could see in it; but I dare say it is nothing else but fancy, The attitude of the man sharpening his knife upon a whetstone, made me once think that it might be intended for Accius Navius, that famous soothsayer, who declared "he could do what the king was thinking of;" and when Tarquin tauntingly said, "I was thinking whether you could cut that whetstone through with a

* Livy, l. ii. c 4.

razor," immediately severed it in two. The statue of this miraculous soothsayer was placed in the Forum ; * but I don't think I can prove either that this figure is a soothsayer, or that he is cutting stones with a razor, so that I shall not insist upon your believing it. Indeed, it is evidently a work of a far higher era of art than any which could have commemorated the events of Roman story. Nor did the great artists of Greece, by one of whom this masterpiece of sculpture must have been executed-ever in any one instance, take their subjects from history,not even from the glorious history of their own country. It is to Mythology, to Poetry, and to Fable, that all ancient sculpture must be referred. By far the best conjecture I have ever heard respecting this statue is, that it represents the Scythian whom Apollo commanded to flay Marsyas.†

Be it what it may, however, it is a work of no common genius, and may perhaps be considered as faultless in its kind. The unknown artist, indeed, has not aspired to the lofty height of ideal beauty; he has not sought to realize the forms that visit the fancy of inspired genius, or to reveal to mortal sight the shape inhabited by a deity. But in that which he has attempted his success is complete. It is

* Livy, l. i. c. 36.

+ The statue of Marsyas suspended to the trunk of a tree, is also in the Florentine gallery. Another, and a finer representation of the same horrible subject, is at the Villa Albani,' at Rome.