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OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LETTER L. p. 63.

A VIEW OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS

ITALY.

Rome.

It is natural to regret, that, of the number of antique statues which have come to us tolerably entire, so great a proportion are representations of gods and goddesses. Had they been intended for real persons, we might have had a perfect knowledge of the face and figure of the greatest part of the most distinguished citizens of ancient Greece and Rome. A man of unrelaxing wisdom would smile with contempt, and ask, if our having perfect representations of all the heroes, poets, and philosophers recorded in history, would make us either wiser or more learned? to which I answer, That there are a great many things, which neither can add to my small stock of learning nor wisdom, and yet give me more pleasure and satisfaction than those which do; and, unfortunately for mankind, the greatest part of them resemble me in this particular.

But though I would with pleasure have given up a great number of the Jupiters and Apollos and Venuses, whose statues we have, in exchange for an equal, or even a smaller, number of mere mortals whom I could name; I by no means consider the statues of those deities as uninteresting. Though they are imaginary beings, yet each of them has a distinct character of his own of classical authority, which has long been impressed on our memories; and we assume the right of deciding on the artist's skill, and applauding or blaming, as he has succeeded or failed in expressing the established character of the god intended. From the ancient artists having exercised their genius in forming the images of an order of beings superior to mankind, another and a greater advantage is supposed to have followed; it prompted the artists to attempt the uniting in one form, the various beauties and excellencies which nature had dispersed in many. This was not so easy a task as may by some be imagined; for that which has a fine effect in one particular face or person, may appear a deformity when combined with a different complexion, different features, or a different shape. It therefore required great judgment and taste to collect those various graces, and combine them with elegance and truth; and repeated efforts of this kind are imagined to have inspired some of the ancient sculptors with sublimer ideas of beauty than nature herself ever exhibited, as appears in some of their works which have reached our own times.

It is disputed whether this groupe was formed from Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon and his sons, or the description made from the groupe; it is evident, from their minute resemblance, that one or other must have been the case. The Poet mentions a circumstance, which could not be represented by the sculptor; he says that, although every other person around sought safety by flight, the father was attacked by the serpents, while he was advancing to the assistance of his sons--

--auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem.

This deficiency in the sculptor's art would have been finely supplied by the improvement which Mr. Lock proposed.

Reflecting on the dreadful condition of three persons entangled in the horrid twinings of serpents, and after contemplating the varied anguish so strongly expressed in their countenances, it is a relief to turn the eye to the heavenly figure of the Apollo. To form an adequate idea of the beauty of this statue, it is absolutely necessary to see it. With all the advantages of colour and life, the human form never appeared so beautiful; and we never can sufficiently admire the artist, who has endowed marble with a finer expression of grace, dignity, and understanding, than ever were seen in living features. In the forming of this inimitable figure, the artist seems to have wrought after an ideal form of beauty, superior to any in nature, and which existed only in his own imagination.

The admired statue of Antinous is in the same Court. Nothing can be more light, elegant, and easy; the proportions are exact, and the execution perfect. It is an exquisite representation of the most beautiful youth that ever lived.

The statue of Apollo represents something superior, and the emotions it excites are all of the sublime cast.

Rome.

The present Pope, who has assumed the name of Pius the Sixth, is a tall, well-made man, about sixty years of age, but retaining in his look all the freshness of a much earlier period of life. He lays a greater stress on the ceremonious part of religion than his predecessor Ganganelli, in whose reign a great relaxation of church-discipline is thought to have taken place. The late Pope was a man of moderation, good sense, and simplicity of manners; and could not go through all the ostentatious parade which his station required, without reluctance, and marks of disgust. He knew that the opinions of mankind had undergone a very great change since those ceremonies were established; and that some of the most respectable of the spectators considered as perfectly frivolous many things which formerly had been held as sacred. A man of good sense may seem to lay the greatest weight on ceremonies which he himself considers as ridiculous, provided he thinks the people, in whose sight he goes through them, are impressed with a conviction of their importance; but if he knows that some of the beholders are entirely of a different way of thinking, he will be strongly tempted to evince, by some means or other, that he despises the fooleries he performs, as much as any of them. This, in all probability, was the case with Ganganelli; who, besides, was an enemy to fraud and hypocrisy of every kind. But, however remiss he may have been with regard to the etiquette of his spiritual functions, every body acknowledges his diligence and activity in promoting the temporal good of his subjects. He did all in his power to revive trade, and to encourage manufactures and industry of every kind. He built no churches, but he repaired the roads all over the ecclesiastical state; he restrained the malevolence of bigots, removed absurd prejudices, and promoted sentiments of charity and good-will to mankind in general, without excepting even heretics. His enemies, the Jesuits, with an intention to make him odious in the eyes of his own subjects, gave him the name of the Protestant Pope. If they supposed that this calumny would be credited, on account of the conduct above mentioned, they at once paid the highest compliment to the Pope and the Protestant religion. The careless manner in which Ganganelli performed certain functions, and the general tenour of his life and sentiments, were lamented by politicians, as well as by bigots. However frivolous the former might think many ceremonies in themselves, they still considered them as of political importance, in such a government as that of Rome; and the Conclave held on the death of the late Pope, are thought to have been in some degree influenced by such considerations in chusing his successor. The present Pope, before he was raised to that dignity, was considered as a firm believer in all the tenets of the Roman Church, and a strict and scrupulous observer of all its injunctions and ceremonials. As his pretensions, in point of family, fortune, and connexions, were smaller than those of most of his brother cardinals, it is the more probable that he owed his elevation to this part of his character, which rendered him a proper person to check the progress of abuses that had been entirely neglected by the late Pope; under whose administration free-thinking was said to have been countenanced, Protestantism in general regarded with diminished abhorrence, and the Calvinists in particular treated with a degree of indulgence, to which their inveterate enmity to the church of Rome gave them no title. Several instances of this are enumerated, and one in particular, which, I dare say, you will think a stronger proof of the late Pope's good sense and good humour, than of that negligence to which his enemies imputed it.

A Scotch presbyterian having heated his brain, by reading the Book of Martyrs, the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, and the Histories of all the persecutions that ever were raised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants, was seized with a dread, that the same horrors were just about to be renewed. This terrible idea disturbed his imagination day and night; he thought of nothing but racks and scaffolds; and, on one occasion, he dreamt that there was a continued train of bonfires, with a tar-barrel and a Protestant in each, all the way from Smithfield to St. Andrews.

He directly applied to an ecclesiastic of his own country, of whose obliging temper he had previously heard, and whom he considered as a proper person to procure him an interview necessary for the accomplishment of his project. He informed that gentleman, that he earnestly wished to have a conference with the Pope, on a business of infinite importance, and which admitted of no delay. It was not difficult to perceive the state of this poor man's mind; the good-natured ecclesiastic endeavoured to sooth and amuse him, putting off the conference till a distant day; in hopes that means might be fallen on, during the interval, to prevail on him to return to his own country. A few days after this, however, he happened to go to St. Peter's church, at the very time when his Holiness was performing some religious ceremony. At this sight our impatient missionary felt all his passions inflamed with irresistible ardour; he could no longer wait for the expected conference, but bursting out with zealous indignation, he exclaimed, "O thou beast of nature, with seven heads and ten horns! thou mother of harlots, arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! throw away the golden cup of abominations, and the filthiness of thy fornication!"

You may easily imagine the astonishment and hubbub that such an apostrophe, from such a person, in such a place, would occasion; he was immediately carried to prison by the Swiss halberdiers.

When it was known that he was a British subject, some who understood English were ordered to attend his examination. The first question asked of him was, "What had brought him to Rome?" He answered, "To anoint the eyes of the scarlet whore with eye-salve, that she might see her wickedness." They asked, "Who he meant by the scarlet whore?" He answered, "Who else could he mean, but her who sitteth upon seven mountains, who hath seduced the kings of the earth to commit fornication, and who hath gotten drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs?" Many other questions were asked, and such provoking answers returned, that some suspected the man affected madness, that he might give vent to his rancour and petulance with impunity; and they were for condemning him to the gallies, that he might be taught more sense, and better manners. But when they communicated their sentiments to Clement the Fourteenth, he said, with great good humour, "That he never had heard of any body whose understanding, or politeness, had been much improved at that school; that although the poor man's first address had been a little rough and abrupt, yet he could not help considering himself as obliged to him for his good intentions, and for his undertaking such a long journey with a view to do good." He afterwards gave orders to treat the man with gentleness while he remained in confinement, and to put him on board the first ship bound from Civita Vecchia to England, defraying the expence of his passage. However humane and reasonable this conduct may be thought by many, there were people who condemned it as an injudicious piece of lenity, which might have a tendency to sink the dignity of the sacred office, and expose it to future insults. If such behaviour as this did not pass without blame, it may be easily supposed, that few of the late Pope's actions escaped uncensured; and many who loved the easy amiable dispositions of the man, were of opinion, that the spirit of the times required a different character on the Papal throne. This idea prevailed among the Cardinals at the late election, and the Conclave is supposed to have fixed on Cardinal Braschi to be Pope, from the same motive that the Roman senate sometimes chose a Dictator to restore and enforce the ancient discipline.

Rome.

There is one door into the church of St. Peter's, which is called the Holy Door. This is always walled up, except on this distinguished year; and even then no person is permitted to enter by it, but in the humblest posture. The pilgrims, and many others, prefer crawling into the church upon their knees, by this door; to walking in, the usual way, by any other. I was present at the shutting up of this Holy Door. The Pope being seated on a raised seat, or kind of throne, surrounded by Cardinals and other ecclesiastics, an anthem was sung, accompanied by all sorts of musical instruments. During the performance, his Holiness descended from the throne, with a golden trowel in his hand, placed the first brick, and applied some mortar; he then returned to his seat, and the door was instantly built up by more expert, though less hallowed, workmen; and will remain as it is now, till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it will be again opened, by the Pope then in being, with the same solemnity that it has been now shut. Though his Holiness places but a single brick, yet it is very remarkable that this never fails to communicate its influence, in such a rapid and powerful manner, that, within about an hour, or at most an hour and a half, all the other bricks, which form the wall of the Holy Door, acquire an equal degree of sanctity with that placed by the Pope's own hands. The common people and pilgrims are well acquainted with this wonderful effect. At the beginning of this Jubilee-year, when the late wall was thrown down, men, women, and children scrambled and fought for the fragments of the bricks and mortar, with the same eagerness which less enlightened mobs display, on days of public rejoicing, when handfuls of money are thrown among them. I have been often assured that those pieces of brick, besides their sanctity, have also the virtue of curing many of the most obstinate diseases: and, if newspapers were permitted at Rome, there is not the least reason to doubt, that those cures would be attested publicly by the patients, in a manner as satisfactory and convincing as are the cures performed daily by the pills, powders, drops, and balsams advertised in the London newspapers. After the shutting of the Holy Door, mass was celebrated at midnight; and the ceremony was attended by vast multitudes of people. For my own part, I suspended my curiosity till next day, which was Christmas-day, when I returned again to St. Peter's church, and saw the Pope perform mass on that solemn occasion. His Holiness went through all the evolutions of the ceremony with an address and flexibility of body, which are rarely to be found in those who wear the tiara; who are, generally speaking, men bowing under the load of years and infirmities. His present Holiness has hitherto suffered from neither. His features are regular, and he has a fine countenance; his person is straight, and his movements graceful. His leg and foot are remarkably well made, and always ornamented with silk stockings, and red slippers, of the most delicate construction. Notwithstanding that the papal uniforms are by no means calculated to set off the person to the greatest advantage, yet the peculiar neatness with which they are put on, and the nice adjustment of their most minute parts, sufficiently prove that his present Holiness is not insensible of the charms of his person, or unsolicitous about his external ornaments. Though verging towards the winter of life, his cheeks still glow with autumnal roses, which, at a little distance, appear as blooming as those of the spring. If he himself were less clear-sighted than he seems to be, to the beauties of his face and person, he could not also be deaf to the voices of the women, who break out into exclamations, in praise of both, as often as he appears in public. On a public occasion, lately, as he was carried through a particular street, a young woman at a window exclaimed, "Quanto e bello! O quanto e bello!" and was immediately answered by a zealous old lady at the window opposite, who, folding her hands in each other, and raising her eyes to heaven, cried out, with a mixture of love for his person, and veneration for his sacred office, "Tanto e bello, quanto e santo!" When we know that such a quantity of incense is daily burnt under his sacred nostrils, we ought not to be astonished, though we should find his brain, on some occasions, a little intoxicated.

Vanity is a very comfortable failing; and has such an universal power over mankind, that not only the gay blossoms of youth, but even the shrivelled bosom of age, and the contracted heart of bigotry, open, expand, and display strong marks of sensibility under its influence.

After mass, the Pope gave the benediction to the people assembled in the Grand Court, before the church of St. Peter's. It was a remarkably fine day; an immense multitude filled that spacious and magnificent area; the horse and foot guards were drawn up in their most showy uniform. The Pope, seated in an open, portable chair, in all the splendour which his wardrobe could give, with the tiara on his head, was carried out of a large window, which opens on a balcony in the front of St. Peter's. The silk hangings and gold trappings with which the chair was embellished, concealed the men who carried it; so that to those who viewed him from the area below, his Holiness seemed to sail forward, from the window self-balanced in the air, like a celestial being. The instant he appeared, the music struck up, the bells rung from every church, and the cannon thundered from the castle of St. Angelo in repeated peals. During the intervals, the church of St. Peter's, the palace of the Vatican, and the banks of the Tiber, re-echoed the acclamations of the populace. At length his Holiness arose from his seat, and an immediate and awful silence ensued. The multitude fell upon their knees, with their hands and eyes raised towards his Holiness, as to a benign Deity. After a solemn pause, he pronounced the benediction, with great fervour; elevating his outstretched arms as high as he could; then closing them together, and bringing them back to his breast with a slow motion, as if he had got hold of the blessing, and was drawing it gently from heaven. Finally, he threw his arms open, waving them for some time, as if his intention had been to scatter the benediction with impartiality among the people.

No ceremony can be better calculated for striking the senses, and imposing on the understanding, than this of the Supreme Pontiff giving the blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's. For my own part, if I had not, in my early youth, received impressions highly unfavourable to the chief actor in this magnificent interlude, I should have been in danger of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in which I was educated.

The Carmen Seculare of Horace was composed on occasion of those celebrated by Augustus in the year of Rome 736.

To this last abridgement I am indebted for having seen the ceremonies and processions on the termination of this sacred year.

Rome.

He very naturally concluded, that it would be most agreeable to us to have the circumstance of kissing the slipper dispensed with. Having had some conversation, therefore, with his Holiness, in his own apartment, while we remained in another room, previous to our introduction; he afterwards returned, and informed us, that the Pontiff, indulgent to the prejudices of the British nation, did not insist on that part of the ceremonial; and therefore a very low bow, on our being presented, was all that would be required of us.

This was a thunderstroke to our negociator, who expected thanks, at least, for the honourable terms he had obtained; but who, on the contrary, found himself in the same disagreeable predicament with other negociators, who have met with abuse and reproach from their countrymen, on account of treaties for which they expected universal applause.

The manner in which the generality of sovereign princes pass their time, is as far from being amusing or agreeable, as one can possibly imagine. Slaves to the tiresome routine of etiquette; martyrs to the oppressive fatigue of pomp; constrained to walk every levee-day around the same dull circle, to gratify the vanity of fifty or a hundred people, by whispering a something or a nothing into the ears of each; obliged to wear a smiling countenance, even when the heart is oppressed with sadness; besieged by the craving faces of those, who are more displeased at what is withheld, than grateful for the favours they have received; surrounded, as he constantly is, by adepts in the art of simulation, all professing the highest possible regard; how shall the puzzled monarch distinguish real from assumed attachment? and what a risk does he run, of placing his confidence where he ought to have directed his indignation! And, to all these inconveniencies, when we add this, that he is precluded from those delightful sensations which spring from disinterested friendship, sweet equality, and the gay, careless enjoyments of social life, we must acknowledge, that all that is brilliant in the condition of a sovereign, is not sufficient to compensate for such restraints, such dangers, and such deprivations.

So far indeed are we from considering that envied condition as enviable, that great part of mankind are more apt to think it insupportable; and are surprised to find, that those unhappy men, whom fate has condemned to suffer the pains of royalty for life, are able to wait with patience for the natural period of their days. For, strange as it may appear, history does not furnish us with an instance, not even in Great Britain itself, of a king, who hanged, or drowned, or put himself to death in any other violent manner, from mere taedium, as other mortals, disgusted with life, are apt to do. I was at a loss to account for such an extraordinary fact, till I recollected that, however void of resources and activity the minds of monarchs may be, they are seldom allowed to rest in repose. The storms to which people in their lofty situation are exposed, occasion such agitations as prevent the stagnating slime of taedium from gathering on their minds. That kings do not commit suicide, therefore, affords only a very slender presumption of the happiness of their condition: although it is a strong proof, that all the hurricanes of life are not so insupportable to the human mind, as that insipid, fearless, hopeless calm, which envelopes men who are devoid of mental enjoyments, and whose senses are palled with satiety. If there is any truth in the above representation of the regal condition, would not you imagine that of all others it would be the most shunned? Would not you imagine that every human being would shrink from it, as from certain misery; and that at least every wise man would say, with the Poet,

I envy none their pageantry and show, I envy none the gilding of their woe?

Not only every wise man, but every foolish man, will adopt the sentiment, and act accordingly; provided his rank in life removes him from the possibility of ever attaining the objects in question. For what is situated beyond the sphere of our hopes, very seldom excites our desires; but bring the powerful magnets a little nearer, and they attract the human passions with a force which reason and philosophy cannot controul. Placed within their reach, the wise and the foolish grasp with equal eagerness at crowns and sceptres, in spite of all the thorns with which they are surrounded. Their alluring magic seems to have the power of changing the very characters and natures of men. In pursuit of them, the indolent have been excited to the most active exertions, the voluptuous have renounced their darling pleasures; and even those who have long walked in the direct road of integrity, have deviated into all the crooked paths of villany and fraud.

There are passions, whose indulgence is so exceedingly flattering to the natural vanity of men, that they will gratify them, though persuaded that the gratification will be attended by disappointment and misery. The love of power and sovereignty is of this class. It has been a general belief, ever since the kingly office was established among men, that cares and anxiety were the constant attendants of royalty. Yet this general conviction never made a single person decline an opportunity of embarking on this sea of troubles. Every new adventurer flatters himself that he shall be guided by some happy star undiscovered by former navigators; and those who, after trial, have relinquished the voyage--Charles, Christina, Amadeus, and others--when they had quitted the helm, and were safely arrived in port, are said to have languished, all the rest of their lives, for that situation which their own experience taught them was fraught with misery.

Henry the Fourth of England did not arrive at the throne by the natural and direct road. Shakespear puts the following Address to Sleep, into the mouth of this monarch:

However eager and impatient this Prince may have formerly been to obtain the crown, you would conclude that he was quite cloyed by possession at the time he made this speech; and therefore, at first sight, you would not expect that he should afterwards display any excessive attachment to what gives him so much uneasiness. But Shakespear, who knew the secret wishes, perverse desires, and strange inconsistencies of the human heart, better than man ever knew them, makes this very Henry so tenaciously fond of that which he himself considered as the cause of all his inquietude, that he cannot bear to have the crown one moment out of his sight, but orders it to be placed on his pillow when he lies on his death-bed.

LETTER L.

Rome.

In their external deportment, the Italians have a grave solemnity of manner, which is sometimes thought to arise from a natural gloominess of disposition. The French, above all other nations, are apt to impute to melancholy, the sedate serious air which accompanies reflection.

Though in the pulpit, on the theatre, and even in common conversation, the Italians make use of a great deal of action; yet Italian vivacity is different from French; the former proceeds from sensibility, the latter from animal spirits.

The inhabitants of this country have not the brisk look, and elastic trip, which is universal in France; they move rather with a flow composed pace: their spines never having been forced into a straight line, retain the natural bend; and the people of the most finished fashion, as well as the neglected vulgar, seem to prefer the unconstrained attitude of the Antinous, and other antique statues, to the artificial graces of a French dancing-master, or the erect strut of a German soldier. I imagine I perceive a great resemblance between many of the living countenances I see daily, and the features of the ancient busts and statues; which leads me to believe, that there are a greater number of the genuine descendants of the old Romans in Italy, than is generally imagined.

I am often struck with the fine character of countenance to be seen in the streets of Rome. I never saw features more expressive of reflection, sense, and genius; in the very lowest ranks there are countenances which announce minds fit for the highest and most important situations; and we cannot help regretting, that those to whom they belong, have not received an education adequate to the natural abilities we are convinced they possess, and placed where these abilities could be brought into action.

Strangers, on their arrival at Rome, form no high idea of the beauty of the Roman women, from the specimens they see in the fashionable circles to which they are first introduced. There are some exceptions; but in general it must be acknowledged, that the present race of women of high rank, are more distinguished by their other ornaments, than by their beauty. Among the citizens, however, and in the lower classes, you frequently meet with the most beautiful countenances. For a brilliant red and white, and all the charms of complexion, no women are equal to the English. If a hundred, or any greater number, of English women were taken at random, and compared with the same number of the wives and daughters of the citizens of Rome, I am convinced, that ninety of the English would be found handsomer than ninety of the Romans; but the probability is, that two or three in the hundred Italians, would have finer countenances than any of the English. English beauty is more remarkable in the country, than in towns; the peasantry of no country in Europe can stand a comparison, in point of looks, with those of England. That race of people have the conveniencies of life in no other country in such perfection; they are no where so well fed, so well defended from the injuries of the seasons; and no where else do they keep themselves so perfectly clean, and free from all the vilifying effects of dirt. The English country girls, taken collectively, are, unquestionably, the handsomest in the world. The female peasants of most other countries, indeed, are so hard worked, so ill fed, so much tanned by the sun, and so dirty, that it is difficult to know whether they have any beauty or not. Yet I have been informed, by some Amateurs, since I came here, that, in spite of all these disadvantages, they sometimes find, among the Italian peasantry, countenances highly interesting, and which they prefer to all the cherry cheeks of Lancashire.

Beauty, doubtless, is infinitely varied; and happily for mankind, their tastes and opinions, on the subject, are equally various. Notwithstanding this variety, however, a style of face, in some measure peculiar to its own inhabitants, has been found to prevail in each different nation of Europe. This peculiar countenance is again greatly varied, and marked with every degree of discrimination between the extremes of beauty and ugliness. I will give you a sketch of the general style of the most beautiful female heads in this country, from which you may judge whether they are to your taste or not.

A great profusion of dark hair, which seems to encroach upon the forehead, rendering it short and narrow; the nose generally either aquiline, or continued in a straight line from the lower part of the brow; a full and short upper lip; by the way, nothing has a worse effect on a countenance, than a large interval between the nose and mouth; the eyes are large, and of a sparkling black. The black eye certainly labours under one disadvantage, which is, that, from the iris and pupil being of the same colour, the contraction and dilatation of the latter is not seen, by which the eye is abridged of half its powers. Yet the Italian eye is wonderfully expressive; some people think it says too much. The complexion, for the most part, is of a clear brown, sometimes fair, but very seldom florid, or of that bright fairness which is common in England and Saxony. It must be owned, that those features which have a fine expression of sentiment and meaning in youth, are more apt, than less expressive faces, to become soon strong and masculine. In England and Germany, the women, a little advanced in life, retain the appearance of youth longer than in Italy.

With countenances so favourable for the pencil, you will naturally imagine, that portrait painting is in the highest perfection here. The reverse, however, of this is true; that branch of the art is in the lowest estimation all over Italy. In palaces, the best furnished with pictures, you seldom see a portrait of the proprietor, or any of his family. A quarter length of the reigning Pope is sometimes the only portrait, of a living person, to be seen in the whole palace. Several of the Roman Princes affect to have a room of state, or audience chamber, in which is a raised seat like a throne, with a canopy over it. In those rooms the effigies of the Pontiffs are hung; they are the work of very inferior artists, and seldom cost above three or four sequins. As soon as his Holiness departs this life, the portrait disappears, and the face of his successor is in due time hung up in its stead. This, you will say, is treating their old sovereign a little unkindly, and paying no very expensive compliment to the new; it is not so oeconomical, however, as what was practised by a certain person. I shall not inform you whether he was a Frenchman or an Englishman, but he certainly was a courtier, and professed the highest possible regard for all living monarchs; but considered them as no better than any other piece of clay when dead. He had a full length picture of his own Sovereign in the principal room of his house; on his majesty's death, to save himself the expence of a fresh body, and a new suit of ermine, he employed a painter to brush out the face and periwig, and clap the new King's head on his grandfather's shoulders; which, he declared, were in the most perfect preservation, and fully able to wear out three or four such heads as painters usually give in these degenerate days.

The Italians, in general, very seldom take the trouble of sitting for their pictures. They consider a portrait as a piece of painting, which engages the admiration of nobody but the person it represents, or the painter who drew it. Those who are in circumstances to pay the best artists, generally employ them in some subject more universally interesting, than the representation of human countenances staring out of a piece of canvas.

Pompeio Battoni is the best Italian painter now at Rome. His taste and genius led him to history painting, and his reputation was originally acquired in that line; but by far the greater part of his fortune, whatever that may be, has flowed through a different channel. His chief employment, for many years past, has been painting the portraits of the young English, and other strangers of fortune, who visit Rome. There are artists in England, superior in this, and every other branch of painting, to Battoni. They, like him, are seduced from the free walks of genius, and chained, by interest, to the servile drudgery of copying faces. Beauty is worthy of the most delicate pencil; but, gracious heaven! why should every periwig-pated fellow, without countenance or character, insist on seeing his chubby cheeks on canvas?

"Could you not give a little expression to that countenance?" said a gentleman to an eminent English painter, who showed him a portrait which he had just finished. "I made that attempt already," replied the painter; "but what the picture gained in expression, it lost in likeness; and by the time there was a little common sense in the countenance, nobody knew for whom it was intended. I was obliged, therefore, to make an entire new picture, with the face perfectly like, and perfectly meaningless, as you see it."

Let the colours for ever remain, which record the last fainting efforts of Chatham; the expiring triumph of Wolf; or the indecision of Garrick, equally allured by the two contending Muses! But let them perish and fly from the canvas, which blind self-love spreads for insipidity and ugliness! Why should posterity know, that the first genius of the age, and those whose pencils were formed to speak to the heart, and delineate beauteous Nature, were chiefly employed in copying faces? and many of them, faces that imitate humanity so abominably, that, to use Hamlet's expression, they seem not the genuine work of Nature, but of Nature's journeymen.

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