Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV | Page 3

into me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza on my way
here--Padua too.
"I go alone,--but alone, because I mean to return here. I only want to
see Rome. I have not the least curiosity about Florence, though I must
see it for the sake of the Venus, &c. &c.; and I wish also to see the Fall
of Terni. I think to return to Venice by Ravenna and Rimini, of both of
which I mean to take notes for Leigh Hunt, who will be glad to hear of
the scenery of his Poem. There was a devil of a review of him in the
Quarterly, a year ago, which he answered. All answers are imprudent:
but, to be sure, poetical flesh and blood must have the last word--that's
certain. I thought, and think, very highly of his Poem; but I warned him
of the row his favourite antique phraseology would bring him into.
"You have taken a house at Hornsey: I had much rather you had taken
one in the Apennines. If you think of coming out for a summer, or so,
tell me, that I may be upon the hover for you.
"Ever," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 274. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 14. 1817.
"By the favour of Dr. Polidori, who is here on his way to England with
the present Lord G * *, (the late earl having gone to England by another
road, accompanied by his bowels in a separate coffer,) I remit to you, to
deliver to Mrs. Leigh, _two miniatures_; previously you will have the
goodness to desire Mr. Love (as a peace-offering between him and me)
to set them in plain gold, with my arms complete, and 'Painted by
Prepiani--Venice, 1817,' on the back. I wish also that you would desire
Holmes to make a copy of _each_--that is, both--for myself, and that
you will retain the said copies till my return. One was done while I was
very unwell; the other in my health, which may account for their
dissimilitude. I trust that they will reach their destination in safety.
"I recommend the Doctor to your good offices with your government
friends; and if you can be of any use to him in a literary point of view,
pray be so.
"To-day, or rather yesterday, for it is past midnight, I have been up to
the battlements of the highest tower in Venice, and seen it and its view,
in all the glory of a clear Italian sky. I also went over the Manfrini
Palace, famous for its pictures. Amongst them, there is a portrait of
Ariosto by Titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of
painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the
portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries
old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be
remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is
the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame.
There is also a famous dead Christ and live Apostles, for which
Buonaparte offered in vain five thousand 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, &c. &c. 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 among the existing Italians.
The queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, 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