This charmer has been called the MADONNA DELLA CONFORTA, for ladies of low stature, and a certain, or rather uncertain age-being herself under five feet in height, and some three centuries on the wrong side of the Christian æra, in years. Time has embrowned her complexion; but her FIGURE remains the admiration of the world. It may appear somewhat paradoxical to say that, the whole form is perfection, though many of the principal parts are faulty. The critics have determined, among other blemishes, that the head and the hips are too small-that the nose and the hands are too large—that the fingers are like marlin-spikes, and have only one joint among ten of them. The diminutive head would not have been of much consequence, had not the phrenologists, with their callipers, ascertained that the owner of the head was an idiot! Well! This would not much diminish the number of her admirers. Praxiteles or Cleomenes was not so silly as to give VENUS as much brains as MINERVA. It is not necessary-it is not desirable, that a BEAUTY should be a What did SAPPHо gain by her towering intellect and tender lyrics? Not a husband certainly, unless under the Ægean wave! BLUE-STOCKING. Say lovely youth that do'st my heart command, Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand? No, truly! Phaon remembered her head as well as her hand, and kept at as respectful a distance from the tenth Muse as a butterfly BEAU does from a literary BELLE, of the present times. But then the pelvis is not so broad, nor the rump so prodigious, as among the Hottentot Venuses of our own day. This is true. The poor VENUS DE MEDICIS had not a Parisian milliner to exaggerate the deformities of Nature. Yes, the deformities of Nature! Unless the critic is prepared to maintain that black and white are the same colour-that great and small dimensions are of the same admeasurement, I do assert that Nature, for wise purposes, has imposed a tribute of deformity on the beauty of the female sex, which, it is the duty of the sculptor and painter to diminish, in beau-idealism, rather than exaggerate. Praxiteles, Cleomenes, or whoever it was that sculptured the Medicean Venus, acted judiciously in diminishing the size of the female pelvis, the dimensions of which, however useful for the perpetuation of the human race, can never be pleasing to the eye of the spectator. I could illustrate this position, and demonstrate that NATURE does not always study symmetry and proportion in her formations or operations; but I think it unnecessary. The most beautiful female figure, in youth and in health, differs totally in the course of a few months. Poets, painters, and sculptors, have taken care to delineate but one side of the portrait. Were the Venus de Medicis, the Apollo Belvidere, and other master-pieces of ancient sculpture, copied from Nature, or composed from the imagination? I think they were constructed from the memory of fine forms, heightened by VENUS DE MEDICIS.-NAKED STATUES. 107 the imagination. Hence they are more beautiful than Nature:-in short, they are beau-idealisms. How is it that modern sculptors cannot equal the ancients? I think the reason is, that they are inferior in point of genius. If they attempt to chisel from memory and imagination (that is, if they attempt the BEAU-IDEAL) they fail, from the inferiority of powers which I have assumed. If they copy from NATURE, they fail; because the ancients surpassed Nature. If they copy from the ancient models, they necessarily fail, because copies must be inferior to the originals. The result appears to be, that the moderns, who imitate Nature, and Nature only, are more correctwhile the ancients, who embellished Nature by powerful imaginations, are more pleasing. We see this exemplified every day by comparison of real life with romance-of living faces with their portraits. Homer and Scott, as well as the million of intervening painters, who embellished fact by fiction, and memory by imagination, have excited more general interest, and diffused more universal pleasure, than the whole host of historians, from Herodotus to Hume. The propriety or impropriety of exhibiting the undraped heroes and heroines of antiquity to the gaze of all ranks and both sexes, is a question which seems to have been blinked by all travellers-even by the ladies, some of whom have given their tongues ample licence upon most other subjects. I certainly have my own opinion on this point; but I do not think it would be of any use to state it here. There is one remarkable expression which has dropped accidentally from the pen of a philosopher, critic, and anatomist, not very strait-laced in matters of this kind-the late JOHN BELL. Speaking of the Venus de Medici, he observes-" The whole work, as it presents itself, is most beautiful; and, if such nude figures are to be permitted, nothing can be conceived more exquisite." Mr. Bell's internal conviction on this subject may be gathered very readily from the above sentence.* But however this may be, we may safely aver that the senses are liable to more serious and offensive presentations in fair Italy, than any which the galleries of Florence, Rome, or Naples can exhibit. We need not, therefore, alarm ourselves about squibs and crackers, after smoking our cigars so quietly in magazines of gun-powder. One or two words before we quit the Tribune. Mr. Matthews tells us that he would have taken the MEDICEAN VENUS for an angel, which is of no sex, had he not discovered that the ears were pierced for pendants! Bracelets he could have pardoned-but, ear-rings !-proh pudor! I am rather surprized that so acute an observer could discover no other marks of the feminine gender about the Queen of Love than the holes in her ears. * Mr. Matthews is of a different opinion. I shall, however, waive the question. The Venus de Medicis has got other rivals in Florence besides the daugh ter of Canova. Immediately behind the "bending statue that delights the world," reclines a figure-about whose sex there can be little scepticism— the VENUS of TITIAN:—and not far from thence the Fornarina of Raphael, From the number of people whom I saw devouring with their eyes, these "Houries of a Mahomedan Paradise," I doubt the correctness of Mr. Matthews' assertion that "the triumph of the statue is complete”—“ in whose eye there is no Heaven, in whose gesture there is no love."* The TRIBUNE, indeed, concentrates within the space of a small ante-chamber,t a host of the most wonderful efforts, or rather prodigies of human genius. It is a focus of intellectual excitement, in which the soul receives an electric shock with every ray of light that enters the organ of vision. And yet the promiscuous assemblage of divine and human actors—of Christian and Pagan personages-of heathen fables and holy legends of dancing drunkards and grim-visaged executioners, is well calculated to swell the tumultuous tide of incongruous ideas that rush through the mind, when first we enter this magic apartment. The eye glances from a naked Venus to a sainted Madonnafrom a capering Faun to a decapitated Apostle-from Diana ogling Endymion to Herodias receiving the head of St. John--from a wrestling match‡ to the Crucifixion of our Saviour-from a knife-grinder to the "Massacre of the Innocents"-from a naked Nymph auditing the soft nonsense of Cupid, to a naked slave listening to a band of conspirators! Such are a few of the conflicting, contrasting, but exciting objects of contemplation in the TRIBUNE, which we enter with eager curiosity, linger in with tumultuous pleasure, and tear ourselves from with reluctance and regret ! LUNATIC ASYLUM. The numerous and interesting objects of antiquity and art at Florence, left me but little time to visit her public institutions-and especially her hospitals. The Lunatic Asylum is on a large scale-receives all ranks of maniacs * "The fact is (says Lady Morgan), that the Venus de Medicis, like other long-revered antiquities, has felt the blighting breath of revolutionary change; and daily sees her shrine deserted for that of a rival beauty, who is no goddess, and still less a saint-who is, after all, a mere woman-the model and inspiration of Raphael-his own FORNARINA." ↑ About 12 feet in diameter. I cannot conceive why the connoisseurs call this a group of wrestlers. They are surely boxers. The clenched fist of the victor, who is aiming a blow at the averted face of his prostrate competitor, is not in keeping with a wrestling-match. CASSINO. 109 —and, I am sorry to say, is not in a state that can, honestly, admit of praise. It is worth visiting, however; and the variety of characters that may here be seen, is well calculated to call forth strong emotions in the philanthropic breast. I was much amused one day, while going round the wards, by the conversation of a priest and an advocate, in whose sight I suddenly found much favour without any adequate cause. They were MONOMANIACS of such a harmless description, that they were permitted to accompany me through the whole of the wards and cells of that great but wretched asylum. These two inmates of this gloomy retreat were men of considerable talents and learning. They described, in most affecting terms, the various maniacs who paced the wards in musing melancholy or muttering soliloquies, as well as those who clashed their chains in solitary confinement. Not a word escaped either of them, in the slightest degree indicative of a disordered mind, till we came to a man who fancied himself to be JESUS CHRIST. The Barrister made a full stop, and seized the writer by the arm. "Thank my stars," said he, glancing a look of ineffable contempt on the Priest, "I am free from those superstitious fears and visionary dreams by which the vulgar are kept in thraldom by designing knaves or ignorant enthusiasts! I worship the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth-in short, I worship NATURE, whatever form she may assume in the animal, vegetable, and mineral world around me, as well as in those orbs which shine resplendent in the heavens. I acknowledge no god but Nature."-At this moment, the Priest seized the other arm of the writer, and drew him forcibly aside, "You now see, Sir," said he, "that the unhappy and lost wretch who deals out this impious and atheistical creed is as complete a maniac as any of the numerous unfortunate beings whom we have been contemplating! He is otherwise harmless; but his words are pestilential when he touches on the subject of divine revelation. I am, Sir, the only individual in this vast asylum who is in his perfect senses.' I am cruelly and unjustly confined here, and, as I see you are a physician, I hope you will exert your influence in rescuing me from the company of maniacs." The writer promised this exertion in the Priest's favour, but soon found that he too, had his delusion. CASSINO. The transition from the BEDLAM to the CASSINO of Florence is rather an abrupt one; but Italy is the land of vicissitudes. The Florentines pride themselves not a little on the beauty of the Cassino, a pleasant drive on the banks of the Arno, which they have wisely excluded from view by a row of trees. To those who are familiar with the parks of London, or the CHAMPS ELYSÉES of Paris, the CASSINO of Florence can have but few attractions. Nevertheless it possesses the secret, like the Indian snake-conjurers, of drawing forth the pale olive beauties and whiskered beaus of Florence every evening, from their gloomy retreats, to inhale the breath of Heaven-to cluster or swarm, like bees, at the sound of a tinkling cymbal-and to indulge in a dish of polite scandal or intrigue beneath the cloudless canopy of their azure skies. To England they have lately been indebted for a source of poignant excitement —the sight of JOHN BULL “running a muck” in the avenues of the Cassino. The frozen energies and elasticity of British nerves and muscles, thawed and effervescing under an Italian sun, must be a soul-stirring scene for the eyes of languid, listless, and lazy Tuscans. In grateful return for this excitement, the Florentines cannot do less than initiate our countrymen in the holy rites and ceremonies of the CAVALIERE SERVENTE system. SIENNA. It is difficult to select any line or circle of progression in Italy, where anticipation is not kept constantly alive by objects of increasing interest. The inexhaustible attractions of FLORENCE cannot suppress, even for a moment, the almost innate longing for a sight of ROME. While wandering among the ruins of the once mighty empress of empires, the scenes of desolation or degeneration which most of her seven hills present to the eye, and the languor and lassitude resulting from great exertion in the depressing atmosphere of the pestiferous Campagna, are cheered and relieved by the hope of soon breathing the balmy and exhilarating gales of ANXUR and NAPLES. Even when we have explored all the treasures of nature and art in this fairy land, and turned our weary steps to-" home, sweet home”—the all pervading principle that binds man and every species of animal to their native skies, strews our path with flowers, more mellow, but not less refreshing, than those which Jured us beyond the circle of domestic happiness and social intercourse. The journey from Florence to Rome is accomplished pleasantly in four days -the resting places being Sienna, Radicofani, and Viterbo, where the accommodations are very passable at present. The scenery of the first day's journey is beautiful. We wind among vine and olive clad hills-through peaceful villages and cultivated fields—over rapid and pellucid streamlets-along the skirts of fine woods-and under the genial influence of a clear sky and mountain air. As we approach Sienna, which lies very high, the scene changes; and sterility, at length, nearly usurps the place of Tuscan fertility. The city is built on the very edge of a long extinct volcanic crater, and a great part of it is down in the very bottom of this "Devil's punch-bowl." Having two hours of day remaining, I jumped from the carriage, without asking even the name of the hotel where we stopped, and wandered through the city. The first thing I |