"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 is most imposed upon. I never yet saw
the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception
or expectation; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and
rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond
it,--besides some horses; and a lion (at Veli Pacha's) in the
Morea; and a tiger at supper in Exeter Change.
"When you write, continue to address to me at _Venice_. Where do
you suppose the books you sent to me are? At _Turin_! This comes of
'_the Foreign Office_' which is foreign enough, God knows, for any
good it can be of to me, or any one else, and be d----d to it, to
its last clerk and first charlatan, Castlereagh.
"This makes my hundredth letter at least.
"Yours," &c.
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