pictures, the names of the painters, seemed to relish in the mouth.
There was one of Titian's Mistress at her toilette. Even the colours
with which the painter had adorned her hair were not more golden, more
amiable to sight, than those which played round and tantalised my fancy
ere I saw the picture. There were two portraits by the same hand--'A
young Nobleman with a glove'--Another, 'a companion to it.' I read the
description over and over with fond expectancy, and filled up the
imaginary outline with whatever I could conceive of grace, and dignity,
and an antique gusto--all but equal to the original. There was the
Transfiguration too. With what awe I saw it in my mind's eye, and was
overshadowed with the spirit of the artist! Not to have been
disappointed with these works afterwards, was the highest compliment I
can pay to their transcendent merits. Indeed, it was from seeing other
works of the same great masters that I had formed a vague, but no
disparaging idea of these. The first day I got there, I was kept for
some time in the French Exhibition Room, and thought I should not be
able to get a sight of the old masters. I just caught a peep at them
through the door (vile hindrance!) like looking out of purgatory into
paradise--from Poussin's noble, mellow-looking landscapes to where
Rubens hung out his gaudy banner, and down the glimmering vista to the
rich jewels of Titian and the Italian school. At last, by much
importunity, I was admitted, and lost not an instant in making use of my
new privilege. It was _un beau jour_ to me. I marched delighted
through a quarter of a mile of the proudest efforts of the mind of man,
a whole creation of genius, a universe of art! I ran the gauntlet of all
the schools from the bottom to the top; and in the end got admitted into
the inner room, where they had been repairing some of their greatest
works. Here the Transfiguration, the St. Peter Martyr, and the St.
Jerome of Domenichino stood on the floor, as if they had bent their
knees, like camels stooping, to unlade their riches to the spectator.