wrongs, I took a walk through all the public arcades and) entered a
picture-gallery, which contained a wonderful collection of pictures in
various styles. I beheld works from the hand of Zeuxis, still undimmed
by the passage of the years, and contemplated, not without a certain awe,
the crude drawings of Protogenes, which equalled the reality of nature
herself; but when I stood before the work of Apelles, the kind which the
Greeks call "Monochromatic," verily, I almost worshipped, for the
outlines of the figures were drawn with such subtlety of touch, and were
so life-like in their precision, that you would have thought their very
souls were depicted. Here, an eagle was soaring into the sky bearing the
shepherd of Mount Ida to heaven; there, the comely Hylas was struggling
to escape from the embrace of the lascivious Naiad. Here, too, was
Apollo, cursing his murderous hand and adorning his unstrung lyre with
the flower just created. Standing among these lovers, which were only
painted, "It seems that even the gods are wracked by love," I cried
aloud, as if I were in a wilderness. "Jupiter could find none to his
taste, even in his own heaven, so he had to sin on earth, but no one was
betrayed by him! The nymph who ravished Hylas would have controlled her
passion had she thought Hercules was coming to forbid it. Apollo
recalled the spirit of a boy in the form of a flower, and all the lovers
of Fable enjoyed Love's embraces without a rival, but I took as a comrade
a friend more cruel than Lycurgus!" But at that very instant, as I was
telling my troubles to the winds, a white-haired old man entered the
picture-gallery; his face was care-worn, and he seemed, I know not why,
to give promise of something great, although he bestowed so little care
upon his dress that it was easily apparent that he belonged to that class
of literati which the wealthy hold in contempt. "I am a poet," he
remarked, when he had approached me and stood at my side, "and one of no
mean ability, I hope, that is, if anything is to be inferred from the
crowns which gratitude can place even upon the heads of the unworthy!