anything else. . . . .

It is the most profoundly wrought picture in the world; no artist did it,
nor could do it, again. Guido may have held the brush, but he painted
"better than he knew." I wish, however, it were possible for some
spectator, of deep sensibility, to see the picture without knowing
anything of its subject or history; for, no doubt, we bring all our
knowledge of the Cenci tragedy to the interpretation of it.

Close beside Beatrice Cenci hangs the Fornarina. . . . .

While we were looking at these works Miss M------ unexpectedly joined us,
and we went, all three together, to the Rospigliosi Palace, in the Piazza
di Monte Cavallo. A porter, in cocked hat, and with a staff of office,
admitted us into a spacious court before the palace, and directed us to a
garden on one side, raised as much as twenty feet above the level on
which we stood. The gardener opened the gate for us, and we ascended a
beautiful stone staircase, with a carved balustrade, bearing many marks
of time and weather. Reaching the garden-level, we found it laid out in
walks, bordered with box and ornamental shrubbery, amid which were
lemon-trees, and one large old exotic from some distant clime. In the
centre of the garden, surrounded by a stone balustrade, like that of the
staircase, was a fish-pond, into which several jets of water were
continually spouting; and on pedestals, that made part of the balusters,
stood eight marble statues of Apollo, Cupid, nymphs, and other such sunny
and beautiful people of classic mythology. There had been many more of
these statues, but the rest had disappeared, and those which remained had
suffered grievous damage, here to a nose, there to a hand or foot, and
often a fracture of the body, very imperfectly mended. There was a
pleasant sunshine in the garden, and a springlike, or rather a genial,