picture-gallery; but it is our experience that French soldiers in
Rome never know anything of what is around them, not even the name of
the palace or public place over which they stand guard; and though
invariably civil, you might as well put a question to a statue of an old
Roman as to one of them. While we stood under the loggia, however,
looking at the rain plashing into the court, a soldier of the Papal Guard
kindly directed us up the staircase, and even took pains to go with us to
the very entrance of the picture-rooms. Thank Heaven, there are but two
of them, and not many pictures which one cares to look at very long.

Italian galleries are at a disadvantage as compared with English ones,
inasmuch as the pictures are not nearly such splendid articles of
upholstery; though, very likely, having undergone less cleaning and
varnishing, they may retain more perfectly the finer touches of the
masters. Nevertheless, I miss the mellow glow, the rich and mild
external lustre, and even the brilliant frames of the pictures I have
seen in England. You feel that they have had loving care taken of them;
even if spoiled, it is because they have been valued so much. But these
pictures in Italian galleries look rusty and lustreless, as far as the
exterior is concerned; and, really, the splendor of the painting, as a
production of intellect and feeling, has a good deal of difficulty in
shining through such clouds.

There is a picture at the Capitol, the "Rape of Europa," by Paul
Veronese, that would glow with wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a
magnificent frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish; and it is a
kind of picture that would not be desecrated, as some deeper and holier
ones might be, by any splendor of external adornment that could be
bestowed on it. It is deplorable and disheartening to see it in faded
and shabby plight,--this joyous, exuberant, warm, voluptuous work. There