to Genoa; and subsequently of Napoleon, who seems to have been the last imperial tenant of its shattered walls. From the contagion and odium of his name, perhaps, with the present legitimate proprietor, who is high in the favour of his Holiness the Pope, being Secretary of the Papal State, and who has emigrated to Mount Janiculum at Rome, it has been suffered to fall into its ruinous condition, and will probably never be repaired. It is delightfully situated, without the gate of St. Thomas, on the avenue leading to the Lighthouse along which it extends 600 feet, at the very base of the Apennines, rising with inaccessible acclivities to the north. The other façade looks immediately upon the city, the port, and the sea-upon that city which the patriot chief had emancipated, and upon that element, amidst the storms and perils of which he had acquired his renown. Between the Palace and the Harbour, there is barely room for a garden, against the terraces of which the waves beat and echo through deserted halls. A few mutilated and weather-beaten statues about the fountain, over which Andrew Doria once presided in the character of Neptune-a few evergreens bordering untrodden alleys, with here and there a flower left to spring and bloom without culture, are the only remains of former splendour. But even in ruins, this Palace possesses a charm beyond any of its splendid rivals; and while impatience hurried us through gilded saloons, we lingered long in the dilapidated arcades of the Doria. It was originally finished and ornamented in a style of much greater simplicity than any of its neighbours. Two Doric columns adorn its unassuming entrance. Its decorations were suited to the character of its illustrious tenant. On its ceilings were portrayed the triumphs of Scipio, the shipwreck of Eneas, and the wars of Jove with the Titans. Along the side of the mountain, and above the road, ran a terrace 250 feet in length, and covered at top, designed for a walk in unpleasant weather. This also is in ruins. In a word, this neglected edifice furnishes too striking an emblem of the wreck of that country, which the prowess of the hero set free, as well as of the family who inherit his name, without any of his patriotism and public virtue.

The Ducal Palace ranks next in point of interest, having been the residence of the Doges and the seat of the Senate for several centuries. It stands upon one of the public squares, in the heart of the city, and presents a lofty, majestic front, enriched with three orders of architecture, the basement being Doric, the second story Ionic, and the third

Corinthian, which may be considered the happiest combination, proceeding from strength to beauty. Severe criticism might perhaps deem the façade too much broken, and too much loaded with ornament, especially for a public building of this description, which ought to be characterized by a noble simplicity. The vestibule supported by eighty columns of marble, and the stair-way mounting by a magnificient flight of steps, from a suitable entrance to the great hall of the Senate, which is 150 feet in length, 60 in breadth, and 70 in height. Round its walls are niches filled with statues, which are all draped with white linen. Here the Senate and the Doge convened to enact laws for the Republic, till Napoleon entered and prorogued the body sine die. An anecdote is told of the French, which I was unwilling to believe, but which appears to be well authenticated-that on their approach to this venerable pile, they threw down and dashed to pieces a statue of Andrew Doria, which stood on the area in front of the Palace! Adjoining the great hall is another apartment designed for consultation, less grand in its dimensions, though not less elegantly finished than the other. Before the great fire of 1777, by which the building was nearly destroyed, its decorations were suited to the dignity of the edifice. The naval achievements of the Republic; its victories over the Pisans; its chivalrous deeds in the East; and the landing of its own Columbus in the New World, were delineated upon the walls. These ornaments have as far as practicable been restored; but the charm which time and association impart, is in a great measure dissolved.

The Palaces of Genoa are generally uniform in their outlines, two, three and four stories high, including the attics, with spacious courts and sometimes a garden, a profusion of marble pillars in the best taste, and almost always superb flights of steps, leading often to dirty, dark, and desolate suites of apartments, inhabited by any body but noblemen, and exhibiting any thing but neatness or comfort. The largest of these proud structures is the Durazzo, the front of which stretches between three and four hundred feet along the Strada Balbi, and presenting one of the richest façades I have ever seen. One evening during our visit, it was illuminated with coloured lamps, exhibiting a spectacle brilliant beyond description. Its portals are adorned with four Doric pillars of white marble, and the court and stair-way can scarcely be surpassed in magnificence.

Out of the number of palaces to which the valet-de-place conducted us in rapid succession, I select for a more particular notice the Brignole, called by way of distinction the Palais Rouge, on account of its exterior being painted of a palish red colour. In this selection I am governed less by the grandeur of its proportions, the beauty of its architecture, and the splendour of its apartments, than by its gallery of paintings, which is one of the richest and nost extensive in Genoa. It is of a square form fronting upon the Strada Nuova. Its porch is adorned with fourteen Doric pillars of white marble, and its broad flight of steps is of the same material. The collection of pictures fills twenty-one rooms, and embraces some of the finest productions of the great Italian masters.

Instead of pursuing the safe and beaten track of other tourists, in designating the most remarkable and the most interesting of such a multitude, I shall adopt the more hazardous course of attempting a sort of analysis of the gallery, which may be taken as a sample of the other collections at Genoa, and of offering some general remarks upon the nature of the subjects rather than upon the works themselves. For a perfect novice in vertu, educated in what a European at least would consider the wilds of America, unschooled in the fine arts, and making not the slightest pretensions to the taste of a connoisseur, to venture upon such topics at the threshold of Italy may manifest no small degree of presumption and hardihood. But what is the use of travelling, if one dares not observe, think, and speak for himself?

Out of the two hundred articles in this collection, there are but three historical pictures, and half a dozen pieces of landscape, none of which have the remotest relation to the splendid scenery or the eventful story of the country. With the exception of a group of family portraits, chiefly by Vandyke, and here and there a head by other artists, all the rest are illustrative of the religion of the Church of Rome, and of the scarcely less elevated system of the Heathen Mythology, upon which the former in many instances seems to have been ingrafted. The gallery contains not less than twenty copies of the Madonna and her child, in all possible attitudes, with saints, martyrs, and miracle-workers without number. If the artists had confined themselves to illustrations of appropriate passages of the Holy Scriptures, the beautiful

productions of their pencils might have tended to instruct as well as delight mankind. But their imaginations have wantoned in unrestricted licentiousness; and instead of elevating the feelings and affections of mortals to the skies, they have too often dragged religion down to earth, and, like the fables of the ancient poets, mingled gods with men. Not only have they attempted to portray the Virgin, giving her perhaps the features of some favourite mistress, with angels hovering around in the guise of Cupids; not only have they ventured to represent the Holy Ghost in a meterial form, and the Saviour in all his divine ministrations, from the cradle to the cross, efforts sufficiently bold for the delineations of the pencil; but they have dared to approach the throne of the Eternal Father himself, and to clothe him with human attributes. One of the descriptions of the gallery has the following familiar designation. "Le Pere Eternel avec l'Enfant Jesus, du Guercino da Cento;" and you see an attempted image of the Deity and the Son of God, in the shape of a bearded old man dandling and caressing his child, while some flippant cicerone speaks with the same lightness of the costume, expression, or colouring, as in criticising a neighbouring Venus or Bacchus. However high may be the conceptions of the artist, his pencil must necessarily degrade such a subject; and the spectator turns away with horror and disgust. If the fine arts are ever destined to flourish in our own country, I hope they may never assume this familiarity with sacred subjects, but leave religion, as it now is, all intellectual and spiritual, incapable of being represented by sensible objects, without at the same time being debased.

In examining this and other collections of pictures, another violation of correct taste, in the choice of subjects, struck me as equally obvious. Descriptive poetry, painting, and scenic representations are kindred arts; and to each the same great principles of criticism will apply. In reading an epic, in listening to a tragedy, or in contemplating a picture, a state of the mind called ideal presence is supposed to exist; and no scene or object can with propriety be introduced, which would shock or disgust a real spectator. This rule is almost as old as the arts themselves, and as fixed as it can be rendered by the highest classical authorities. Vulgar curiosity alone can be delighted with atrocious spectacles and representations of brutal violence, however tragical they may be.

Let us for a moment apply these principles to numerous pictures found in this and every other gallery at Genoa, as well as in all the churches. In one group, are St. Sebastian with the arrows piercing his naked body; by Guido-St. Thomas thrusting his hand into the bleeding wounds of the Saviour; by Cappucino-Cato running a sword through his own body; by Guercino. As if one copy of this last were not sufficient, a duplicate is found in another part of the collection. Again, you find Judith in an air of triumph presenting to a slave the reeking head of Holofernes, which she has just dissevered, and which she grasps by the clotted hair; from the pencil of Paul Veronese-A man holding serpents in his hands; by Manfredi-Cleopatra with the asp fastened on her naked bosom, and her features distorted with the agonies of death; by Guercino-The scourging of the Saviour, with the blood streaming from his back; by Castello. In short, these images of unnatural crimes and savage cruelties meet you at every turn. Now, to bring these works to the test—would any of the above spectacles be tole rated upon the stage, before a refined audience? How has Mr. Addison disposed of this same Cato? He makes him perpetrate the bloody deed in the seclusion of his own closet, and when the news of the shocking catastrophe is brought to Lucius, he very properly exclaims:

But to bring the subject still more directly home to the feelings, would any person of ordinary taste willingly be an actual spectator of the scenes portrayed in any one of the above mentioned pictures? and if not, how can he contemplate the delineation of them with complacency? So far as the representation falls short of the reality, the painting is defective and fails in its object; and so far as it approximates to the reality, it becomes shocking.

With regard to my own feelings, the foregoing objections are well grounded; and almost the only pleasure derived from an examination of these splendid collections of pictures consisted in an admiration of the imitative powers and wonderful skill of the artists—a pleasure subordinate and mean in comparison with the ennobling sentiments inspired by the subject. Mr. Eustace in his classical Tour remarks, that