sank into the same stye of debauchery with the vanquished, under the influence of a sky which lulls the reason and excites the passions-which, like the Syren's song, charms the senses and destroys the soul! This strange mixture of northern vigour with southern effeminacy was probably the fulfil ment of a law of nature, as necessary as it was inevitable. The irruption of barbaric tribes into Italy, thus sunk in riches, in vice, and in debility, was governed by a law as wise and undeviating as that which causes the cool sea-breeze to sweep, with diurnal regularity, over the burning surface of the tropical shores. It might not be going too far to suppose that the flux and reflux of war, the ebbings and flowings of prosperity, the tide of civilization itself, are under laws less ostensible, but not less immutable, than those which heave the waters of the ocean, direct the course of the hurricane, regulate the progression of the seasons, adjust the proportion of the sexes, and limit the range of human existence.

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.

But to return from this contemplative digression to the LIONS of Florence. Three of these LIONS would require three large volumes of description, and would not then be half described-the Museum of Natural History-the Palazzo Pitti-and the Royal Gallery of the Gran Duca. The reader is insured against a description from the pen of the writer; and, therefore, a few cursory remarks may be fearlessly encountered.

The galleries of WAX-WORKS are the pride of Florence, as far as the science of man's mortal fabric is concerned. In ancient days, "know thyself” (nosce te ipsum) was a celebrated precept. In modern times, it has been superseded by the more fashionable precept-" know thy neighbour and every thing that concerns him.” I was delighted to see the ladies prefer the Grecian dictate, and anxiously surveying the "fearful and wonderful" structure of man-and of woman too, in the anatomical galleries of the studio. Surely the repugnance to resurrectionary labours in England must soon be obliterated. by the familiarization of the female eye to the beauties of dissection in Italy. Perhaps my judgment may be warped by a professional bias; but I am of opinion that the non-medical visitor, both male and female, would profit by frequent inspections of the Florentine wax-works. The construction of the human frame is, perhaps, not more curious or complicated than that of many other animals; but it is much more interesting, for obvious reasons. A contemplation of its wonderful machinery, its "various ties and nice depen-, dencies," is well calculated to raise the thought from Nature to Nature's God, and generates not a single idea inimical to virtue, morality, or religion. I would not swear that this is the case in respect to all the sights with which the female eye becomes familiar in fair Italy. But more of this hereafter.

CITY OF THE PLAGUE-HANNIBAL'S ELEPHANT.

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Although the anatomical models in these galleries will not all bear the strict scrutiny of the professed anatomist, they are quite correct enough for conveying all the knowledge of the human frame that is necessary for men of general science and literature, free from the disgusting scenes of the dissectingroom. To this class of travellers, Florence presents facilities unequalled in any part of the world. The "CITY OF THE PLAGUE," though too faithful to prostrate human nature, conveys, in my opinion, no other sensation than that of unmixed horror. To whom can this sickening portrait of putrefaction be useful, except to the poet, when working up some scene of horror in the charnelhouse? The painter could not exhibit such representations. The fatal raft of the Medusa, as drawn in the Louvre, with all its ghastly forms of the dead and the dying, awakens pity and various other emotions, as well as horror. —while heavenly hope comes wafting on the distant sail from the verge of the horizon. But in this "CITY OF THE PLAGUE," the King of Terrors reigns over putrid corses alone, and that conversion of man into food for worms, which ought to take place in the deep and silent grave, is here portrayed with such disgusting fidelity, that the sense of smell actually catches the contagion from the neighbouring sense of sight, and imagination creates an atmosphere of pestiferous emanations from the inodorous wax.

The ductility of this substance is turned to a more useful account, in another room of this vast museum, where vegetable life is beautifully imitated. The aloe, the prickly pear, the pine-apple, the lily, and the rose, can scarcely be distinguished from their living prototypes. Why do not the fair sex of England employ a portion of their time in modelling with wax, instead of feasting one only sense-the ear day and night?

Among the innumerable objects which keep the mind in a fever, while we are pacing gallery after gallery in this magnificent museum, the fossil remains of animals can hardly be passed without the excitation of a train of reflections not less bewildering than humiliating. The bones of the elephant, found in the "VAL D'ARNO SUPERIORE," are considered to be those of some forlorn "MADEMOISELLE D'JECK" who accompanied Hannibal in his trip over the Alps and the Apennines!* Unfortunately for this hypothesis, the said bones were deposited near those of the hippopotamus of the Upper Nile-a quadruped that must have proved an awkward component of the materiel of the Afric warrior's army when crossing the Little St. Bernard! It is more likely

* We are informed that after the battle of Trebia, and consequently before Hannibal ascended the Apennines, the whole of his elephants, except one, perished by the cold. It would be very remarkable indeed if this one left its bones in the Val d'Arno-more especially as we are told, that on this lone elephant Hannibal was carried through the marshes, after he had crossed the Apennines, into Hetruria.

that the bones of the elephant were deposited in the VAL D'ARNO by such a convulsion of Nature as locked up the same animal in a mass of ice, by which its flesh, skin, and hair were preserved in perfect freshness, from a period before the universal deluge till a few years ago, when the iceberg was thrown on the shores of Kamschatka, and the pickled animal furnished a rich antediluvian feast to the bears of Siberia. It requires not much geological knowledge, while surveying the surface of this globe, to be convinced that the confusion observed among its watery deposits and fiery eruptions—its horizontal strata and its perpendicular basalts—its granite mountains covered with snow, and its gigantic craters filled with water, were produced by causes that ceased to operate before the commencement of human records—perhaps before the existence of human beings. How many hundred centuries must have rolled away, between the extinction of that volcano which occupied the Campagna di Roma, and the time when its crater became a level plain, the Tiber worked its classic channel, and Romulus took possession of its seven molehills! How is it that no vestiges of man can be traced in any of these secondary formations, before the last grand catastrophe, the DELUGE, while those of animals are so plentiful? But if, from the mysterious and Cimmerian darkness that hangs over the origin and early history of the human race, we shift our view to the scenes and circumstances of his progress along the stream of time, we shall have more cause to shudder and blush than to exult and glorify!

PALAZZO PITTI.

The exterior of this palace has a most gloomy and heavy aspect. It is like a colossal Newgate, and within its massive walls more executions have taken place than at the New Drop-but without the formality of any legal ceremony! "Its marble floors have been stained with blood, shed under circumstances of unparalleled horror. Brides, here, have been given away with more than royal splendour, soon to be murdered by their husbands' hands-and princely assassins have stalked through its sumptuous halls with reeking daggers, unquestioned and unpunished." But these scenes are gone by, never again to return. The Palazzo Pitti is now one of the greatest lions of Italy, as far as painting is concerned; and the amateurs of that delightful art would be amply repaid for their journey across the Alps and the Apennines by a sight of this palace alone. Michael Angelo's three fates-Raphael's Madonna della Sedia-Guido's Cleopatra-Salvator Rosa's Cataline conspiracy-Titian's mistress-the HOURS of Giulio Romano-Annibale Caracci's Sebastiano, &c. &c. are only a few stars of the first magnitude, sprinkled along a dazzling galaxy of pictorial orbs, scarcely less brilliant than they.

How fortunate it is that the great mass of mankind were not born or bred virtuosi and connoisseurs, and, consequently, not liable to

PALAZZO PITTI-CANOVA'S VENUS.

Die of a rose in aromatic pain—

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nor to be thrown into a bilious fever by the stroke of a hair pencil! To such, the mystical technology of criticism in painting, poetry, architecture, and sculpture, is as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on Cleopatra's Needle, or on the Egyptian obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo. For my own part, I am not sorry that my senses are just acute enough to derive pleasure from scenes of nature and works of art, without that exquisite sensibility which detects the slightest blemish, and that delicacy of taste which turns half our honey into gall. Forsyth, who was a most rigid and sarcastic censor in architecture, seems to be rational enough in some of the sister arts. "Painting (says he) I value only as it excites sentiment, nor do I ever presume to judge beyond the expression or story; convinced, by the absurdities which I have been so often condemned to hear, that the other parts of the art are mysteries to all hut the artist." Content, then, with the humble pleasures derived from the paintings, statues, and gardens of the PALAZZO PITTI, I leave to critics the more refined sensations arising from detection of their faults. One word only respecting the rival Queen of Love, from the chissel of Canova. It is fashionable to depreciate it, when put in comparison with the Medicean Venus in the Royal Gallery. There is no accounting for tastes; but, for my own part, I prefer the younger to the elder sister, notwithstanding the care which the latter has taken to conceal none of her charms from the eyes of her admirers. I do not think that Canova's Venus is the worse because she exceeds four feet eleven inches in height, the diminutive stature of the antiquated fair one-nor because a light transparent drapery should partly veil the bosom, and fall in graceful folds below the knee. John Bell, whose judgment and taste will hardly be disputed, seems to be very nearly of the same opinion. "The countenance (says he) is beautiful (all must acknowledge that that of the Medicean Venus is rather devoid of expression)—the gentle inclination of the body, and attitude of the fine Grecian head, raised and turning round, as it were, in watchful timidity, is full of grace and sweetness. The whole front view of this statue is exquisitely fine; and, if the forms had been but a little rounder, I think that even the most fastidious critic would have judged, that nothing in antiquity could have surpassed-perhaps hardly equalled it."

Unfortunately, Canova has directed the force of his genius to the POSTERIOR of his goddess-and certainly he has the fair sex themselves on his side-for they are much more inclined to imitate the Hottentot than the Medicean Venus. Canova has given his female a head capable of containing a proper proportion of brain :-Praxiteles must have considered intellect unnecessary, and the Venus di Medicis is acknowledged, according to all phrenological canons, to have been a fool. But I shall have occasion to make a few more remarks on this subject when we enter the Tribune.

GALLERY OF THE GRAN DUCA.

Mr. Lawrence and some other physiologists have defined LIFE to be "the sum total of the functions." Perhaps this is as good a definition of that which is undefinable as any we possess. Now, the functions are of two kindsmental and corporeal; and it is curious that the radical or essential functions of the body are more numerous than those of the mind. The fundamental functions of the latter may be reduced to two-perception and reflection. Sensation is more allied to the body than to the mind. The nerves feel, and transmit sensations to the brain; but it is the soul which perceives them. The material conductors of impressions know no more of what they pass along to the sensorium, than the telegraph on Putney Heath knows of the intelligence which is transmitted from Portsmouth to the Admiralty. Well, then, the sum total of the functions (speaking of the intellectual functions) being life, it follows, that he who perceives and reflects most enjoys most life—no matter whether those perceptions and reflections be joyous or dolorous. I believe this to be the truth. Thus, the man who perceives and reflects as much in one day as another does in a week, lives seven times more-if not seven times longer, than his neighbour. Hence the philosopher, who dies at the age of 40, lives three or four times longer, intellectually, than the peasant who spins out his existence to eighty years. It is not necessary to apply this parallel to the corporeal functions. I have been led into these reflections while pacing the galleries of the GRAN DUCA, where a series of ancient busts and statues (including the Roman Emperors and other distinguished personages, from Cæsar to Constantine) is calculated to elicit much more vivid and rapid trains of thought than the most splendid efforts of the historian, the painter, or the poet. This, at least, was the impression on my mind, while contemplating the marble representations of the illustrious dead and of those beings created by fancy, in the Royal Gallery of Florence and the Museum of the Capitol in Rome. The vision of the dervise, while his head was under water, might here be realized, and the history of ten generations of Romans might be made to pass, as in a panorama, before the mental eye in as many hours!

On entering the first corridor the bust of Cæsar presents itself, and disappoints us. The physiognomist-perhaps even the phrenologist, looks in vain for the aspiring soul that invaded Britain, passed the Rubicon, and subjugated the world. The commentator, rather than the conqueror, is expressed by that wrinkled and care-worn visage. Not so with the bust of his second successor, TIBERIUS. In his countenance the mind sees, or fancies, the most artful dissimulation veiling, from youth to senectitude, the most brutal cruelty and beastly sensuality! This basilisk bust chains us in horror, and conjures up