Here, too, are some _chefs d’oeuvre_ of the unknown great; and
      here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose
      very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence
      and to me. What think you,” said he, turning abruptly as he
      spoke—“what think you of this Madonna della Pieta?”

      “It is Guido’s own!” I said, with all the enthusiasm of my
      nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
      loveliness. “It is Guido’s own!—how _could_ you have obtained
      it?—she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in
      sculpture.”

      “Ha!” said he thoughtfully, “the Venus—the beautiful Venus?—the
      Venus of the Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded
      hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be
      heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and
      in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence
      of all affectation. Give _me_ the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a
      copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot
      behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity
      me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates
      who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of
      marble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his
      couplet—

     ‘Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto
     Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.’”

      It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the
      true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the
      bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to
      determine in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark
      to have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor of my
      acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more
      fully applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can
      I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place
      him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by
      calling it a _habit_ of intense and continual thought, pervading
      even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of
      dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of
      merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the
      grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis. I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the
      mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly
      descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of
      trepidation—a degree of nervous _unction_ in action and in
      speech—an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at
      all times unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me
      with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence
      whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be
      listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary
      expectation of a visitor, or to sounds which must have had
      existence in his imagination alone. It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
      abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
      Politian’s beautiful tragedy “The Orfeo,” (the first native
      Italian tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered
      a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end
      of the third act—a passage of the most heart-stirring
      excitement—a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no
      man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion—no woman without
      a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon
      the opposite interleaf, were the following English lines, written
      in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my
      acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognising it as his
      own:—

Thou wast that all to me, love,
    For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
    A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;
    And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries,
“Onward!”—but o’er the Past
    (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute—motionless—aghast! For alas! alas! with me
    The light of life is o’er. “No more—no more—no more,”
    (Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,)
    Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar! Now all my hours are trances;
    And all my nightly dreams
Are where the dark eye glances,
    And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
    By what Italian streams. Alas! for that accursed time
    They bore thee o’er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
    And an unholy pillow!—
From me, and from our misty clime,
    Where weeps the silver willow! That these lines were written in English—a language with which I
      had not believed their author acquainted—afforded me little
      matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his
      acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing
      them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery;
      but the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little
      amazement. It had been originally written _London_, and
      afterwards carefully overscored—not, however, so effectually as
      to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say, this
      occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a
      former conversation with a friend, I particularly inquired if he
      had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for
      some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,)
      when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he
      had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as
      well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without, of
      course, giving credit to a report involving so many
      improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, was not only
      by birth, but in education, an _Englishman_. “There is one painting,” said he, without being aware of my notice of
the tragedy—“there is still one painting which you have not seen.” And
throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length portrait of the
Marchesa Aphrodite. Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman
beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding
night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over
with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful
stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the
perfection of the beautiful.