ive old man, the responsibility of being doubly prolix and
garrulous. He reveled in his office of showing the palace, and did
homage to the visitor's charge and nation by an infinite expansion
upon all possible points of interest, lest he should go away
imperfectly informed of anything. By dint of frequent encounter with
strangers, this Custode had picked up many shreds and fragments
of many languages, and did not permit the travellers to consider
themselves as having at all understood him until he had repeated
everything in Italian, English, French, and German. He led the
way with his polyglot babble through an endless number of those
magnificent and uninteresting chambers which palaces seem specially
built to contain, that men may be content to dwell in the humbler
dullness of their own houses; and though the travellers often prayed
him to show them the apartments containing the works of Mantegna,
they really got to see nothing of this painter's in the Ducal Palace,
except, here and there, some evanescent frescoes, which the Custode
would not go beyond a _si crede_ in attributing to him. Indeed, it is
known that the works of Mantegna suffered grievously in the wars of
the last century, and his memory has faded so dim in this palace where
he wrought, that the guide could not understand the curiosity of the
foreigners concerning the old painter; and certainly Giulio Romano has
stamped himself more ineffaceably than Mantegna upon Mantua.

In the Ducal Palace are seen vividly contrasted the fineness and
strength, the delicacy and courage of the fancy, which, rather than
the higher gift of imagination, characterize Giulio's work. There is
such an airy refinement and subtile grace in the pretty grotesques
with which he decorates a chamber; there is such daring luxury of
color and design in the pictures for which his grand halls are merely
the frames. No doubt I could make fine speeches about these paintings;
but who, not seeing them, would be the wiser, after the best
description and the choicest critical disquisition? In fact, our
travellers themselves found it pleasanter, after a while, to yield to
the guidance of the Custode, and to enjoy the stupider marvels of the
place, than to do the set and difficult admiration of the works of
art. So, passing the apartments in good preservation (the Austrian
Emperors had taken good care of some parts of the palace of one of
their first Italian possessions), they did justice to the