aw attention to the differences
between these descriptions and those in ornate prose that
we have had since from Mr. Ruskin and others. Most of the
latter are essentially prose though often very beautiful
prose: Shelley's, though pure prose in form, are as it were
scenarios for poetry. Indeed by this time poetry had taken
almost entire possession of him, and he of her.

36. TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

BOLOGNA,
Monday, Nov[ember] 9, 1818.

My dear Peacock,

I have seen a quantity of things here--churches, palaces, statues,
fountains, and pictures; and my brain is at this moment like a portfolio
of an architect, or a print-shop, or a commonplace-book, I will try to
recollect something of what I have seen; for, indeed, it requires, if it
will obey, an act of volition. First, we went to the cathedral, which
contains nothing remarkable, except a kind of shrine, or rather a marble
canopy, loaded with sculptures, and supported on four marble columns. We
went then to a palace--I am sure I forget the name of it--where we saw a
large gallery of pictures. Of course, in a picture gallery you see three
hundred pictures you forget, for one you remember. I remember, however,
an interesting picture by Guido, of the Rape of Proserpine, in which
Proserpine casts back her languid and half-unwilling eyes, as it were,
to the flowers she had left ungathered in the fields of Enna. There was
an exquisitely executed piece of Correggio, about four saints, one of
whom seemed to have a pet dragon in a leash. I was told that it was the
devil who was bound in that style--but who can make anything of four
saints? For what can they be supposed to be about? There was one
painting, indeed, by this master, Christ beatified, inexpressibly fine.
It is a half figure, seated on a mass of clouds, tinged with an
ethereal, rose-like lustre; the arms are expanded; the whole frame seems
dilated with expression; the countenance is heavy, as it were, with the
weight of the rapture of the spirit; the lips parted, but scarcely
parted, with the breath of intense but regulated passion; the eyes are
calm and benignant; the whole features harmonised in majesty and
sweetness. The hair is parted on the forehead, and falls in heavy locks
on each side. It is motionless, but seems as if the faintest breath
would move it. The colouring, I suppose, must be very good, if I could
remark and understand it. The sky is of pale aerial orange, like the