there is no collection of ancient sculpture which will
compare with the extensive gallery of heads by Canova alone. When
benignant Time shall have done his appointed work of covering with the
pall of oblivion the worse nineteen twentieths of the productions of the
modern chisel, the genuine successes of the Nineteenth Century will
shine out clearer and brighter than they now do. So, I trust, with
Painting, though I do not know what painter of our age to place on a
perilous eminence with Canova as the champion or representative of
Modern as compared with Ancient Art.

It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts,
yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the
limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of
Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single
private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty
decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci--probably twice as many as
there are in all the world out of Italy. That gallery would scarcely
miss half of these, which might be fully replaced by as many modern
works of equal merit, whereby the gallery and Rome would lose nothing,
while the world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider
herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as
receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as
would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be
spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by
diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service
and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her
own permanent well-being. It is in her power to constitute herself the
center of an International Art-Union really worthy of the name--to
establish a World's Exhibition of Fine Arts unequaled in character and
beneficence. Is it too much to hope that she will realize or surpass
this conception?

These suggestions, impelled by what I have seen to-day, are at all
events much shorter than I could have made any detailed account of my
observations. I have no qualifications for a critic in Art, and make no
pretensions to the character, even had my observations been less hurried
than they necessarily were. I write only for the great multitude, as
ill-instructed in this sphere as I cheerfully admit myself, and who yet
are not unwilling to learn what impression is made by the treas