beauty which inhabited
his soul.

Spinello, thus entrapped by his own enthusiasm, could do no other than
proceed with the portrait. Though infinitely desirous not to wound the
feelings of Daddi, he perceived at once that it would be necessary
to recast the whole design of the piece to change the style of
colouring--in a word, to paint a new picture. Daddi, who loved his
child still more than his art, and wished to preserve and transmit to
posterity a likeness of her, by whomsoever painted, was not offended,
though he was a little hurt, by this freedom, and without murmur or
objection allowed Spinello to accomplish his undertaking in whatever
manner he pleased. The young man went to work with a satisfaction and
alacrity he had never before experienced; and the image of Beatrice,
passing into his soul, to be thence reflected, as from one mirror upon
another, on the canvass, shed the light of Paradise over his fancy--as
the musk-deer perfumes the thicket in which it slumbers.

Though this picture is greatly celebrated in Italy, and especially
at Arezzo, I shall not pause to describe it minutely. Beatrice is
represented as reclining, in a chaste and thoughtful attitude, on an
antique couch at the foot of a pillar: flowers and flowering shrubs
appear to shed their perfume around; and a spreading tree, with a vine
loaded with grapes climbing up its trunk and branches, stretches over
her. In the back ground the sky only, and a few dusky trees, appear.
The design, it will be perceived is meagre enough, but the execution
is incomparably beautiful; and it may be safely affirmed, that if
immortality upon earth was all that Bernardo coveted for his child,
his prayer has been granted. A thousand pens have been employed in
celebrating this picture, and Italian literature must perish ere
Beatrice be forgotten.

I shall not pretend to say by what means, since it was not by words,
Spinello discovered that he was beloved by Beatrice: but assuredly the
discovery gave him considerable pain. The form of Beatrice would rise up
both in his sleeping and waking dreams before his fancy, among his most
cherished associations; and her features, although he observed it not,
mingled themselves, as it were, with the elements of every picture he
painted.

While this was the state of his mind and feelings, Spinello was engaged
to paint his famous picture of the "Fall of the Angels," for the church
of St. Angelo at Arezzo. The design of this great