nd, and--the censor see fit to admit: for, in
_this_ exhibition, 'nothing is shown that will shock the most fastidious
taste'--and it can be found thus, in a building in the Piazza del
Popolo.

Caper's painting for the display was rejected for some reason. It
represented a sinister-looking brigand, stealing away with Two Keys in
one hand and a spilt cap in the other, suddenly kicked over by a
large-sized donkey, his mane and tail flying, head up, and an air of
liberty about him generally, which probably shocked Antonelli's tool the
censor's sense of the proprieties.

Rocjean consoled Caper with the reflection that his painting was refused
admittance because the donkey had gradually grown to be emblematical of
the state--in fact, was so popularly known to the _forestieri_ as the
Roman Locomotive, with allusions to its steam whistle, &c., highly
annoying to the chief authorities--and therefore, its introduction in a
painting was intolerable, and not to be endured.

The works of art included contributions from Americans, Italians,
Belgians, Swiss, English, Hessians, French, Dutch, Danes, Bavarians,
Spaniards, Norwegians, Prussians, Russians, Austrians, Finns,
Esthonians, Lithuanians, Laplanders, and Samoyedes. There was little
evidence of the handiwork of mature artists; they either withheld their
productions from dislike of the managers, or through determination of
giving their younger brethren a fair field and a clear show. A careful
observer could see that these young artists had not profited to the
fullest extent by the advantages held out to them through a residence in
the Imperial City. There was a wine-yness, and a pretty-girl-yness, and
tobacco-ness, about paintings and sculpture, that could have been picked
up just as well in Copenhagen or Madrid or New York as in Rome. Michael
Angelo evidently had not 'struck in' on their canvases, or Praxiteles
struck out from their marbles. Theirs was an unrevealed religion to
these neophytes.

The study of a piece of old Turkey carpet, or a camel's hair shawl, or a
butterfly's wing, or a bouquet of many flowers would have taught the
best artist in the exhibition more concerning color than he would learn
in ten years simply copying the best of the old painters, who had
themselves studied directly from these things and their like.

In sculpture, as in painting, the artists showed the same tame following
other sculptors; the same fear of facing Nature, and studying her face