not grouped but huddled together; they
are not well-drawn individually; the character is vulgar and tame; there
is no taste in the disposal of the drapery and ornaments, no effect of
_chiaroscuro._ It is flimsy and misty, and, as to color, the quality to
which I was specially directed, if total disregard of arrangement, if the
scattering of tawdry reds and blues and yellows over the picture, all
quarrelling for the precedence; if leather complexions varied by those of
chalk, without truth or depth or tone, constitute good color, then are
they finely colored. But, if Landi is a colorist, then are Titian and
Veronese never more to be admired. In short, I have never met with the
works of an artist who had a name like Landi's so utterly destitute of
even the shadow of merit. There is but one word which can express their
character, they are _execrable!_

"It is astonishing that with such works of the old masters before them as
the Italians have, they should not perceive the defects of their own
painters in this particular. Cammuccini is the only one among them who
possesses genius in the higher departments, and he only in drawing; his
color is very bad.

"A funeral procession passed the house to-day. On the bier, exposed as is
customary here, was a beautiful young girl, apparently of fifteen,
dressed in rich laces and satins embroidered with gold and silver and
flowers tastefully arranged, and sprinkled also with real flowers, and at
her head was placed a coronet of flowers. She had more the appearance of
sleep than of death. No relative appeared near her; the whole seemed to
be conducted by the priests and monks and those hideous objects in white
hoods, with faces covered except two holes for the eyes."

In early May, Morse, in company with other artists, went on a sketching
trip to Tivoli, Subiaco, Vico, and Vara. This must have been one of the
happiest periods of his life. He was in Italy, the cradle of the art he
loved; he was surrounded by beauty, both natural and that wrought by the
hand of man; he had daily intercourse with congenial souls, and home,
with its cares and struggles, seemed far away. His notebooks are largely
filled with simple descriptions of the places visited, but now and then
he indulges in rhapsody. At Subiaco he comes upon this scene:--

"Upon a solitary seat (a fit place for meditation and study), by a gate
which shut the part of the terrace near the convent from that which goes
round the hill,