he only known fresco of Titian," forgetting the celebrated
one in the Scuola del Santo at Padua, of which he has spoken in a
previous volume. He occasionally makes an assertion to which many will
demur; as, for instance, that "The real glory of the Italian towns
consists not in their churches, but in their palaces." The best
refutation of this paradox is in his own pages. Most people will be
startled, too, by hearing of "the want of architectural power in Michael
Angelo," although this remark is followed by a criticism which strikes
us as extremely just on the stupendous slumberers on the monuments of
the Medici: "The disproportionate figures are slipping off the pitiable
pedestals which support them." Among the throng of indefinable emotions
and sensations which beset one in the Medicean chapel of San Lorenzo, we
have always been conscious of distinct discomfort from the attitude of
these sleepers, who could only maintain their posture by an immense
muscular effort incompatible with their sublime repose. As regards
practical matters, few travelers or foreign residents in Italy will
endorse Mr. Hare's statement that making a bargain in advance for
lodgings or conveyances is not a necessary precaution, or his denial of
the almost universal attempt to overcharge which is recognized and
resisted by all natives. But Mr. Hare has illusions, and Italian probity
is one of them. All his remarks about the present government of Italy
(of which he speaks as "the Sardinian government" with an emphasis akin
to the B_u_onapart_e_ of old French monarchists) are to be taken with
the utmost reservation, as most readers will see for themselves after
meeting his allusion to the massacre at Perugia in 1859 as in some sort a
defensive action on the part of the papal troops. Mr. Hare's reasoning
on all that relates to this subject is weak and illogical, sometimes
puerile. Any one who loves what is venerable and picturesque must share
the impatience and regret with which he sees so much beauty and
antiquity disappearing before the besom of progress or the rage for
improvement, especially in Rome. But we must remember that Italy is not
the first, but the last, European country in which this has come about:
in England, France and Germany what delights the eyes of the few has
long been giving place to what betters the condition or serves the
interest of the masses. Moreover, the Italians themselves, of whatever
political complexion, black or red,