inclines most to such patronage, and of the consequences thereof.

From Morgarten and Grutli, I intended to have crossed to the Vaudois
Valleys, to examine the shepherd character there; but on the way I had
to pass through Turin, where unexpectedly I found the Paul Veroneses,
one of which, as I told you just now, stayed me at once for six weeks.
Naturally enough, one asked how these beautiful Veroneses came there:
and found they had been commissioned by Cardinal Maurice of Savoy.
Worthy Cardinal, I thought: that's what Cardinals were made for.
However, going a little farther in the gallery, one comes upon four very
graceful pictures by Albani--these also commissioned by the Cardinal,
and commissioned with special directions, according to the Cardinal's
fancy. Four pictures, to be illustrative of the four elements.

18. One of the most curious things in the mind of the people of that
century is their delight in these four elements, and in the four
seasons. They had hardly any other idea of decorating a room, or of
choosing a subject for a picture, than by some renewed reference to fire
and water, or summer and winter; nor were ever tired of hearing that
summer came after spring, and that air was not earth, until these
interesting pieces of information got finally and poetically expressed
in that well-known piece of elegant English conversation about the
weather, Thomson's "Seasons." So the Cardinal, not appearing to have any
better idea than the popular one, orders the four elements; but thinking
that the elements pure would be slightly dull, he orders them, in one
way or another, to be mixed up with Cupids; to have, in his own words,
"una copiosa quantita di Amorini." Albani supplied the Cardinal
accordingly with Cupids in clusters: they hang in the sky like bunches
of cherries; and leap out of the sea like flying fish; grow out of the
earth in fairy rings; and explode out of the fire like squibs. No work
whatsoever is done in any of the four elements, but by the Cardinal's
Cupids. They are plowing the earth with their arrows; fishing in the
sea with their bowstrings; driving the clouds with their breath; and
fanning the fire with their wings. A few beautiful nymphs are assisting
them here and there in pearl-fishing, flower-gathering, and other such
branches of graceful industry; the moral of the whole being, that the
sea was made for its pearls, the earth for its flowers, and all the
world for pleasure.

19. Well,