r of
rain in an open cart; on my suggesting the possibility of the rain
hurting it, an old piece of matting was thrown over its face, and it
was wheeled away "per essere pulita." What fate this signified, is
best to be discovered from the large Perugino in the Academy; whose
divine distant landscape is now almost concealed by the mass of
French ultramarine, painted over it apparently with a common house
brush, by the picture cleaner.

Not to detain the reader by going through the cities of Italy, I
will only further mention, that at Padua, the rain beats through the
west window of the Arena chapel, and runs down _over_ the frescoes.
That at Venice, in September last, I saw three buckets set in the
scuola di San Rocco to catch the rain which came _through_ the
_canvases_ of Tintoret on the roof; and that while the old works of
art are left thus unprotected, the palaces are being restored in the
following modes. The English residents knock out bow windows to see
up and down the canal. The Italians paint all the _marble_ white or
cream color, stucco the fronts, and paint them in blue and white
stripes to imitate alabaster. (This has been done with Danieli's
hotel, with the north angle of the church of St. Mark, there
replacing the real alabasters which have been torn down, with a
noble old house in St. Mark's place, and with several in the narrow
canals.) The marbles of St. Mark's, and carvings, are being
_scraped_ down to make them look bright--the lower arcade of the
Doge's palace is whitewashed--the entrance porch is being
restored--the operation having already proceeded so far as the
knocking off of the heads of the old statues--an iron railing
painted black and yellow has been put round the court. Faded
tapestries, and lottery tickets (the latter for the benefit of
charitable institutions) are exposed for sale in the council
chambers.

[5] Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Book I. chap. ii. Sec. 2.

[6] I do not assert that the accidental utility of a theoretic
pursuit, as of botany for instance, in any way degrades it, though
it cannot be considered as elevating it. But essential utility, a
purpose to which the pursuit is in some measure referred, as in
architecture, invariably degrades, because then the theoretic part
of the art is comparatively lost sight of; and thus architecture