man. The Medicean Venus is unquestionably a perfect model of female beauty; but while Apollo appears more than a man, the Venus feems precifely a beautiful wo

man.

In the fame room are many valuable curiofities, befides a collection of admirable pictures by the best mafters. I do not know whether any are more excellent of their kind, but I am convinced none are more attentively confidered than the two Venuses of Titian; one is faid to be a portrait of his wife, the other of his mistress. The firft is the finest portrait I ever faw, except the fecond; of this you have feen many copies: though none of them equals the beauty of the original, yet they will give a jufter idea of it than any defcription of mine could. On the back ground, two women feem fearching for fomething in a trunk. This epilode is found much fault with; for my part, fee no great harm the two poor women do:

I

none

none but those critics who fearch more. eagerly after deformity than beauty, will take any notice of them.

Befides the Gallery and Tribuna, the hundredth part of whofe treasures I have not particularifed, there are other rooms, whofe contents are indicated by the names they bear; as, the Cabinet of Arts, of Aftronomy, of Natural Hiftory, of Medals, of Porcelain, of Antiquities, and the Saloon of the Hermaphrodite, fo called from a ftatue which divides the admiration of the Amateurs with that in the Borghese villa at Rome. The excellence of the execution is difgraced by the vilenefs of the fubject. We are furprifed how the Greeks and Romans could take pleasure in fuch unnatural figures; in this particular, their tafte feems to have been as depraved, as in general it was elegant and refined. In this room there is a collection of drawings by fome of the greatest mafters, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Bb3 Andrea

Andrea del Sarto, and others. There is, in particular, a fketch of the Laft Judgment by the first-named of these painters, different, and, in the opinion of fome, designed with more judgment, than his famous. picture on the fame fubject in Sixtus the Fourth's chapel in the Vatican.

The large room, called the Gallery of Portraits, is not the leaft curious in this vaft Mufæum. It contains the portraits, all executed by themselves, of the most eminent painters who have flourished in Europe during the three laft centuries. They amount to above two hundred; those of Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, and Guido, were formerly the most esteemed; two have been added lately, which vie with the finest in this collection-thofe of Mengs and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The portrait of Raphael feems to have been done when he was young; it is not equal to any of the above. The Electress Dowager of Saxony has made a valuable

addition

addition to this collection, by fending her own portrait painted by herself; she is at full length, with the palette and pencils in her hands. Correggio, after hearing the picture of St. Cecilia at Bologna cried up as a prodigy, and the ne plus ultra of art, went to fee it; and conscious that there was nothing in it that required the exertion of greater powers than he felt within himself, he was overheard to fay, "Anch' io fono pittore." This il luftrious princess was also conscious of her powers when the painted this portrait, which feems to pronounce to the fpectators, Anch' io fono pittrice

I alfo am a painter.

Bb 4

LETTER LXXII.

H

Florence.

AVING now croffed from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, and travelled through a confiderable part of Italy, I acknowledge I have been agreeably difappointed in finding the ftate of the poorer part of the inhabitants lefs wretched than, from the accounts of fome travellers, I imagined it was; and I may with equal truth add, that although I have not seen fo much poverty as I was taught to expect, yet I have feen far more poverty than mifery. Even the extremity of indigence is accompanied with lefs wretchednefs here than in many other countries. This is partly owing to the mildness of the climate and fertility of the foil, and partly to the peaceable, religious, and contented difpofition of the people.