she has had no Louvre to study chefs-d'œuvre in, nor ransacked Italy and Spain of their choicest productions. This is something of which to be proud; especially in a people that Napoleon was pleased to designate "a nation of shopkeepers."

8th.-Spent the morning at the Louvre, in the sculpture galleries. What treasures of art! The Diana is exquisite, the very personification of dignity and fierté; beautiful in the details, and charming in the ensemble; yet how totally different from the beauty of the Venus! One hardly knows to which to yield the palm. The latter, all softness and roundness, the forms melting into one another, and imbued, as it were, with a conscious bashfulness: the other, cold, haughty, fearless, yet not masculine; with all of woman's beauty, and none of its effeminacy. How inimitable are the works of the ancients! What repose, dignity, and grace! There is an individuality conspicuous, even in the statues which are most elevated above the limits of mortal beauty, which yet proves that they were copied from nature; a nature far superior to that which we behold, because unspoilt by tight-lacing or compression.

The Gladiator, whose real station, the cognoscenti

have not yet decided, some asserting it to be a warrior, and others maintaining it to be a gladiator, is a fine statue.

There is something in the

face indicative of a more elevated character than we attribute to a mercenary fighter; an expression of moral as well as physical courage, and the action is vigorous and full of life. Byron has done as much as Agaseas, the sculptor who executed this chefd'œuvre, to give immortality to the gladiator; for who can behold the statue without thinking of his beautiful allusion to the subject, suggested by the view of the Coliseum and the celebrated statue at Rome.-

"I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony;
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him-he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

"He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play ;
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire?
And unavenged?-Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!"

The gladiator was found at Actium, near to the place where the Apollo of Belvidere was discovered; which leads to the conclusion that some connoisseur of the arts, wealthy enough to indulge an exquisite taste, must have had a residence there. Happy man! who enjoyed, even for the brief span of his life, works that have delighted posterity; and which, after the lapse of so many centuries, remain as models to direct taste, and prove the excellence which we cannot reach. It has frequently occurred to me that the sculptors of antiquity had an advantage in practising their art, denied to, or, at least, rarely possessed by, those of our own time. I refer to the physiognomies of that epoch; the expressions of which were more simple and concentrated than at present. Enough civilization then existed to admit of all the graceful adjuncts of decoration in the costumes, and in the care of the persons of their subjects, which is required to form a fine work; yet originality of expression, or peculiarity of tournure, was not impaired by the mannerism of fashion, or the insipidity of imitation, which in our days render so many people alike. The passions, too, were then more powerful, and consequently more strikingly

developed in the countenances, than now; when affectation, engendered by extreme civilization, and nurtured by a false refinement, has much deteriorated natural expression. Women dared to frown or smile then, without remembering the effect of either movement of the muscles on their beauty. Now, they seldom exceed a simper, and even this only when they have good teeth.

Pictures, when compared with statues, appear evanescent as the beings they are made to represent. A few centuries passed, and they are faded or destroyed; while the enduring marble resists time, and triumphs over decay.

9th.-Lord

dined with us. I wonder whether

I shall ever arrive at the sang froid and nonchalance

that distinguish him!

The nil admirari seems

indeed to be his motto. world as most men, has read more, and is by no means deficient in good sense or ability. How, therefore, he can lead the indolent life he pursues, astonishes me! Play has, I am told, produced this effect. This vice, like the touch of the torpedo, benumbs the faculties, and destroys the pure sense of enjoy

He has seen as much of the

ment natural to a healthy state of mind. It has not, however, soured his temper, which is all mildness; nor injured his manners, which are peculiarly agreeable. Gaming, like intoxication, gives birth to a progeny of other vices, generally rendering those who yield to it, as baneful to self, as careless of others: he, therefore, who has so long practised it, without losing either his reputation or temper, must have originally possessed a superior nature.

There is something very agreeable in the manners of a perfectly well-bred Englishman. His civilities never appear insincere or exaggerated; they are marked by a deference for the person to whom they are addressed, as well as by a self-respect that precludes flattery. His opinions are pronounced with a moderation and modesty, that prevents their irritating the vanity of those who may differ from him; and his knowledge, however various and extensive, is left to be discovered by, but is never obtruded on, his associates. A well-bred Englishman appears to think only of the persons to whom he speaks; while foreigners seem to think more of themselves.

10th.-Leave-taking is a triste ceremony: I have