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with time, but Venus, once imaged on the heart, remains there forever, in all its distinctness and beauty.

Mr. Powers told me he had thirty different females as models for his Eve alone. She must be a rare being who would combine, in her single person, the separate attractions of thirty beautiful women, and yet the artist finds her still too ugly for the perfect being of his fancy, and turns away dissatisfied to his ideal form. If Jupiter was an artist, and Minerva sprang out of his forehead the living image of his idea of a perfect woman, she would be well worth seeing.

Clevenger* is also a true artist. His great work is an Indian Chief. It is a noble figure, and shows conclusively that our Indian wild bloods furnish as good specimens of well-knit, graceful and athletic forms as the Greek wrestlers themselves. He stands leaning on his bow, with his head slightly turned aside, and his breath suspended in the deepest listening attitude, as if he expected every moment to hear again the stealthy tread his ear had but partially caught a moment before. Clevenger is an openhearted, full-souled man-western in all his tastes and great characteristics—and designs to spend his life in our western country, to let his fame grow up with its growing people. Among Clevenger's minor works was a beautiful bust of Miss of New

York, a perfect gem in its way.

I asked him what he thought an Indian would say to meet in the forest his statue, painted, and tricked off in savage costume. He laughed outright at the conception, and replied, "He would probably stand still and look at it a moment in suspense, and then exclaim "ugh". That would be the beginning and end of his criticism."

Close to Clevenger's studio is that of Brown, the sculptor. He was also engaged on an Indian--not a warrior, or hunter, but a boy and a poet of the woods. Indians, among the gods and goddesses of Florence, were a new thing, and excited not a little wonder; and it was gratifying to see that American genius could not only strike out a new path, but follow it successfully.

But I forget my Poetic Indian Boy, though it is not so easy

*Since dead.

forget him, for his melancholy, thoughtful face haunts me like a vision, and I often say to myself, "I wonder what has become of that dreamy boy." In it, Mr. Brown has endeavored to body forth his own nature, which is full of "musing and melancholy.” The boy has gone into the woods to hunt, but the music of the wind among the tree tops, and the swaying of the great branches above him, and the mysterious influence of the deep forest, with its multitude of low voices, have made him forget his errand; and he is leaning on a broken tree, with his bow resting against his shoulder, while one hand is thrown behind him, listlessly grasping the useless arrow. His head is slightly bent, as if in deep thought, and as you look on the face, you feel that forest boy is beyond his years, and has begun too early to muse on life and on man. The effect of the statue is to interest one deeply in the fate of the being it represents. You feel that his life will not pass like the life of ordinary men. This effect, the very one the artist sought to produce, is of itself the highest praise that could be bestowed on the work.

Mr. Brown corroborated an impression often forced on me in Italy, that the Italians are almost universally disproportioned in their limbs. The arms of opera singers had always appeared awkwardly proportioned, which Mr. Brown told me was true, and that the same criticism held good of the lower limbs of both sexes, and that often when he thought he had found a perfect form, and one that indeed did answer remarkably to the standard of measurement considered faultless by artists, he was almost universally disappointed in the shortness of the limbs between the knee and ankle. Here is a fact for our ladies, and upsets some of our theories of the beauty of Italian forms. Mr. Brown, who has had models in both countries, declares that the American form harmonizes with the right standard oftener than the Italian. The Italian women have finer busts, which give them an erect and dignified appearance, and a firmer walk.

There is a new artist just risen in Florence, who threatens to take the crown off from Powers' head. His name is Dupré—a Frenchman by extraction, though an Italian by birth. Originally a poor wood engraver, he designed and executed last year, unknown to any body, the model of a dead Abel. Without advan.

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cing in the usual way from step to step, and testing his skill ɔn busts, and inferior subjects, he launched off on his untried powers into the region of highest effort. A year ago this winter, at the annual exhibition of designs and statues in Florence, young Dupré placed his Abel in the gallery. No one had seen it-no one had heard of it. Occupying an unostentatious place, and bearing an unknown name, it was at first passed by with a cursory glance. But somehow or other, those who had seen it once found themselves after awhile returning for a second look, till at length the whole crowd stood grouped around it, in silent admiration-our own artists among the number. It became immediately the talk of the city, and, in a single week, the poor wood engraver vaulted from his humble occupation, into a seat among the first artists of his country. A Russian princess passing through the city saw it, and was so struck with its singular beauty, that she immediately ordered a statue, for which the artist is to receive four thousand dollars. Many of the artists became envious of the sudden reputation of Dupré, and declared that no man ever wrought that model, and could not—that it was moulded from a dead body, and the artist was compelled to get the affidavits of his models to protect himself from slander. I regard this figure equal, if not superior, in statue ever wrought by any sculptor of any age. of course, to compare it with the Venus di Medici, or Apollo Belvidere, for they are of an entirely different character. The dead son of Niobe, in the Hall of Niobe, in the Royal Gallery, is a stiff wooden figure compared to it. The only criticism I could utter when I first stood over it was, "Oh how dead he lies!" There is no marble there, it is all flesh-flesh flexible as if the tide of life poured through it-yet bereft of its energy. The beautiful martyr looks as if but just slain; and before the muscles became rigid and the form stiff, had been thrown on a hill side, where with his face partly turned away, and one arm flung back despairingly over his head, he lies in death as natural as the human body itself would rest. The same perfection of design and execution is exhibited in all the details, and the whole figure is a noble monument of modern genius. Being a new thing, and hence not down in the guide-books, most travellers have passed through

its kind, to any It is not proper,

Florence without seeing it. I was indebted for my pleasure to a young attaché who has resided some years in the city, and hence is acquainted with all its objects of interest.

Dupré is now engaged on a Cain, which is to stand over the Abel. It was with great difficulty I got access to it, it being yet in an unfinished state. This is also a noble figure, of magnificent proportions, and wonderful muscular power. He stands gazing down on his dead brother, terror-struck at the new and awful form of death before him, his face working with despair and horror, and his powerful frame wrought into intense action by the terrible energy of the soul within. This is a work of great merit, but in my estimation falling far below the Abel. The attitude is too theatrical, and the whole expression extravagant and overwrought.

Dupré is a handsome man, with large black eyes and elancholy features.

Yours truly.

Venus di Medici-Titian's Venuses-Death of a Child.

FLORENCE, May.

DEAR E.-I do not design to write you often from Florence, since the great attraction here are the paintings and statuary, and those cannot be written about. You wish, of course, to know what I think of the Venus di Medici. Like all others I am disappointed at first sight. The head and face certainly are inferior in expression and power to the rest of the figure. But the form itself grows on one the oftener he sees it, till it becomes a part of the world of beauty within, and enters into all his after creations. The Tribune, as it is called, or circular room, in which it stands, is a rare spot. A row of the choicest statuary surrounds it, while the walls are hung with exquisite paintings. The two naked Venuses by Titian, hanging behind the Venus di Medici, are admirably painted, but to me disgusting pictures, from their almost beastly sensuality. I should think Titian might have conceived the design of them when half drunk, and took his models from a brothel. I have no patience with such prostitution of genius. The marble Venus has something of the goddess about her. There is an atmosphere of purity-divinity if you please—surrounding it, that holds you as by a spell.

The Flora, so called, of Titian, in another apartment of this gallery, is surpassingly lovely. I would give his two Venuses, nay, a hundred of them, for this single picture. The group of Niobe disappointed me. With the exception of Niobe herself and her two daughters, the figures struck me as commonplace. This whole royal gallery is a wealth of art. It was once offered to PITT for a reasonable sum, but that statesman had got England too deep under water already to plunge her deeper by the purchase of works of art.