What could excel in beauty the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael?  It is another of those works of that divine artist, on which we gaze and gaze with a never-tiring enjoyment of its angelic beauty.  To my eye it is faultless; I could not wish a single outline of form, a single shade of color changed.  Like his unrivalled Madonna in the Dresden Gallery, its beauty is spiritual as well as earthly; and while gazing on the glorious countenance of the Jesus-child, I feel an impulse I can scarcely explain—­a longing to tear it from the canvas as if it were a breathing form, and clasp it to my heart in a glow of passionate love.  What a sublime inspiration Raphael must have felt when he painted it!  Judging from its effect on the beholder, I can conceive of no higher mental excitement than that required to create it.

Here are also some of the finest and best preserved pictures of Salvator Rosa, and his portrait—­a wild head, full of spirit and genius.  Besides several landscapes in his savage and stormy style, there are two large sea-views, in which the atmosphere is of a deep and exquisite softness, without impairing the strength and boldness of the composition.  “A Battle Scene,” is terrible.  Hundreds of combatants are met in the shock and struggle of conflict.  Horses, mailed knights, vassals are mixed together in wild confusion; banners are waving and lances flashing amid the dust and smoke, while the wounded and dying are trodden under foot in darkness and blood.  I now first begin to comprehend the power and sublimity of his genius.  From the wildness and gloom of his pictures, he might almost be called the Byron of painters.

There is a small group of the “Fates,” by Michael Angelo, which is one of the best of the few pictures which remain of him.  As is well known, he disliked the art, saying it was only fit for women.  This picture shows, however, how much higher he might have gone, had he been so inclined.  The three weird sisters are ghostly and awful—­the one who stands behind, holding the distaff, almost frightful.  She who stands ready to cut the thread as it is spun out, has a slight trace of pity on her fixed and unearthly lineaments.  It is a faithful embodiment of the old Greek idea of the Fates.  I have wondered why some artist has not attempted the subject in a different way.  In the Northern Mythology they are represented as wild maidens, armed with swords and mounted on fiery coursers.  Why might they not also be pictured as angels, with countenances of a sublime and mysterious beauty—­one all radiant with hope and promise of glory, and one with the token of a better future mingled with the sadness with which it severs the links of life?

There are many, many other splendid works in this collection, but it is unnecessary to mention them.  I have only endeavored, by taking a few of the best known, to give some idea of them as they appear to me.  There are hundreds of pictures here, which, though gems in themselves, are by masters who are rarely heard of in America, and it would be of little interest to go through the Gallery, describing it in guide-book fashion.  Indeed, to describe galleries, however rich and renowned they may be, is in general a work of so much difficulty, that I know not whether the writer or the reader is made most tired thereby.