In taking a retrospective view of all the best collections in Italy and of the Italian school in particular, I have been struck by the endless multiplication of the same subjects, crucifixions, martyrdoms, and other scripture horrors;—­virgins, saints, and holy families.  The prevalence of the former class of subjects is easily explained, and has been ingeniously defended; but it is not so easily reconciled to the imagination.  The mind and the eye are shocked and fatigued by the succession of revolting and sanguinary images which pollute the walls of every palace, church, gallery, and academy, from Milan to Naples.  The splendour of the execution only adds to their hideousness; we at once seek for nature, and tremble to find it.  It is hateful to see the loveliest of the arts degraded to such butcher-work.  I have often gone to visit a famed collection with a secret dread of being led through a sort of intellectual shambles, and returned with the feeling of one who had supped full of horrors.  I do not know how men think, and feel, though I believe many a man, who with every other feeling absorbed in overpowering interest, could look unshrinking upon a real scene of cruelty and blood, would shrink away disgusted and sickened from the cold, obtrusive, painted representation of the same object; for the truth of this I appeal to men.  I can only see with woman’s eyes, and think and feel as I believe every woman must, whatever may be her love for the arts.  I remember that in one of the palaces at Milan—­(I think it was in the collection of the Duca Litti)—­we were led up to a picture defended from the air by a plate of glass, and which being considered as the gem of the collection, was reserved for the last as a kind of bonne bouche.  I gave but one glance, and turned away loathing, shuddering, sickening.  The cicerone looked amazed at my bad taste, he assured me it was un vero Correggio (which by the way I can never believe), and that the duke had refused for it I know not how many thousand scudi.  It would be difficult to say what was most execrable in this picture, the appalling nature of the subject, the depravity of mind evinced in its conception, or the horrible truth and skill with which it was delineated.  I ought to add that it hung up in the family dining-room and in full view of the dinner-table.

There is as picture among the chefs-d’oeuvres in the Vatican, which, if I were pope (or Pope Joan) for a single day, should be burnt by the common hangman, “with the smoke of its ashes to poison the air,” as it now poisons the sight by its unutterable horrors.  There is another in the Palazzo Pitti, at which I shiver still, and unfortunately there is no avoiding it, as they have hung it close to Guido’s lovely Cleopatra.  In the gallery there is a Judith and Holofernes which irresistibly strikes the attention—­if any thing would add to the horror inspired by the sanguinary subject, and the atrocious fidelity and talent with which it is expressed, it is that the artist was a woman.  I must confess that Judith is not one of my favourite heroines; but I can more easily conceive how a woman inspired by vengeance and patriotism could execute such a deed, than that she could coolly sit down, and day after day, hour after hour, touch after touch, dwell upon and almost realize to the eye such an abomination as this.