that I could discover.  Here is the “Marriage of the Virgin,” by Raffaelle, of which I had often heard.  It disappointed me at the first glance, but charmed me at the second, and enchanted me at the third.  The unobtrusive grace and simplicity of Raffaelle do not immediately strike an eye so unpractised, and a taste so unformed as mine still is:  for though I have seen the best pictures in England, we have there no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the two divinest masters of the Italian art, Raffaelle and Correggio.  There are not, I conceive, half a dozen of either in all the collections together, and those we do possess, are far from being among their best efforts.  But Raffaelle must not make me forget the Hagar in the Brera:  the affecting—­the inimitable Hagar! what agony, what upbraiding, what love, what helpless desolation of heart in that countenance!  I may well remember the deep pathos of this picture; for the face of Hagar has haunted me sleeping and waking ever since I beheld it.  Marvellous power of art! that mere inanimate forms, and colours compounded of gross materials, should thus live—­thus speak—­thus stand a soul-felt presence before us, and from the senseless board or canvas, breathe into our hearts a feeling, beyond what the most impassioned eloquence could ever inspire—­beyond what mere words can ever render.

Last night and the preceding we spent at the Scala.  The opera was stupid, and Madame Bellochi, who is the present primadonna, appeared to me harsh and ungraceful, when compared to Fodor.  The new ballet however, amply indemnified us for the disappointment.  Our Italian friends condoled with us on being a few days too late to see La Vestale, which had been performed for sixty nights, and is one of Vigano’s masterpieces.  I thought the Didone Abbandonata left us nothing to regret.  The immense size of the stage, the splendid scenery, the classical propriety and magnificence of the dresses, the fine music, and the exquisite acting (for there is very little dancing), all conspired to render it enchanting.  The celebrated cavern scene in the fourth book of Virgil, is rather too closely copied in a most inimitable pas de deux; so closely, indeed, that I was considerably alarmed pour les bienseances; but little Ascanius, who is asleep in a corner (Heaven knows how he came there), wakes at the critical moment, and the impending catastrophe is averted.  Such a scene, however beautiful, would not, I think, be endured on the English stage.  I observed that when it began, the curtains in front of the boxes were withdrawn, the whole audience, who seemed to be expecting it, was hushed; the deepest silence, the most delighted attention prevailed during its performance; and the moment it was over, a third of the spectators departed.  I am told this is always the case; and that in almost every ballet d’action, the public are gratified by a scene, or scenes, of a similar tendency.