This is all I can remember of to-day.  I am fatigued, and my head aches;—­my imagination is yet dazzled:—­my eyes are tired of admiring, my mind is tired of thinking, and my heart with feeling.——­Now for repose.

27.—­To-day we visited the Manfrini Palace, the Casa Pisani, the Palazzo Barberigo, and concluded the morning in the colonnade of St. Mark, and the public gardens.  The day has been far less fatiguing than yesterday:  for though we have seen an equal variety of objects, they forced the attention less, and gratified the imagination more.

At the Manfrini Palace there is the most valuable and splendid collection of pictures I have yet seen in Italy or elsewhere.  I have no intention of turning my little Diary into a mere catalogue of names which I can find in every guide-book; but I cannot pass over Giorgione’s beautiful group of himself, and his wife and child, which Lord Byron calls “love at full length and life, not love ideal,” and it is indeed exquisite.  A female with a guitar by the same master is almost equal to it.  There are two Lucretias—­one by Guido and one by Giordano:  though both are beautiful, particularly the former, there was, I thought, an impropriety in the conception of both pictures:  the figure was too voluptuous—­too exposed, and did not give me the idea of the matronly Lucretia, who so carefully arranged her drapery before she fell.  I remember, too, a St. Cecilia by Carlo Dolci, of most heavenly beauty,—­two Correggios—­Iphigenia in Aulis, by Padovanino:  in this picture the figure of Agamemnon is a complete failure, but the lifeless beauty of Iphigenia, a wonderful effort of art:  and a hundred others at least, all masterpieces.

The Barberigo Palace was the school of Titian.  We were shown the room in which he painted, and the picture he left unfinished when he died at the age of 99.  It is a David—­as vigorous in the touch and style as any of his first pictures.

* * * * *

It is now some days since I had time to write; or rather the intervals of excitement and occupation found me too much exhausted to take up my pencil.  Our stay at Venice has been rendered most agreeable by the kindness of Mr. H——­, the British Consul, and his amiable and charming wife, and in their society we have spent much of the last few days.

One of our pleasantest excursions was to the Armenian convent of St. Lazaro, where we were received by Fra Pasquale, an accomplished and intelligent monk, and a particular friend of Mr. H——.  After we had visited every part of the convent, the printing press—­the library—­the laboratory—­which contains several fine mathematical instruments of English make; and admired the beautiful little tame gazelle which bounded through the corridors, we were politely refreshed with most delicious sweetmeats and coffee; and took leave of Fra Pasquale with regret.