Rogers, with equal good nature and good sense, neither noticed these lines nor withdrew his friendship and intimacy from the writer.

* * * * *

Carlo Dolce is not one of my favourite masters.  There is a cloying sweetness in his style, a general want of power which wearies me:  yet I brought away from the Corsini Palace to-day an impression of a head by Carlo Dolce (La Poesia), which I shall never forget.  Now I recall the picture, I am at a loss to tell where lies the charm which has thus powerfully seized on my imagination.  Here are no “eyes upturned like one inspired”—­no distortion—­no rapt enthusiasm—­no Muse full of the God;—­but it is a head so purely, so divinely intellectual, so heavenly sweet, and yet so penetrating,—­so full of sensibility, and yet so unstained by earthly passion—­so brilliant, and yet so calm—­that if Carlo Dolce had lived in our days, I should have thought he intended it for the personified genius of Wordsworth’s poetry.  There is such an individual reality about this beautiful head, that I am inclined to believe the tradition, that it is the portrait of one of Carlo Dolce’s daughters who died young:—­and yet

    “Did ever mortal mixture of earth’s mould
    Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?”

* * * * *

Nov. 15.—­Our stay at Florence promises to be far gayer than either Milan or Venice, or even Paris; more diversified by society, as well as affording a wider field of occupation and amusement.

Sometimes in the long evenings, when fatigued and over-excited, I recline apart on the sofa, or bury myself in the recesses of a fauteuil; when I am aware that my mind is wandering away to forbidden themes, I force my attention to what is going forward; and often see and hear much that is entertaining, if not improving.  People are so accustomed to my pale face, languid indifference and, what M——­ calls, my impracticable silence, that after the first glance and introduction, I believe they are scarcely sensible of my presence:  so I sit, and look, and listen, secure and harboured in my apparent dullness.  The flashes of wit, the attempts at sentiment, the affectation of enthusiasm, the absurdities of folly, and the blunders of ignorance; the contrast of characters and the clash of opinions, the scandalous anecdotes of the day, related with sprightly malice, and listened to with equally malicious avidity,—­all these, in my days of health and happiness, had power to surprise, or amuse, or provoke me.  I could mingle then in the conflict of minds; and hear my part with smiles in the social circle; though the next moment, perhaps, I might contemn myself and others:  and the personal scandal, the characteristic tale, the amusing folly, or the malignant wit, were effaced from my mind—­

    ——­“Like forms with chalk
    Painted on rich men’s floors for one feast night.”