‘Armis vitrumque canter,’

as old Virgil or somebody else says.  So now let’s have a little ecarte to put it all out of our heads:—­for my brains have turned round like a windmill, by Jove! ever since I was on the top of that cursed steeple on the capitol,” etc., etc.

I make a resolution to myself every morning before breakfast, that I will be prepared with a decent stock of good-nature and forbearance, and not laugh at my friend L.’s absurdities; but in vain are my amiable intentions:  his blunders and his follies surpass all anticipation, as they defy all powers of gravity.  I console myself with the conviction that such is his slowness of perception, he does not see that he is the butt of every party; and such his obtuseness of feeling, that if he did see it, he would not mind it; but he is the heir to twenty-five thousand a year, and therefore, as R. said, he can afford to be laughed at.

We “dispatched,” as L. says, a good deal to-day, though I did not “work quite so hard” as the rest of the party:  in fact, I was obliged to return home from fatigue, after having visited the Doria and Sciarra Palaces (the last for the second time), and the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.

The Doria Palace contains the largest collection of pictures in Rome:  but they are in a dirty and neglected condition, and many of the best are hung in the worst possible light:  added to this there is such a number of bad and indifferent pictures, that one ought to visit the Doria Gallery half a dozen times merely to select those on which a cultivated taste would dwell with pleasure.  Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Joanna of Naples, is considered one of the most valuable pictures in the collection.  It exhibits the same cast of countenance which prevails through all his female heads, a sort of sentimental simpering affectation which is very disagreeable, and not at all consistent with the character of Joanna.  I was much more delighted by some magnificent portraits by Titian and Rubens; and by a copy of the famous antique picture, the Nozze Aldobrandini, executed in a kindred spirit by the classic pencil of Poussin.

The collection at the Sciarra Palace is small but very select.  The pictures are hung with judgment, and well taken care of.  The Magdalen, which is considered one of Guido’s masterpieces, charmed me most:  the countenance is heavenly; though full of ecstatic and devout contemplation, there is in it a touch of melancholy, “all sorrow’s softness charmed from its despair,” which is quite exquisite:  and the attitude, and particularly the turn of the arm, are perfectly graceful:  but why those odious turnips and carrots in the foreground?  They certainly do not add to the sentiment and beauty of the picture.—­Leonardo da Vinci’s Vanity and Modesty, and Caravaggio’s Gamblers, both celebrated pictures in very different styles, are in this collection.  I ought not to forget Raffaelle’s beautiful portrait of a young musician