In these is Denner's head of an old woman, which Cowper
celebrates in a pretty poem - a marvel of faithful reproduction. One
would think the old lady must have sat at least a year, till he had
daguerreotyped every wrinkle and twinkle. How much better all this
labor spent on the head of a good old woman than on the head of a
cabbage!
And now come a set of Italian rooms, in which we have some curious
specimens of the Romish development in religion; as, for instance, the
fathers Gregory, Augustine, and Jerome, meditating on the immaculate
conception of the Virgin. Think of a painter employing all his powers
in representing such a fog bank!
Next comes a room dedicated to the works of Titian, in which two nude
Venuses, of a very different character from the de Milon, are too
conspicuous. Titian is sensuous; a Greek, but not of the highest
class.
The next room is devoted to Paul Veronese. This Paul has quite a
character of his own - a grand old Venetian, with his head full of
stateliness, and court ceremony, and gorgeous conventionality, half
Oriental in his passion for gold, and gems, and incense. As a specimen
of the subjects in which his soul delights, take the following, which
he has wrought up into a mammoth picture: