Venice.

Female Beauty at Venice.—No longer what it was in the time of Titian.— His mistress.—Various Forms in which he has painted her.—Venus.—Divine and profane Love.—La Fragilita d'Amore—Paul Veronese.—His Women.— Marriage of Cana.—Character of Italian Beauty.—Raphael's Fornarina.— Modesty.

Thy brave, thy learned have passed away:

Thy beautiful!—ah, where are they?

The forms, the faces that once shone,

  Models of grace, in Titian's eye,

Where are they now, while flowers live on

  In ruined places, why, oh! why

  Must Beauty thus with Glory die?

That maid whose lips would still have moved,

  Could art have breathed a spirit through them;

Whose varying charms her artist loved

  More fondly every time he drew them,

(So oft beneath his touch they past,

Each semblance fairer than the last);

Wearing each shape that Fancy's range

  Offers to Love—yet still the one

Fair idol seen thro' every change,

  Like facets of some orient stone,—

  In each the same bright image shown.

Sometimes a Venus, unarrayed

  But in her beauty[1]—sometimes deckt

In costly raiment, as a maid

  That kings might for a throne select.[2]

Now high and proud, like one who thought

The world should at her feet be brought;

Now with a look reproachful sad,[3]—

Unwonted look from brow so glad,—

And telling of a pain too deep

For tongue to speak or eyes to weep.

Sometimes thro' allegory's veil,

  In double semblance seemed to shine,

Telling a strange and mystic tale

  Of Love Profane and Love Divine[4]—

Akin in features, but in heart

As far as earth and heaven apart.

Or else (by quaint device to prove

The frailty of all worldly love)

Holding a globe of glass as thin

  As air-blown bubbles in her hand,

With a young Love confined therein,

  Whose wings seem waiting to expand—

And telling by her anxious eyes

That if that frail orb break he flies.[5]

Thou too with touch magnificent,

PAUL of VERONA!—where are they?

The oriental forms[6] that lent

Thy canvas such a bright array?

Noble and gorgeous dames whose dress

Seems part of their own loveliness;

Like the sun's drapery which at eve

The floating clouds around him weave

Of light they from himself receive!

Where is there now the living face

  Like those that in thy nuptial throng[7]

By their superb, voluptuous grace,

Make us forget the time, the place,

  The holy guests they smile among,—

Till in that feast of heaven-sent wine

We see no miracles but thine.

If e'er, except in Painting's dream,

There bloomed such beauty here, 'tis gone,—

Gone like the face that in the stream

  Of Ocean for an instant shone,

When Venus at that mirror gave

A last look ere she left the wave.

And tho', among the crowded ways,

We oft are startled by the blaze

  Of eyes that pass with fitful light.

Like fire-flies on the wing at night[8]

'Tis not that nobler beauty given

To show how angels look in heaven.

Even in its shape most pure and fair,

'Tis Beauty with but half her zone,

All that can warm the sense is there,

  But the Soul's deeper charm has flown:—

'Tis RAPHAEL's Fornarina,—warm,

  Luxuriant, arch, but unrefined;

A flower round which the noontide swarm

  Of young Desires may buzz and wind,

But where true Love no treasure meets

Worth hoarding in his hive of sweets.

Ah no,—for this and for the hue

  Upon the rounded cheek, which tells

How fresh within the heart this dew

  Of love's unrifled sweetness dwells,

We must go back to our own Isles,

  Where Modesty, which here but gives

A rare and transient grace to smiles,

  In the heart's holy centre lives;

And thence as from her throne diffuses

  O'er thoughts and looks so bland a reign,

That not a thought or feeling loses

  Its freshness in that gentle chain.

[1] In the Tribune at Florence.

[2] In the Palazzo Pitti.

[3] Alludes particularly to the portrait of her in the Sciarra collection at Rome, where the look of mournful reproach in those full, shadowy eyes, as if she had been unjustly accused of something wrong, is exquisite.

[4] The fine picture in the Palazzo Borghese, called (it is not easy to say why) "Sacred and Profane Love," in which the two figures, sitting on the edge of the fountain, are evidently portraits of the same person.

[5] This fanciful allegory is the subject of a picture by Titian in the possession of the Marquis Cambian at Turin, whose collection, though small, contains some beautiful specimens of all the great masters.

[6] As Paul Veronese gave but little into the beau idéal, his women may be regarded as pretty close imitations of the living models which Venice afforded in his time.

[7] The Marriage of Cana.

[8] "Certain it is [as Arthur Young truly and feelingly says] one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy."