The things we do!

It is not so much in the set harangues (to take another
metaphor), as in the daily tones and talk that his voice is so delicious.
Sweet poetry, and music, and tender hymns drop from him: he lifts his
pencil, and something gracious falls from it on the paper. How noble his
mind must have been! it seems but to receive, and his eye seems only to
rest on, what is great, and generous, and lovely. You walk through
crowded galleries, where are pictures ever so large and pretentious; and
come upon a grey paper, or a little fresco, bearing his mark-and over all
the brawl and the throng recognise his sweet presence. 'I would like to
have you been Giulio Romano,' J. J. says (who does not care for Giulio's
pictures), 'because then I would have been Raphael's favourite pupil.' We
agreed that we would rather have seen him and William Shakspeare, than
all the men we ever read of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy--as
Spagnoletto did! There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious
shape.


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