Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/375

 favoured and sullen, with sinewy neck and cruel eye, with snub nose and thick thrust-out lips—a portrait it clearly is, and whose it would be worth while to know, so careful has the artist been to reproduce the native stamp of aspect; a naked youth, with arms doubled up round the neck, leaning aslant on a staff, with ruffed hair and a set face; a noble head, like Nero's, in red chalk, with hair blown loose and rough by the wind; a boy's figure on a step of some entrance, drawing the curtain of a tent, with loose ribbons at the shoulder, and with a curling plume of hair; a slender figure, thin and graceful, the face smiling, but drawn and fixed; the fierce aquiline head of a prophet or apostle, with upper lip thinner than the under. These complete my roll, and conclude these notes. They might have been fuller and more orderly, but could never have had any value other than that of a clear and genuine impression. Transcribed at stray times from the roughest memorial jottings, they may claim to give this at least. I close as I began them with a hope that they may perhaps, in default of a better handbook, afford some chance help to a casual student of such unclassed relics of the old great schools, and with a glad affectionate memory of these and of all things in Florence.