Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/134

 more visibly than I ever saw it in any other picture. But if the art of the copyist cannot convey, how much less can words, that which only Leonardo da Vinci could imagine and pourtray? There is another fragment of his in the gallery—an unfinished Virgin and Child—in the same manner quite inimitable: the attitude is peculiar; with a common artist it had degenerated into affectation: with him it is simplicity and grace,—a gentle harmony of look and gesture, which reveals the nature of the being pourtrayed,—the chaste and fond mother, lovely in youth and innocence, thoughtful from mingled awe and love, with a touch of fear, springing from a presentiment of the tragical destiny of the divine infant, whose days of childhood she watched over and made glad. In the gallery of Raphael's picture of the Marriage of the Virgin, in his first and most chaste style; where beauty of expression and grace of design are more apparent, then when, in later ways, his colouring grew more rich, his grouping more artificial. A catalogue of pictures is stupid enough, except that I naturally put down those that attract my attention, and I try in some degree to convey the impression they made, so as to induce you to sympathise in my feelings with regard to them. The galleries are rich in Luinis—ever a pleasing artist. The Ambrosian library we, of course, visited; but they keep things