CONTENTS.
PAGE.
MICHAEL ANGELO 7
LEONARDO DA VINCI 66
RAPHAEL OF URBINO 105
TITIAN 155
MURILLO 203
RUBENS 246
REMBRANDT 286
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 318
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER 367
TURNER 396
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Who has ever stood in Florence, and been warmed by her sunlight,
refreshed by her fragrant flowers, and ennobled by her divine art,
without saying with the poet Rogers,--
"Of all the fairest cities of the earth,
None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth
When it emerged from darkness! Search within,
Without, all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past
Contending with the Present; and in turn
Each has the mastery."
Pitiful in her struggles for freedom, the very centre of art and
learning in the fifteenth century, she has to-day a charm peculiarly her
own.
"Other though not many cities have histories as noble, treasures as
vast; but no other city has them living, and ever present in her midst,
familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and
peasant's step, as Florence has.
"Every line, every road, every gable, every tower, has some story of the
past present in it. Every tocsin that sounds is a chronicle; every
bridge that unites the two banks of the river, unites also the crowds
of the living with the heroism of the dead.
