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. . . .
I was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to come upon some Dutch
and Flemish pictures, very few, but very welcome; Rubens, Rembrandt,
Vandyke, Paul Potter, Teniers, and others,--men of flesh and blood, and
warm fists, and human hearts. As compared with them, these mighty
Italian masters seem men of polished steel; not human, nor addressing
themselves so much to human sympathies, as to a formed, intellectual
taste.

March 1st.--To-day began very unfavorably; but we ventured out at about
eleven o'clock, intending to visit the gallery of the Colonna Palace.
Finding it closed, however, on account of the illness of the custode, we
determined to go to the picture-gallery of the Capitol; and, on our way
thither, we stepped into Il Gesu, the grand and rich church of the
Jesuits, where we found a priest in white, preaching a sermon, with vast
earnestness of action and variety of tones, insomuch that I fancied
sometimes that two priests were in the agony of sermonizing at once.


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