Parallel with the gallery, on both sides of the palace-court, there runs
a series of rooms devoted chiefly to pictures, although statues and
bas-reliefs are likewise contained in some of them. I remember an
unfinished bas-relief by Michael Angelo of a Holy Family, which I touched
with my finger, because it seemed as if he might have been at work upon
it only an hour ago. The pictures I did little more than glance at, till
I had almost completed again the circuit of the gallery, through this
series of parallel rooms, and then I came upon a collection of French and
Dutch and Flemish masters, all of which interested me more than the
Italian generally. There was a beautiful picture by Claude, almost as
good as those in the British National Gallery, and very like in subject;
the sun near the horizon, of course, and throwing its line of light over
the ripple of water, with ships at the strand, and one or two palaces of
stately architecture on the shore. Landscapes by Rembrandt; fat Graces
and other plump nudities by Rubens; brass pans and earthen pots and
herrings by Terriers and other Dutchmen; none by Gerard Douw, I think,
but several by Mieris; all of which were like bread and beef and ale,
after having been fed too long on made dishes.
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