Recollections of the late William Beckfordof Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath

Eve of the land which still is Paradise.

Italian beauty! didst thou not inspire Raphael? "How different," said Mr. Beckford, "is that lovely creature from Mr. Etty's beauties. They are for the most part of a meretricious character, would do well enough for a mistress; but there," pointing to the St. Catherine, "there are personified the modesty and purity a man would wish to have in a wife, and yet Frenchmen find fault with it. C'est un assez joli tableau, say they, mais la tete manque, de l'expression, si elle avait plus d'esprit, plus de vivacite! Mais Raphael, il n'avait jamais passe les Alpes." We burst out laughing, and I added, "Le pauvre Raphael quel dommage, de ne savoir rien du grand. Monarque! ni de la grande nation." "Yet," I continued, "there is a painter, Stotherd, who has come nearer to the great Italian, in the grace and elegance of his women and children, than perhaps any other, and merits well the proud appellation of the English Raphael. What a shame that he never me