by a fillet leans forward, and the gentle smile of its benevolent lips seems a commentary on his instructions. The upper part of the figure with the exception of the right shoulder is naked, but the rest to the feet is involved in drapery, whose folds flow from the point where the staff confines them sustaining the left arm.

LI.

OLINTHUS

(as they call a youth seated). Another of those sweet and gentle figures of adolescent youth in which the Greeks delighted.

LII.

MARCUS AURELIUS.

A Statue of Marcus Aurelius which is rather without faults than with beauties.

LIII.

BACCHUS AND AMPELUS.

A lovely group.

LIV.

LEDA.

Leda with a very ugly face. I should be a long time

before I should make love with her.

LV.

A MUSE.

A most hideous thing they call a Muse-evidently the production of some barbarian and of a barbarous age.

LVI.

AN OLD CUIRASS

with all the frogs and fringe complete-a fine piece of antique dandyism.

LVII.

A BACCHUS BY MICHAEL ANGELO.1

The countenance of this figure is the most revolting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the Deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. On the other hand, considered merely as a piece of workmanship, it has great merits. The arms are executed in the most perfect and manly beauty; the body is conceived with great energy, and the lines which describe

1 So headed in the Note-book, but Michael Angelo's Bacchus in former editions.

2 In former editions, only.

3 Not in a style of the most perfect, &c., as in previous editions.

4 In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's

editions we read from here as follows-and the manner in which the lines mingle into each other, of the highest boldness and truth. It wants unity as a work of art as a representation of Bacchus it wants everything.

the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they mingle into one another are of the highest order of boldness and beauty. It wants as a work of art unity and simplicity; as a representation of the Greek Deity of Bacchus it wants every thing.

LVIII.

SLEEP.

A remarkable figure of Sleep as a winged child supine on a lion's skin, sleeping on its great half unfolded wing of black obsidian stone. One hand is lightly placed on a horn, with which it might be supposed to call together its wandering dreams, the horn of dreams, and in the other a seedy poppy. The hardness of the stone does not permit the arriving at any great expression.

LIX.

COPY OF THE LAOCOÖN.

An admirable copy of the Laocoön in which is expressed with fidelity the agony of the poison and the straining round of the angry serpents. The left hand child seems sick with agony and horror, and the vain and feeble attempt he makes to disentangle himself from its grasp increases the effect. (See Rome.')

This is of course a reference to the missing Note-book from which Medwin seems to have copied the

remarks on the Laocoön standing second in this series. See pp. 42 and 44.

This figure is probably the most consummate personification of loveliness with regard to its countenance, as that of the Apollo of the Vatican is with regard to its entire form, that remains to us of Greek Antiquity. It is a colossal figure; the size of a work of art rather adds to its beauty, because it allows the spectator the choice of a greater number of points of view, in which to catch a greater number of the infinite modes of expression of which any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily composed, of a mother in the act of sheltering from some divine and inevitable peril, the last, we will imagine, of her surviving children.

The child terrified we may conceive at the strange destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother, and* hiding its head in the folds of her robe and casting up

1 The Note on the Niobe appeared in The Athenæum for the 15th of September, 1832, and afterwards in The Shelley Papers and Mrs. Shelley's volumes of 1840. It seems to have been very considerably edited by Medwin, the opening being rendered thus:

"Of all that remains to us of Greek antiquity, this figure is perhaps the most consummate personification of loveliness, with regard to its countenance, as that of the Venus of the Tribune is with regard to its entire form of woman. It is colossal: the size adds to its value;"

and after the words points of view, we read and affords him a more analytical one. Further on there is, in Medwin's text, a period after composed; and a new sentence is begun with the words, It is the

...

figure. In fact we are to read It
is a colossal figure of a mother in
the act &c., the remarks on size in
sculpture being parenthetic. Had
Shelley used his rough note for one
of the noble letters to Peacock, or
for any literary purpose, he would
doubtless have made it read more
smoothly; but his roughest work
never fails to convey a perfectly
clear sense, and is of course pre-
ferable to Medwin's smoothest.

2 In former editions, may.

3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley put little creature for child.

4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley alter the construction by inserting is here.

5 In previous editions, back instead of up.

one arm as in a passionate appeal for defence from her,' where it never before could have been sought in vain, seems in the marble to have scarcely suspended the motion of her terror; as though conceived to be yet in the act of arrival. The child is clothed in a thin tunic of delicatest woof, and her hair is gathered3 on her head into a knot, probably by that mother whose care will never gather it again. Niobe is enveloped in profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand has gathered up and is in the act of extending it over the child in the instinct of defending her from what reason knows to be inevitable. The right as the restorer of it has. rightly comprehended, is gathering up her child to her and with a like instinctive gesture is encouraging by its gentle pressure the child to believe that it can give security. The countenance which is the consummation of feminine majesty and loveliness, beyond which the imagination scarcely doubts that it can conceive anything, that master-piece of the poetic harmony of marble, expresses other feelings. There is embodied a sense of the inevitable and rapid destiny which is consummating around her as if it were already over. It seems

1 Former editions omit from her, and the sentence ends with a period at vain, the subtle passage from seems in the marble to arrival being left out.

2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have She for The child.

3 In former editions, fastened for gathered, and fasten in the next line instead of gather. As an utterance contemporary with The Cenci this passage is peculiarly interesting. (Compare Act V, Scene IV (Vol. II, p. 131 of my edition) : Here, mother, tie

My girdle for me, and bind up this hair
In any simple knot; aye, that does well.
And yours I see is coming down. How
often

Have we done this for one another; now We shall not do it any more. My Lord, We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well. Even the tragic resignation of the close corresponds with Shelley's piercing criticism of this group.

4 In former editions, shielding. 5 This passage is rendered thus by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley:

"The right (as the restorer has properly imagined), is drawing up her daughter to her; and with that instinctive gesture, and by its gentle pressure, is encouraging the child to believe that it can give security. The countenance of Niobe is, &c."

6 This is not a fresh sentence as in former editions.