A world from which all ignoble care and petty thoughts
were banished, with all the common and poor elements of life. No
foulness, nor tumult, in those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell,
beneath the moon; but rippled music of majestic change, or thrilling
silence. No weak walls could rise above them; no low-roofed cottage,
nor straw-built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and the finished
setting of stones most precious. And around them, far as the eye could
reach, still the soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as not
the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the
glancing fields. Ethereal strength of Alps, dreamlike, vanishing in
high procession beyond the Torcellan shore; blue islands of Paduan
hills, poised in the golden west. Above, free winds and fiery clouds
ranging at their will;--brightness out of the north, and balm from the
south, and the stars of the evening and morning clear in the limitless
light of arched heaven and circling sea.
Such was Giorgione's school--such Titian's home.
Near the south-west corner of Covent Garden, a square brick pit or well
is formed by a close-set block of houses, to the back windows of which
it admits a few rays of light. Access to the bottom of it is obtained
out of Maiden Lane, through a low archway and an iron gate; and if you
stand long enough under the archway to accustom your eyes to the
darkness you may see on the left hand a narrow door, which formerly
gave quiet access to a respectable barber's shop, of which the front
window, looking into Maiden Lane, is still extant, filled, in this year
(1860), with a row of bottles, connected, in some defunct manner, with
a brewer's business.
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