We at length came to the St. John, by Raphael, and here this man of taste stopped short in an extasy of admiration.—One of the company had already passed it, without minding it, and was looking at another picture; on which the connoisseur bawled out—“Good God, Sir! what are you about?” The honest gentleman started, and stared around to know what crime he had been guilty of. “Have you eyes in your head, Sir?” continued the connoisseur: “Don’t you know St. John when you see him?” “St. John!” replied the other, in amazement. “Aye, Sir, St. John the Baptist, _in propria persona_.” “I don’t know what you mean, Sir,” said the gentleman, peevishly. “Don’t you?” rejoined the connoisseur; “then I’ll endeavour to explain myself. I mean St. John in the wilderness, by the divine Raffaelle Sanzio da Urbino, and there he stands by your side.—Pray, my dear Sir, will you be so obliging as to bestow a little of your attention on that foot? Does it not start from the wall? Is it not perfectly out of the frame? Did you ever see such colouring? They talk of Titian; can Titian’s colouring excel that? What truth, what nature in the head! To the elegance of the antique, here is joined the simplicity of nature.” We stood listening in silent admiration, and began to imagine we perceived all the perfections he enumerated; when a person in the Duke of Orleans’ service came and informed us, that the original, which he presumed was the picture we wished to see, was in another room; the Duke having allowed a painter to copy it. _That_ which we had been looking at was a very wretched daubing, done from the original by some obscure painter, and had been thrown, with other rubbish, into a corner; where the Swiss had accidentally discovered it, and had hung it up merely by way of covering the vacant space on the wall, till the other should be replaced. How the connoisseur looked on this trying occasion, I cannot say. It would have been barbarous to have turned an eye upon him—I stepped into the next room, fully determined to be cautious in deciding on the merit of painting; perceiving that it was not safe, in this science, to speak even from the book. LETTER VII. Venice. We acquire an early partiality for Rome, by reading the classics, and the history of the ancient republic. Other parts of Italy also interest us more on account of their having been the residence of the old Romans, than from the regard we pay to what has been transacted there during the last fourteen or fifteen centuries. Venice claims no importance from ancient history, and boasts no connection with the Roman republic; it sprung from the ruins of that empire; and whatever its annals offer worthy of the attention of mankind, is independent of the prejudice we feel in favour of the Roman name.