the shades below, or to the "_casa del diavolo_," as he calls it; and while Hercules fights with Cerberus, he shakes and trembles all over, as he does likewise when he meets _Madonna Morte_. All this is very absurd and ridiculous, but it is impossible not to laugh and be amused at it. An anecdote is related of the _flesh and blood_ Girolamo, that he had a very pretty wife, who took it into her head one day to elope with a French officer; and that to revenge himself he dramatized the event and produced it on his own theatre under the title of _Colombina scampata coll'uffiziale_, having filled the piece with severe satire and sarcastic remarks against women in general and Colombina in particular. The atelier of the famous artist in mosaic Rafaelli is well worth inspecting; and here I had an opportunity of beholding a copy in mosaic and nearly finished of the celebrated picture of Leonardo da Vinci representing the _Caena Domini_. What a useful as well as admirable art is the mosaic to perpetuate the paintings of the greatest masters! I recollected on beholding this work that Eustace, in his _Tour thro' Italy_,[55] relates with a pious horror that the French soldiers used the original picture as a target to practise at with ball cartridge, and that Christ's head was singled out as the mark. This absurd tale, which had not the least shadow of truth in it, has, it appears, gained some credit among weak-minded people; and I therefore beg leave to contradict it in the most formal manner. It was Buonaparte who, the moment the picture was discovered, ordered it to be put in mosaic. No! the French were the protectors and encouragers, and by no means the destroyers of the works of art; and this ridiculous story of the picture being used as a target was probably invented by the priesthood, who seemed to have taken great delight in imposing on poor Eustace's credulity. To me it seems that such a story could only have been invented by a monk, and believed and repeated by an old woman or a bigot. The priests and French emigrants have invented and spread the most shameful and improbable calumnies against the French republicans and against Napoleon, and that credulous gull John Bull has been silly enough to give full credence to all these tales, and stand staring with his eyes and mouth open at the recital, while a vulgar jobbing ministry (as Cobbet would say) _picked his pockets_.