'Pavia.--To the Certosa to see the old Carthusian Convent founded in 1396; cloisters, gardens, and twenty-four little dwellings, with chapel, bedroom, parlour, and yard for each monk, who is never to speak, and comes out but once a week. A nice way for lazy men to spend their lives when there is so much work to be done for the Lord and his poor! Wanted to shake them all round, though they did look well in their gowns and cowls gliding about the dim cloisters and church. Perhaps they are kept for that purpose. 'Parma.--Dome of church frescoed by Correggio. All heaven upsidedown; fat angels turning somersaults, saints like butchers, and martyrs simpering feebly. Like C.'s babies much better. Heaven can't be painted, and they'd better not try. Madonna, by Girolamo, was lovely. Room of the Abbess, with rosy children peeping through the lattice, very charming. Madonna della Scodella--the boy Christ very charming. The old Farnese Theatre most interesting; got a scrap of canvas from a mouldy scene. Dead old place is Parma. 'Bologna.--Drove in a pelting rain to the Academy, and saw many pictures. A Pieta, by Guido, was very striking. The desolate mother, with her dead son on her knees, haunted me long afterwards. St. Jerome and the infant Christ, by Elizabeth Sirani, I liked. Raphael won't suit yet. Sad for me, but I cannot admire Madonnas with faces like fashion-plates, or dropsical babies with no baby sweetness about them. 'Florence.--Bought furs. Nice climate to bring invalids into. Always did think Italy a humbug, and I begin to see I was right. Acres of pictures. Like about six out of the lot. Can't bear the Venus, or Titian's famous hussy hanging over it. Like his portraits much. Busts of Roman emperors great fun. Such bad heads! The Julias, Faustinas, and Agrippinas, with hair dressed like a big sponge on the brow, were so comical I was never tired of looking at them. I see now where the present bedlamite style of coiffure comes from. 'The philosophers, &c., were very interesting. Cicero so like Wendell Phillips that I could hardly help clapping my hands and saying, "Hear! hear!" 'Gave A. a sad blow by saying the Campanile looked like an inlaid work-box. Did not admire it half so much as I did a magnificent stone pine. Best of all, saw in the old Monastery of St. Marco many works of Fra Angelico. I love his pictures, for he put his pious heart into them, and one sees and feels it, and I don't care if his saints do have six joints to their fingers and impossible noses. A very dear picture of "Providenza,"--poor monks at an empty table and angels bringing bread. 'Angelico's picture of heaven was more to my mind than any I have seen. No stern, avenging God, no silly Madonna, but happy souls playing like children, or singing and piping with devout energy.