After some weeks spent in looking at the art-wonders in Florence, I visited many of the studios of our artists. That of Mr. Hart, on the Piazza Independenza, was one of the most interesting. He had two very admirable busts of Henry Clay, and all his visitors, encouraged by his frank manner, criticised his works freely. Most people boldly pass judgment on any work of art, and "understand" Mrs. Browning when she says the Venus de' Medici "thunders white silence." I do not. I am sure I never can understand what a thundering silence means, whatever may be its color. These appreciators talked of the "word-painting" of Mrs. Browning. They sit on their thrones in a purple sublimity, And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity. I suppose this is "word-painting." I can see the picture also--some kings, and possibly queens, seated on gorgeous thrones, engaged in the festive occupation of grinding bones! Oh, I degrade the subject, do I? Nonsense! The term is a stilted affectation, perhaps never better applied than to Mrs. Browning's descriptive spasms. Still, she was undoubtedly a poet. She wrote many beautiful subjective poems, but she wrote much that was not poetry, and which suggests only a deranged nervous system. I have a friend who maintains from her writings that she never loved, that she did not know what passion meant. However this may be, the author of the sonnet commencing-- Go from me! Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow, deserves immortality.