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preferred without such a bias ; and Titian 

 might feel that they gave to his pictures an 

 air of truth and of naturalness, both in his 

 own eyes, and those of his countrymen. He 

 has taken care, however, as might well be 

 expected from such an artist, to place other 

 buildings among them of such a degree 

 of dignity, as to relieve, but not 



" To shame the meanness of his humble sheds." 



Two instances occur to me, which I am in- 

 clined to mention with some detail, on 

 more than one account. In each of the 

 compositions there are a number of com- 

 mon looking houses with sloping roofs 

 on the side of a small eminence ; on the 

 top stands a massy, but unornamented 

 tower, which overlooks them, and crowns 

 the whole : these are the principal cir- 

 cumstances common to both the groups, 

 in which, however, there are others, such as 

 open arches, a gateway towards the centre 

 of one of the towers, &c. that give variety 

 to each composition. As the buildings in 

 those two groups are of various kinds, com- 



