320 MORE POT-POURRI 



ference of a young woman and a scholarly man ; it 

 means the immense march the world has made altogether 

 in the understanding of its own evolution. 



To return to Mrs. Jameson. She runs on with her 

 criticisms through the sights of Florence. Most of the 

 pictures she admires are certainly not those that excite 

 the greatest admiration in these days. The name Botti- 

 celli is never once mentioned by her, any more than it is 

 thirty years later by George Eliot in her notes on Floren- 

 tine art in the diary published in her Life. Pater, on 

 the contrary, tells us that Sandro Botticelli is the only 

 contemporary mentioned, whether by accident or inten- 

 tion, by Leonardo in his treatise on painting. 



I only possess the translation of this treatise pub- 

 lished in 1835. Just lately a new ' Life and Works' of 

 Leonardo, by Eugene Muntz, has been published by 

 Heinemann, but it is 42s. net. 



To leave high things for low, Mrs. Jameson touches 

 on the society of the day at Florence and parties at the 

 Countess of Albany's, etc. She gives an amusing story 

 of a travelling young lord who, when presented with the 

 Countess of Albany's card, exclaimed : 



' The Countess of Albany ! Ah ! — true — I remember! 

 Wasn't she the widow of Charles the Second who mar- 

 ried Ariosto?' There is in this celebrated hSvue a 

 glorious confusion of times and persons. 



For those interested in the byways of history, a well- 

 known modern author, Vernon Lee, has written a ' Life' 

 of this Countess of Albany. I think it the most inter- 

 esting of Vernon Lee's books that I have read. It was 

 published in the ' Eminent Women' series — why, I can- 

 not imagine; for it seems to me as incongruous as Haw- 

 thorne's ' Life ' being in the ' English Men of Letters,' or 

 Lady Hamilton's picture having a place in the National 

 Portrait Gallery. 



