From the _salle ronde_, on the right opens the grand gallery, which, after the lesson I had just received in perspective, I took, at the first glance, to be a painting. You will realize the facility of the deception when you consider, that, with a breadth of but forty-two feet, this gallery is one thousand three hundred and thirty-two feet (more than a quarter of a mile) in length. The floor is of tesselated woods, polished with wax like a table; and along its glassy surface were scattered perhaps a hundred visiters, gazing at the pictures in varied attitudes, and with sizes reduced in proportion to their distance, the farthest off looking, in the long perspective, like pigmies of the most diminutive description. It is like a matchless painting to the eye, after all. The ceiling is divided by nine or ten arches, standing each on four Corinthian columns, projecting into the area; and the natural perspective of these, and the artists scattered from one end to the other, copying silently at their easels, and a soldier at every division, standing upon his guard, quite as silent and motionless, would make it difficult to convince a spectator, who was led blindfold and unprepared to the entrance, that it was not some superb diorama, figures and all.
I found our distinguished countryman, Morse, copying a beautiful Murillo at the end of the gallery. He is also engaged upon a Raffaelle for Cooper, the novelist. Among the French artists, I noticed several soldiers, and some twenty or thirty females, the latter with every mark in their countenances of absorbed and extreme application. There was a striking difference in this respect between them and the artists of the other sex. With the single exception of a lovely girl, drawing from a Madonna, by Guido, and protected by the presence of an elderly companion, these lady painters were anything but interesting in their appearance.
Greenough, the sculptor, is in Paris, and engaged just now in taking the bust of an Italian lady. His reputation is now very enviable; and his passion for his art, together with his untiring industry and his fine natural powers, will work him up to something that will, before long, be an honor to our country. If the wealthy men of taste in America would give Greenough liberal orders for his time and talents, and send out Augur, of New Haven, to Italy, they would do more to advance this glorious art in our country, than by expending ten times the sum in any other way. They are both men of rare genius, and both ardent and diligent, and they are both cramped by the universal curse of genius--necessity. The Americans in Paris are deliberating at present on some means for expressing unitedly to our government their interest in Greenough, and their appreciation of his merit of public and private patronage. For the love of true taste, do everything in your power to second such an appeal when it comes.