images of animals and reptiles; and the statue of
Tiberius is found, by chance, in the midst of this court. This
assemblage is without design. Those statues appear to have ranged
themselves of their own accord about their master. Another hall enclosed
the dull and rigid monuments of the Egyptians; of that people whose
statues resembled mummies more than men, and who by their silent, stiff,
and servile institutions, seem to have assimilated as much as possible,
life to death. The Egyptians excelled much more in the art of imitating
animals than in representing men: the dominion of the soul seems to have
been inaccessible to them.

After these come the porticos of the museum, where at each step is seen
a new masterpiece. Vases, altars, ornaments of every kind, encircle the
Apollo, the Laocoon, and the Muses. It is there that we learn to feel
Homer and Sophocles: it is there that a knowledge of antiquity is
awakened in the soul, which cannot be acquired elsewhere. It is in vain
that we trust to the reading of history to comprehend the spirit of
nations; what we see inspires us with more ideas than what we read, and
external objects cause in us a strong emotion, which gives that living
interest to the study of the past which we find in the observation of
contemporary facts and events.

In the midst of these magnificent porticos, which afford an asylum to so
many wonders of art, there are fountains, which, flowing incessantly,
seem to tell us how sweetly the hours glided away two thousand years
ago, when the artists who executed these masterpieces were yet alive.
But the most melancholy impression which we experience at the Vatican,
is in contemplating the remains of statues which are collected there:
the torso of Hercules, heads separated from the trunks, and a foot of
Jupiter, which indicates a greater and more perfect statue than any that
we know. We fancy a field of battle before us, where time has fought
with genius; and these mutilated limbs attest its victory, and our
losses.

After leaving the Vatican, Corinne conducted him to the Colossi of Mount
Cavallo; these two statues represent, as it is said, Castor and Pollux.
Each of the two heroes is taming with one hand a fiery steed. These
colossal figures, this struggle between man and the animal creation,
gives, like all the works of the ancients, an admirable idea of the
physical power of human nature. But this power has something noble in
it, which is no longer fou