in which he supposed the whole group was distributed. Many of the
figures are rough and unfinished at the back, as if they had been
placed on a height, and viewed only in front.

In the same room with the Niobe is a head which struck me more--the
_Alexandre mourant_. The title seemed to me misapplied; for there is
something indignant and upbraiding, as well as mournful, in the
expression of this magnificent head. It is undoubtedly Alexander--but
Alexander reproaching the gods--or calling upon Heaven for new worlds
to conquer.

I visited also the gallery of Bronzes: it contains, among other
master-pieces, the aerial Mercury of John of Bologna, of which we see
such a multiplicity of copies. There is a conceit in perching him upon
the bluff cheeks of a little Eolus: but what exquisite lightness in
the figure!--how it mounts, how it floats, disdaining the earth! On
leaving the gallery, I sauntered about; visited some churches, and
then returned home depressed and wearied: and in this melancholy
humour I had better close my book, lest I be tempted to write what I
could not bear to see written.

_Sunday._--At the English ambassador's chapel. To attend public
worship among our own countrymen, and hear the praises of God in our
native accents, in a strange land, among a strange people; where a
different language, different manners, and a different religion
prevail, affects the mind, or at least ought to affect it;--and deeply
too: yet I cannot say that I felt devout this morning. The last day I
visited St. Mark's, when I knelt down beside the poor weeping girl and
her dove-basket, my heart was touched, and my prayers, I humbly trust,
were not unheard: to-day, in that hot close crowded room, among those
fine people flaunting in all the luxury of dress, I felt suffocated,
feverish, and my head ached--the clergyman too----

* * * * *

Samuel Rogers paid us a long visit this morning. He does not look as
if the suns of Italy had _revivified_ him--but he is as _amiable_ and
amusing as ever. He talked long, _et avec beaucoup d'onction_, of
ortolans and figs; till methought it was the very poetry of epicurism;
and put me in mind of his own suppers--

"Where blushing fruits through scatter'd leaves invite,
Still clad in bloom and veiled in azure light.
The wine as rich in years as Horace sings;"

and the rest of his description, worthy of a poetical Apicius.

Rogers may be seen every