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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
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