e, or lend out their
equipages for a day's pleasuring, and hang wet rags out of their palace
windows to dry, as at the mean habitation of a pauper; while looking in
at those very windows, nothing is to be seen but proofs of opulence, and
scenes of splendour, I will not undertake to explain; sure I am, that
whoever knows Rome, will not condemn this _ebauche_ of it.

When I spoke of their beggars, many not unlike Salvator Rosa's Job at
the Santa Croce palace, I ought not to have omitted their eloquence, and
various talents. We talked to a lame man one day at our own door, whose
account of his illness would not have disgraced a medical professor; so
judicious were his sentiments, so scientific was his discourse. The
accent here too is perfectly pleasing, intelligible, and expressive; and
I like their _cantilena_ vastly.

The excessive lenity of all Italian states makes it dangerous to live
among them; a seeming paradox, yet certainly most true; and whatever is
evil in this way at any other town, is worst at Rome; where those who
deserve hanging, enjoy almost a moral certainty of never being hanged;
so unwilling is everybody to detect the offender, and so numerous the
churches to afford him protection if found out.

A man asked importunately in our antichamber this morning for the
_padrone,_ naming no names, and our servants turned him out. He went
however only five doors, further, found a sick old gentleman sitting in
his lodging attended by a feeble servant, whom he bound, stuck a knife
in the master, rifled the apartments, and walked coolly out again at
noon-day: nor should we have ever heard of _such a trifle_, but that it
happened just by so; for here are no newspapers to tell who is murdered,
and nobody's pity is excited, unless for the malefactor when they hear
he is caught.

But the Palazzo Farnese is a more pleasing speculation; the Hercules
faces us entering; Guglielmo della Porta made his legs I hear, and when
the real ones were found, _his were better:_ and Michael Angelo said, it
was not worth risquing the statue to try at restoring the old ones.
There is another Hercules stands near, as a foil to Glycon's, I suppose;
and the Italians tell you of our Mr. Sharp's acuteness in finding some
fault till then undiscovered, a very slight one though, with some of the
neck muscles: they tell it approvingly however, and make one admire
their candour, even beyond their Flora, who carries that in her
countenance which