they possess in their hearts. Under a shed on the
right hand you find the famous groupe called Toro Farnese. It has been
touched and repaired, they tell you, till much of the spirit is lost;
but I did not miss it. The Bull and the Brothers are greatness itself;
but Dirce draws no compassion by her looks somehow, and the lady who
comes to her relief, seems too cold a spectatress of the scene.

There were several broken statues in the place, and while my companions
were examining the groupe after I had done, the wench's conversation who
shewed it made my amusement: as we looked together at an Egyptian
_Isis_, or, as many call her, _the Ephesian Diana_, with a hundred
breasts, very hideous, and swathed about the legs like a mummy at Cairo,
or a baby at Rome, I said to the girl, "_They worshipped these filthy
things formerly before Jesus Christ came; but he taught us better_,"
added I, "_and we are wiser now: how foolish was not it to pray to this
ugly stone_?"--"The people were _wickeder_ then, very likely;" replied
my friend the wench, "but I do not see that it _was foolish at all."_

Who says the modern Romans are degenerated? I swear I think them so like
their ancestors, that it is my delight to contemplate the resemblance.
A statue of a peasant carrying game at this very palace, is habited
precisely in the modern dress, and shews how very little change has yet
been made. The shoes of the low fellows too particularly attract my
notice: they exactly resemble the ancient ones, and when Persius
mentions his ploughman _peronatus arator_, one sees he would say so
to-day.

The Dorian palace calls however, and people must give way to things
where the miraculous powers of Benvenuto Garofani are concerned; where
Lodovico Caracci exhibits a _testa del redentore_ beyond all praise,
uniting every excellence, and expressing every perfection; where, in the
deluge represented by Bonati, one sees the eagle drooping from a weight
of rain, majestic in his distress, and looking up to the luminous part
of the picture as if hoping to discover some ray of that sun he never
shall see again. How characteristic! how tasteful is the expression! The
famous Virgin and Child too, so often engraved and copied.

I will run away from this Doria; it is too full of beauty--it dazzles:
and I will let them shew the pale green Gaspar Pouffins, so valuable,
so curious, to whom they please, while Nature and Claude content my
fancy and fill up every idea.