man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding
intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost
of one, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. We shall appreciate
him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as
a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary
light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a
personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his
countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had
shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice.

* * * * *

PASQUIN AND PASQUINADES.

At an angle of the palace which Pius VI., (Braschi,) with paternal
liberality, built for the residence of his family, before the French
Revolution put an end to such beneficence, stands the famous statue of
Pasquin, giving its name to the square upon which it looks. It is
little more now than a mere trunk of marble, bearing the marks of
blows and long hard usage. But even in this mutilated condition it
shows traces of excellent workmanship and of pristine beauty. The
connoisseurs in sculpture praise it,[1] and the antiquaries have
embittered their ignorance in regard to it by discussions as to
whether it was a statue of Hercules, of Alexander the Great, or of
Menelaus bearing the body of Patroclus. Disabled and maimed as it is,
it is thus only the more fitting type of the Roman people, of which it
has been so long the acknowledged mouthpiece; and the epigrams and
satires which have made its name famous have gained an additional
point and a sharper sting from the patent resemblance in the condition
of their professed author to that of those for whom he spoke.

It is said to have been about the beginning of the sixteenth century
that the statue was discovered and dug up near the place where it now
stands, and the earliest account of it seems to be that given by
Castelvetro, in 1553, in his discourse upon a _canzone_ by Annibal
Caro. He says, that Antonio Tibaldeo of Ferrara, a venerable and
lettered man, relates concerning this statue, that there used to be in
Rome a tailor, very skilful in his trade, by the name of Pasquin, who
had a shop which was much frequented by prelates, courtiers, and other
people, so that he employed a great number of workmen, who, like
worthless fellows, spent their time in speaking ill of one person or
another, sparing no one, and f