The other parts of this prodigious structure would take up one's life almost to see completely, to remember distinctly, and to describe accurately. When the reader recollects that St. Peter's, with all its appurtenances, palace, library, musæum, every thing that we include in the word Vatican, is said by the Romans to occupy an equal quantity of space, to that covered by the city of Turin: the assertion need not any longer be thought hyperbolical.
I will say no more about it till at our return from Naples we visit all the churches.
Vopiscus said, that the statues in his time at Rome out-numbered the people; and I trust the remark is now almost doubly true, as every day and hour digs up dead worthies, and the unwholesome weather must surely send many of the living ones to their ancestors: upon the whole, the men and women of Porphyry, &c. please me best, as they do not handle long knives to so good an effect as the others do, "qui aime bien a s'ègorger encore[Who have still a taste to be cut-throats]," says a French gentleman of them the other day. There is however an air of cheerfulness in the streets at a night among the poor, who fry fish, and eat roots, sausages, &c. as they walk about gaily enough, and though they quarrel too often, never get drunk at least.
The two houses belonging to the Borghese family shall conclude my first journey to Rome, and with that the first volume of my observations and reflexions.
Their town palace is a suite of rooms constructed like those at Wanstead exactly; and where you turn at the end to come back by
another suite, you find two alabaster fountains of superior beauty, and two glass lustres made in London, but never wiped since they left Fleet-street certainly. They do not however want cleaning as the fountains do; which, by the extraordinary use made of them, give the whole palace an offensive smell.
Among the pictures here, the entombing our blessed Saviour by Rafaelle is most praised: It is supposed indeed wholly inestimable, and I believe is so, while Venus, binding Cupid's eyes, by Titian, engraved by Strange, is possibly one of the pleasantest pictures in Rome. The Christ disputing with the Doctors is inimitable, one of the wonderful works of Leonardo da Vinci: but here is Domenichino's Diana among her nymphs, very laboured, and very learned. Why did it put me in mind of Hogarth's strolling actresses dressing in a barn?
Villa Borghese presents more to one's mind at once than it will bear, from the bas relief of Curtius over the door that faces you going in, to the last gate of the garden you drive out at;—large as the saloon is however, the figure of Curtius seems too near you; and the horse's hind quarters are heavy, and ill-suited to the forehand;
but here are men and women enough, and odd things that are neither, at this house; so we may let the horse of Curtius alone.
Nothing can be gayer or more happily expressed in its way than the Centaur, which Dr. Moore, like Dr. Young, finds not fabulous; while the brute runs away with the man, and Cupid keeps urging him forward. The fawn nursing Bacchus when a baby, is another semi-human figure of just and high estimation; and that very famous composition for which Cavalier Bernini has executed a mattress infinitely softer to the eye than any real one I ever found in his country, has here an apartment appropriated to itself.