Rome, Dec. 3, 1786.
The weather lately has changed almost every six days. Two days quite glorious, then a doubtful one, and after it two or three rainy ones, and then again fine weather. I endeavour to put each day, according to its nature, to the best use.
Rome—The Apollo Belvedere, &c.
And yet these glorious objects are even still like new acquaintances to me. One has not yet lived with them, nor got familiar with their peculiarities. Some of them attract us with irresistible power, so that for a time one feels indifferent, if not unjust, towards all others. Thus, for instance, the Pantheon, the Apollo Belvedere, some colossal heads, and very recently the Sistine Chapel, have by turns so won my whole heart, that I scarcely saw any thing besides them. But, in truth, can man, little as man always is, and accustomed to littleness, ever make himself equal to all that here surrounds him of the noble, the vast, and the refined? Even though he should in any degree adapt himself to it, then how vast is the multitude of objects that immediately press upon him from all sides, and meet him at every turn, of which each demands for itself the tribute of his whole attention. How is one to get out of the difficulty? No other way assuredly than by patiently allowing it to work, becoming industrious, and attending the while to all that others have accomplished for our benefit.
Winckelmann's History of Art, translated by Rea, (the new edition), is a very useful book, which I have just procured, and here on the spot find it to be highly profitable, as I have around me many kind friends, willing to explain and to comment upon it.
Roman antiquities also begin to have a charm for me. History, inscriptions, coins, (of which formerly I knew nothing,) all are pressing upon me. As it happened to me in the case of natural history, so goes it with me here also; for the history of the whole world attaches itself to this spot, and I reckon a new-birth day,—a true new birth from the day that I entered Rome.
December 5, 1786.
During the few weeks I have been here, I have already seen many strangers come and go, so that I have often wondered at the levity with which so many treat these precious monuments. God be thanked that hereafter none of those birds of passage will be able to impose upon me. When in the north they shall speak to me of Rome, none of them now will be able to excite my spleen, for I also have seen it, and know too, in some degree, where I have been.