III
AT ROME
[Sight is at first sight a sad enemy to imagination and to those pleasures belonging to old times with which some exertions of that power will always mingle: nothing perhaps brings this truth home to the feelings more than the city of Rome; not so much in respect to the impression made at the moment when it is first seen and looked at as a whole, for then the imagination may be invigorated and the mind’s eye quickened; but when particular spots or objects are sought out, disappointment is I believe invariably felt. Ability to recover from this disappointment will exist in proportion to knowledge, and the power of the mind to reconstruct out of fragments and parts, and to make details in the present subservient to more adequate comprehension of the past.—I.F.]
Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill?
Yon petty Steep in truth the fearful Rock,
Tarpeian named of yore,[107] and keeping still
That name, a local Phantom proud to mock
The Traveller’s expectation?—Could our Will
Destroy the ideal Power within, ’twere done
Thro’ what men see and touch,—slaves wandering on,
Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill.