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in nature. Guido alone has taken nature for his model, and, in his first manner, has succeeded in imitating it; and if nature has ever been surpassed, it is by Guido. Such, at least, is my opinion; and I do not doubt but that the galleries I shall hereafter visit will confirm me in it.

In the mean time I must profess my admira tion of the works of Thorwaldsen, the prince of modern sculpture, now that Rome and the world has lost his rival, Canova. What can be more beautiful and more poetical than Thorwaldsen's bas-reliefs of Day and Night? His other pieces seem executed with more ease than those of Canova; whose attelier is still carried on by his brother, who works after his plaster forms. In the studio of Thorwaldsen I asked a workman if his master had ever touched the statue to which he was giving the last stroke: " he thought he "had not even seen it." And, in fact, any one with a compass can take an exact copy of a plaster model prepared by the artist.

There are besides at Rome several English sculptors, who support the rising honour of their country.

LETTER IX.

Rome, January 20, 1824.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I am just returned from visiting other antiquities, and other galleries of paintings. All were worth seeing; but, to say the truth, I am tired of this sort of occupation. Excepting a few of the principal monuments, the other remains of ancient Rome present little interest. Let antiquaries admire, study, and explain each remnant: I am unable to confine myself in this manner; to embarrass my mind with details, the which always lessen whatever is, in itself, really grand. I can look only at the whole, at the ensemble; and what an ensemble! Here, then, stood Rome; here, on this ground! This

then is the spot on which my thoughts had beerr so long riveted, that had so long attracted my desires! And now that they are accomplished, what do I find? a wilderness? No: that were preferable to the crowds and cares that have again risen from this consecrated soil. A desert were more congenial to my imagination, than the life that covers this grand wreck. Set aside the modern town, and suppose, only for an instant, the Pantheon, the Forum, and the Coliseum, to be standing alone; to be towering in solitary grandeur, like the temples of Pæstum. Suppose them surrounded with the minor, but, nevertheless, giant limbs that still remain of the capital of the world; suppose these diminishing, as they depart from the center, and finally losing themselves in a sublime and uninterrupted desolation. Suppose yourself going, over this scene, examining-no, not examining its details-but wrapt in the undivided contemplation of the grand total, of the grand ruin before you. And then conceive this landscape again peopled with a new succession of beings; with a new succession of passions and miseries; with a new succession of vanities and deaths. Conceive a new race, unheedful of the lesson

before them, suffering and rejoicing among the ruins that surround them; ignorant or careless of the ages that have illustrated the land they dwell upon; and given up to petty cares, jealousies, and egotism, unchecked by the eighteen centuries of the still surviving Pantheon! Well, and what then? Such is the lot of human nature. Such passions governed the masters of the world, and such will govern future generations. The present is not different from the past, and the future will not be different from the present.

Such are the reflections that must press upon the mind of the stranger, who, visiting in succession, every fragment of antiquity, turns away discontented with every object that successively strikes him, as inferior to the pictures of his imagination, as unworthy of the city of which it is a relic. He takes refuge in the modern museums: he admires the chefs d'œuvre of an art that more modern taste had perfected. But. where are those who inhabit these long dreary galleries? where are those who appreciate the wonders they contain? Why does solitude prevail here, where every thing speaks of life and animation; and when, at the same time, noise

and bustle surround the monuments whose every stone invites to reflection and meditation ?Disturbed and distressed, he gradually surveys all as a matter of course; sees all in its true light; admires what is worthy of admiration; throws far from him all enthusiasm, all former exalted expectations; beholds an uninterested roman wall with nearly the same eyes as those with which he would look on it if raised by modern hands, and even so far forgets himselfas to write Roman with a little r!

To this state I am, as you perceive, already

arrived.

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