Commerce.-Jews.-Actors.-The Chapel of A public Difcourfe by a Profeffor at the Aca- demy of Arts at Bologna.-Proceffion of Corpus Domini.-Modena.-Parma.-Dif- Milan.-The Cathedral.-Museum.— Man- ners. Turin-St. Ambrofe.-A Proceffion.- Journey from Geneva to Befançon.-Obfer vation of a French peafant.-Of an old Reflections on foreign travel. Rome. BEG you may not suspect me of affectation, or that I wish to af fume the character of a connoif feur, when I tell you, that I have very great pleasure in contemplating the antique ftatues and bufts, of which there are fuch numbers in this city. It is a natural curiofity, and I have had it all VOL. II. B my life in a ftrong a ftrong degree, to fee celebrated men, those whose talents and great qualities can alone render the prefent age an interesting object to pofterity, and prevent its being loft, like the dark ages which fucceeded the deftruction of the Roman empire, in the oblivious vortex of time, leaving fcarcely a wreck behind. The durable monuments raised to fame by the inspiring genius of Pitt, and the invincible. fpirit of Frederick, will command the admiration of future ages, outlive the power of the empires which they aggrandized, and forbid the period in which they flourished, from ever paffing away like the bafelefs fabric of a vision. The bufts and ftatues of thofe memorable men will be viewed, by fucceeding generations, with the fame regard and attention which we now beftow on thofe of Cicero and Cæfar. We exped to find fomething peculiarly noble and expreffive in features which were animated, and which, we imagine, muft have have been in fome degree modelled, by the fentiments of thofe to whom they belonged. It is not rank, it is character alone which interefts pofterity. We know that men may be feated on thrones, who would have been placed more fuitably to their talents on the working-table of a taylor; we therefore give little attention to the bufts or coins of the vulgar emperors. In the countenance of Claudius, we expect nothing more noble than the phlegmatic tranquillity of an acquiefcing cuckold; in Caligula or Nero, the unrelenting frown of a negro-driver, or the infolent air of any unprincipled ruffian in power. Even in the high-praised Auguftus we look for nothing effentially great, nothing fuperior to what we fee in those minions of fortune, who are exalted, by a concurrence of incidents, to a fituation in life to which their talents would never have raised them, and which their characters never deferved. In the face of Julius |