see so
much, that the memory of the very best alone distinctly remains. Nay,
in the presence of prime beauty nothing else exists, and we found
that the church of the Steccata, where Parmigianino's sublime "Moses
breaking the Tables of the Law" is visible in the midst of a multitude
of other figures on the vault, really contained nothing at last but
that august and awful presence.

Undoubtedly the best gallery of classical antiquities in North Italy
is that of Parma, which has derived all its precious relics from the
little city of Valleja alone. It is a fine foretaste of Pompeii
and the wonders of the Museo Borbonico at Naples, with its antique
frescos, and marble, and bronzes. I think nothing better has come out
of Herculaneum than the comic statuette of "Hercules Drunk." He is in
bronze, and the drunkest man who has descended to us from the elder
world; he reels backward, and leers knowingly upon you, while one hand
hangs stiffly at his side, and the other faintly clasps a wine-cup--a
burly, worthless, disgraceful demigod.

The great Farnese Theatre was, as we have seen, admired by Lasells;
but Lord Corke found it a "useless structure" though immense. "The
same spirit that raised the Colossus at Rhodes," he says, "raised the
theatre at Parma; that insatiable spirit and lust of Fame which would
brave the Almighty by fixing eternity to the name of a perishable
being." If it was indeed this spirit, I am bound to say that it did
not build so wisely at Parma as at Rhodes. The play-house that Ranuzio
I. constructed in 1628, to do honor to Cosmo II. de' Medici (pausing
at Parma on his way to visit the tomb of San Carlo Borromeo), and that
for a century afterward was the scene of the most brilliant spectacles
in the world, is now one of the dismalest and dustiest of ruins. This
_Theatrum orbis miraculum_ was built and ornamented with the
most perishable materials, and even its size has shrunken as the
imaginations of men have contracted under the strong light of later
days. When it was first opened, it was believed to hold fourteen
thousand spectators; at a later _fete_ it held only ten thousand; the
last published description fixes its capacity at five thousand; and
it is certain that for many and many a year it has held only the stray
tourists who have looked in upon its desolation. The gay paintings
hang in shreds and tatters from the roof; dust is thick upon the seats
and in the boxes, and on the leads that line the sp