and I presume to do anything else, but he
must preserve a certain orthodox gravity of dress and conduct; he
is a curious nondescript, about an equal mixture of the cardinal
and the dandy. This Monsignore is a very clever, agreeable man,
and gave me some information about the administration of law in
this country. There seems to be a good deal of laxity in it, for
a man was condemned for stabbing another (with premeditation) a
little while ago to six months' imprisonment, or more perhaps;
and having been George Hamilton's _laquais de place_, his family
came to him and begged him to try and get him off. He applied to
Spada, and got the punishment commuted to some trifling
imprisonment, and when he got out he came, with all his family,
to kiss Hamilton's hand.

[Page Head: BUNSEN ON THE FORUM]

April 13th, 1830 {p.326}

Breakfasted with Bunsen at the Capitol; Lovaine, Morier,
Haddington, Hamilton, Kestner, Falck, G. Fitzclarence, Sir W. Gell,
a little Italian servant, and Mr. Hall, Bunsen's brother-in-law.
Haddington told the story of Canning's sending to Bagot a despatch
in cipher, containing these lines:--

In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much;
With equal protection the French are content:
So we'll lay on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent.
_Chorus of Officers._--We'll lay, &c.
_Chorus of Douaniers._--Nous frapperons Falck
avec Twenty per cent.

He received the despatch at dinner, and sent it to be deciphered.
After some hours they brought him word they did not know what to
make of it, for it seemed to be in verse, when he at once saw
there was a joke.

Went to see the excavations in the Via Triumphalis and the Temple
of Concord, and heard Bunsen's theory of the Forum. Bunsen gives
different names to the remains of the temples in the Forum from
those which have been usually given, and by which they are known,
and on very plausible grounds, drawn chiefly from accounts in
different Roman authors and peculiarities in the buildings
themselves. The Temple of Fortune he thinks was the Basilica of
Augustus, and the Temple of Jupiter Tonans the Temple of Saturn;
but all his reasons I need not put down if I could remember them,
for are they not written in the voluminous work he is going to
publish in four or six volumes octavo?

Bunsen's history is rather curious. He was a poor German