ome. On descending from the _Campanile_, we visited the Tarpeian rock,
which is now of inconsiderable height, the ground about it and heaps of
rubbish having filled up the abyss below. We then entered the court yard of
the Capitol. The Capitol and building annexed to it form three sides of a
rectangle, the centre or _corps de logis_ lying North and South, and the
wings East and West, the whole inclosing a court yard open on the South
side of the rectangle, from whence you descend into the street on the plain
below, by a most magnificent escalier or flight of steps. Of the Capitol,
the _corps de logis_ or central building to which the _Campanile_ belongs,
is reserved for the occupation and habitation of the _Senator Romano_, a
civil magistrate, corresponding something to the mayor in France or
_Oberbuergermeister_ in the German towns, and who is chosen from among the
nobility and nominated by the Pope. The wings contain the _Museum
Capitolinum_ of painting and sculpture. There is a great deal to call forth
the admiration of the traveller in the court yard of the Capitol. The most
prominent object is the famous bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius,
which cannot fail to rivet the attention of the least enthusiastic
spectator. I observed at each angle of the facade of the Capitol a colossal
statue of a captive King in a Phrygian dress; but still more striking than
these are the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux leading horses, which
stand a little in front of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, and
nearer the _escalier_, the one on the right the other on the left. Two
lions in basalt on each side of the _escalier_ are very striking objects,
and the _escalier_ itself is the most superb thing of the kind perhaps in
the world. This _escalier_ and the Marcus Aurelius, unique also in its
kind, are both the workmanship of Michael Angelo.[87] We descended this
_escalier_ and then fronted it to take a view of the Capitol from the
bottom; but the statue of Marcus Aurelius is so prominent and so grand that
it absorbed all my attention.

After dinner I walked a little in the gardens on the Pincian hill, and then
visited some friends belonging to the French Academy of Painting and
Sculpture, who were so good as to shew me their productions, and also a
copy of the superb folio edition of Denon's work on Egypt which to me, who
had been in that country, was highly gratifying. Oh! what a pity that the
French could not keep t