al. L**,
who was with us, took up a stone to break off a piece of the statue,
and maimed, defaced, and wretched as it is, I could not help thinking
it a profanation to the place, and stopped his hand, calling him a
_barbarous Vandyke_: he looked so awkwardly alarmed and puzzled by the
epithet I had given him! The identity of this spot (like all other
places here) has been vehemently disputed. At every step to-day we
encountered doubt, and contradiction, and cavilling: authorities are
marshalled against each other in puzzling array, and the modern
unwillingness to be cheated by fine sounds and great names has become
a general scepticism. I have no objection to the "shadows, doubts, and
darkness" which rest upon all around us; it rather pleases my fancy
thus to "dream over the map of things," abandoned to my own
cogitations and my own conclusions; but then there are certain points
upon which it is very disagreeable to have one's faith disturbed; and
the Fountain of Egeria is one of these. So leaving the more learned
antiquarians to fight it out, _secundum artem_, and fire each other's
wigs if they will, I am determined, and do steadfastly believe, that
the Fountain of Egeria I saw to-day is the very identical and original
Fountain of Egeria--of Numa's Egeria--and therefore it _is_ so.

The tomb of the Scipios is a dirty dark wine cellar: all the urns, the
fine sarcophagus, and the original tablets and inscriptions have been
removed to the Vatican. I thought to-day while I stood in the
sepulchre, and on the very spot whence the sarcophagus of Publius was
removed, if Scipio, or Augustus, or Adrian, could return to this
world, how would their Roman pride endure to see their last
resting-places, the towers and the pyramids in which they fortified
themselves, thus violated and put to ignoble uses, and the urns which
contained their ashes stuck up as ornaments in a painted room, where
barbarian visitors lounge away their hours, and stare upon their
relics with scornful indifference or idle curiosity!

* * * * *

The people here, even the lowest and meanest among them seem to have
imbibed a profound respect for antiquity and antiquities, which
sometimes produces a comic effect. I am often amused by the exultation
with which they point out a bit of old stone, or piece of brick wall,
or shapeless fragment of some nameless statue, and tell you it is
_antico, molto, antico_, and the half contemptuou