I am partly sensible that some unwritten rules of
taste are making their way into my mind; that all this Greek beauty has
done something towards refining me, though I am still, however, a very
sturdy Goth. . . . .
April 15th.--Yesterday I went with J----- to the Forum, and descended
into the excavations at the base of the Capitol, and on the site of the
Basilica of Julia. The essential elements of old Rome are there:
columns, single, or in groups of two or three, still erect, but battered
and bruised at some forgotten time with infinite pains and labor;
fragments of other columns lying prostrate, together with rich capitals
and friezes; the bust of a colossal female statue, showing the bosom and
upper part of the arms, but headless; a long, winding space of pavement,
forming part of the ancient ascent to the Capitol, still as firm and
solid as ever; the foundation of the Capitol itself, wonderfully massive,
built of immense square blocks of stone, doubtless three thousand years
old, and durable for whatever may be the lifetime of the world; the Arch
of Septimius, Severus, with bas-reliefs of Eastern wars; the Column of
Phocas, with the rude series of steps ascending on four sides to its
pedestal; the floor of beautiful and precious marbles in the Basilica of
Julia, the slabs cracked across,--the greater part of them torn up and
removed, the grass and weeds growing up through the chinks of what
remain; heaps of bricks, shapeless bits of granite, and other ancient
rubbish, among which old men are lazily rummaging for specimens that a
stranger may be induced to buy,--this being an employment that suits the
indolence of a modern Roman.
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