Besides the Moses, the church contains some attractions of a pictorial
kind, which are reposited in the sacristy, into which we passed through a
side door. The most remarkable of these pictures is a face and bust of
Hope, by Guido, with beautiful eyes lifted upwards; it has a grace which
artists are continually trying to get into their innumerable copies, but
always without success; for, indeed, though nothing is more true than the
existence of this charm in the picture, yet if you try to analyze it, or
even look too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with more
trusting simplicity.
Leaving the church, we wandered to the Coliseum, and to the public
grounds contiguous to them, where a score and more of French drummers
were beating each man his drum, without reference to any rub-a-dub but
his own. This seems to be a daily or periodical practice and point of
duty with them. After resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we
came slowly home, through the Basilica of Constantine, and along the
shady sides of the streets and piazzas, sometimes, perforce, striking
boldly through the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as to
shrivel us up bodily.
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