Once more I deem
it a pity that Protestantism should have entirely laid aside this mode of
appealing to the religious sentiment.
I chiefly paid attention to the sculpture, and was interested in a long
series of busts of the emperors and the members of their families, and
some of the great men of Rome. There is a bust of Pompey the Great,
bearing not the slightest resemblance to that vulgar and unintellectual
one in the gallery of the Capitol, altogether a different cast of
countenance. I could not judge whether it resembled the face of the
statue, having seen the latter so imperfectly in the duskiness of the
hall of the Spada Palace. These, I presume, are the busts which Mr.
Powers condemns, from internal evidence, as unreliable and conventional.
He may be right,--and is far more likely, of course, to be right than I
am,--yet there certainly seems to be character in these marble faces, and
they differ as much among themselves as the same number of living faces
might. The bust of Caracalla, however, which Powers excepted from his
censure, certainly does give stronger assurance of its being an
individual and faithful portrait than any other in the series.
Pages:
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445