As cruelty is more detestable than fraud, one feels greater disgust at
the sight of captive monarchs without hands and arms, than even these
idolatrous brutalities inspire; and no greater proof can be obtained of
Roman barbarity, than the statues one is shewn here of kings and
generals over whom they triumphed; being made on purpose for them
without hands and arms, of which they were deprived immediately on their
arrival at Rome.
Enormous heads and feet, to which the other parts are wanting, let one
see, or at least guess; what colossal figures were once belonging to
them; yet somehow these celebrated artists seem to me to have a little
confounded the ideas of _big_ and _great_ like my countryman Fluellyn in
Shakespear's play: while the two famous demi-gods Castor and Pollux,
each his horse in his hand, stand one on each side the stairs which lead
to the Capitol, and are of a prodigious size--fifteen feet, as I
remember. The knowing people tell us they are portraits, and bid us
observe that one has pupils to his eyes, the other _not_; but our
_laquais de place_, who was a very sensible fellow too, as he saw me
stand looking at them, cried out, "Why now to be sure here are a vast
many miracles in this holy city--that there are:" and I heard one of our
own folks telling an Englishman the other day, how these two monstrous
statues, horses and all I believe, _came out of an egg_: a very
extraordinary thing certainly; but it is our business to believe, not to
enquire.
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