That the palaces which taste and expence combine to decorate should look
quietly on, while common passengers use their noble vestibules, nay
flairs, for every nauseous purpose; that princes whose incomes equal
those of our Dukes of Bedford and Marlborough, should suffer their
servants to dress other men's dinners for hire, or lend out their
equipages for a day's pleasuring, and hang wet rags out of their palace
windows to dry, as at the mean habitation of a pauper; while looking in
at those very windows, nothing is to be seen but proofs of opulence, and
scenes of splendour, I will not undertake to explain; sure I am, that
whoever knows Rome, will not condemn this _ebauche_ of it.
When I spoke of their beggars, many not unlike Salvator Rosa's Job at
the Santa Croce palace, I ought not to have omitted their eloquence, and
various talents. We talked to a lame man one day at our own door, whose
account of his illness would not have disgraced a medical professor; so
judicious were his sentiments, so scientific was his discourse. The
accent here too is perfectly pleasing, intelligible, and expressive; and
I like their _cantilena_ vastly.
The excessive lenity of all Italian states makes it dangerous to live
among them; a seeming paradox, yet certainly most true; and whatever is
evil in this way at any other town, is worst at Rome; where those who
deserve hanging, enjoy almost a moral certainty of never being hanged;
so unwilling is everybody to detect the offender, and so numerous the
churches to afford him protection if found out.
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