Under a shed on the
right hand you find the famous groupe called Toro Farnese. It has been
touched and repaired, they tell you, till much of the spirit is lost;
but I did not miss it. The Bull and the Brothers are greatness itself;
but Dirce draws no compassion by her looks somehow, and the lady who
comes to her relief, seems too cold a spectatress of the scene.
There were several broken statues in the place, and while my companions
were examining the groupe after I had done, the wench's conversation who
shewed it made my amusement: as we looked together at an Egyptian
_Isis_, or, as many call her, _the Ephesian Diana_, with a hundred
breasts, very hideous, and swathed about the legs like a mummy at Cairo,
or a baby at Rome, I said to the girl, "_They worshipped these filthy
things formerly before Jesus Christ came; but he taught us better_,"
added I, "_and we are wiser now: how foolish was not it to pray to this
ugly stone_?"--"The people were _wickeder_ then, very likely;" replied
my friend the wench, "but I do not see that it _was foolish at all."_
Who says the modern Romans are degenerated? I swear I think them so like
their ancestors, that it is my delight to contemplate the resemblance.
A statue of a peasant carrying game at this very palace, is habited
precisely in the modern dress, and shews how very little change has yet
been made.
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