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.

A man asked importunately in our antichamber this morning for the padrone, naming no names, and our servants turned him out.  He went however only five doors, further, found a sick old gentleman sitting in his lodging attended by a feeble servant, whom he bound, stuck a knife in the master, rifled the apartments, and walked coolly out again at noon-day:  nor should we have ever heard of such a trifle, but that it happened just by so; for here are no newspapers to tell who is murdered, and nobody’s pity is excited, unless for the malefactor when they hear he is caught.

But the Palazzo Farnese is a more pleasing speculation; the Hercules faces us entering; Guglielmo della Porta made his legs I hear, and when the real ones were found, his were better: and Michael Angelo said, it was not worth risquing the statue to try at restoring the old ones.  There is another Hercules stands near, as a foil to Glycon’s, I suppose; and the Italians tell you of our Mr. Sharp’s acuteness in finding some fault till then undiscovered, a very slight one though, with some of the neck muscles:  they tell it approvingly however, and make one admire their candour, even beyond their Flora, who carries that in her countenance which they possess in their hearts.  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.  The shoes of the low fellows too particularly attract my notice:  they exactly resemble the ancient ones, and when Persius mentions his ploughman peronatus arator, one sees he would say so to-day.