208 
J. E. Smith to his Father. 
Honoured Sir, Naples, March 5, 1787. 
I was much disappointed at not finding a letter 
from you at any of the post-offices (for there are 
several) at Rome, nor any here. 
We staid at Rome till Feb. 25th, and spent our 
time very happily indeed. We saw all the Carnival, 
a description of which (as you have seen so many 
descriptions of it) I must defer to those future op- 
portunities so often referred to, and thought of by 
me with great pleasure. 
We saw the Pretender every day: he is a heavy 
sickly-looking man, very much like what Mr. Ba- 
con of Earlham was latterly. He drinks very hard. 
The principal things which we have seen at Rome 
are the Coliseum, the arches of Severus, Titus, and 
Constantine, columns of Trajan and Antoninus, 
the Pantheon, the Museum Clementinum (where 
are the most celebrated statues, as the divine Apollo 
Belvidere, the Antinous, Laocoon, and a thousand 
other inestimable things), the paintings by Raphael 
in the Vatican, the Moses of Michael Angelo, which 
is the first modern statue, as the Transfiguration of 
Raphael, is the finest picture, in the world. We have 
also seen the Palace Farnese, and several other pa- 
laces and villas, with churches innumerable ; yet we 
shall have enough to employ us very closely for the 
three weeks which we have allowed ourselves to 
stay on our return, and shall then leave Rome with 
more regret than ever I left any place. I think it 
