48 
2 pretence of taking frefh air. At 
"Turin, the view from the place 
deftined to this amufement, would 
tempt one cut merely for its own 
fake; and at Milan they drive along 
a planted walk, at leaft a ftone’s 
throw beyond the gates. Bologna 
calls its ferious inhabitants to a 
little rifing ground, whence the 
profpect is luxuriantly verdant and 
fmiling. ‘The Lucca baftions are 
beyond all in a peculiar ftyle of 
miniature beauty; and even the 
Florentines, though lazy enough, 
creep out to Porto St. Gallo. But 
- here at Roma la Santa, the ftreet 
is all our Corfo; a fine one doubt- 
lefs, and called the Strada del Po- 
polo, with infinite propriety, for ex- 
cept in that ftrada, there is little 
populoufnefs enough, God knows. 
‘Ewelve men to a woman even there, 
and as many ecclefiaftics to a lay- 
man: all this however is fair, when 
celibacy is once enjoined as a duty 
in ei encouraged as a 
virtue in all. 
Au refie, as the French fay, we 
muft not be too fure that all who 
drefs like Abates are fuch. Many 
gentlemen wear black as the court 
garb; many becaufe it is not coftly, 
and many for reafons of mere con- 
venience and diflike of change. 
I fee not here the attractive 
beauty which caught my eye at 
Venice; but the*women at Rome 
have a moft Juno-like carriage, 
and fill up one’s idea of Livia and 
Agrippina well enough. ‘The men 
have rounder faces than one fees in 
other towns I think; bright, black, 
and fomewhat prominent eyes, with 
che fineft teethin Europe. A ftory 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1790. 
told me this morning, ftruck my 
fancy much; of an herb-woman, 
who kept a ftall here in the market,. 
and who, when the people ran out 
flocking to fee the queen of Naples 
as fhe pafled, began exclaiming to 
her neighbours—« 4h, povera Ro- 
ma! tempo fu quando pafsd qui pri- 
gioniera la regina Zenobia; altra cofa 
amica, robba tutta diverfa di quefia 
reginuccia *!” 
St. Peter’s church is incontef- 
tably the firft object in this city, fo 
crowded with fingle figures: that 
this church fhould be built in the 
form of a Latin crofs inftead of a 
Greek one may be wrong for aught 
I know; that columns would have 
done better than piers infide, I do 
not think; but that whatever has 
been done by man might have been 
done better, if that is all the critics 
want, I readily allow. This church 
is, after all their objections, neargr 
to perfeét than any other building 
in the world; and when Michael 
Angelo, looking at the Pantheon, 
faid, «Is this the beft our vaunted 
anceftors could do? if fo, I will 
fhew the advancement of the art, 
in fufpending a dome of equal fize 
to this up in the air.” He made a 
glorious boaft, and was perhaps the 
only perfon ever exifting who could 
have performed his promife, 
The figures of angels, or rather 
cherubims, eightfeet high, which 
fupport the vafes holding holy wa- 
ter, as they are made after the form 
of babies, do perfectly and clofely 
reprefent infants of eighteen or 
twenty months old; nor till one 
comes quite clofe to them indeed, 
is it poflible to difcern that they 
* «© Ah, poor degraded Rome! time was, my dear, when the great Zenobia 
paffed through thele ftreets in chains; anetherguels figure from this little 
Queency, in good time!" 
are 
