Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 | Page 6

single objects are
swallowed up by the great masses of light and shade, and nothing but
grand and general outlines present themselves to the eye. For three
several days we have enjoyed to the full the brightest and most glorious
of nights. Peculiarly beautiful at such a time is the Coliseum. At night it
is always closed; a hermit dwells in a little shrine within its range, and
beggars of all kinds nestle beneath its crumbling arches; the latter had
lit a fire on the arena, and a gentle wind bore down the smoke to the
ground, so that the lower portion of the ruins was quite hid by it, while
above the vast walls stood out in deeper darkness before the eye. As we
stopt at the gate to contemplate the scene through the iron gratings, the
moon shone brightly in the heavens above. Presently the smoke found
its way up the sides, and through every chink and opening, while the
moon lit it up like a cloud. The sight was exceedingly glorious. In such
a light one ought also to see the Pantheon, the Capitol, the Portico of St.

Peter's, and the other grand streets and squares--and thus sun and moon,
like the human mind, have quite a different work to do here from
elsewhere, where the vastest and yet the most elegant of masses present
themselves to their rays.

THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE CITY[4]
BY JOSEPH ADDISON
There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the Christian, and the
heathen. The former, tho of a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable
and legend, that one receives but little satisfaction from searching into
them. The other give a great deal of pleasure to such as have met with
them before in ancient authors; for a man who is in Rome can scarce
see an object that does not call to mind a piece of a Latin poet or
historian. Among the remains of old Rome, the grandeur of the
commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary
or convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and
bridges of the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under
the emperors is seen principally in such works as were rather for
ostentation or luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths,
amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and
mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply
their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains,
than out of any real necessity there was for them....
No part of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so much as the ancient
statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship
is often the most exquisite of anything in its kind. A man would wonder
how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be
discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest, one
has the satisfaction of seeing the faces, postures, airs, and dress of those
that have lived so many ages before us. There is a strange resemblance
between the figures of the several heathen deities, and the descriptions
that the Latin poets have given us of them; but as the first may be
looked upon as the ancienter of the two, I question not but the Roman

poets were the copiers of the Greek statuaries. Tho on other occasions
we often find the statuaries took their subjects from the poets. The
Laocöon is too known an instance among many others that are to be
met with at Rome.
I could not forbear taking particular notice of the several musical
instruments that are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos, muses,
fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds, which might certainly give a
great light to the dispute for preference between the ancient and modern
music. It would, perhaps, be no impertinent design to take off all their
models in wood, which might not only give us some notion of the
ancient music, but help us to pleasanter instruments than are now in use.
By the appearance they make in marble, there is not one
string-instrument that seems comparable to our violins, for they are all
played on either by the bare fingers, or the plectrum, so that they were
incapable of adding any length to their notes, or of varying them by
those insensible swellings, and wearings away of sound upon the same
string, which give so wonderful a sweetness to our modern music.
Besides that, the string-instruments must have had very low and feeble
voices, as may be guessed from the small proportion of wood about
them, which could not contain air enough to render the strokes, in any
considerable measure, full and sonorous. There is