The Temple of Bacchus is one of the most remarkable objects in Rome; it is not in the least altered, merely turned into a Christian church, and some saints, &c., painted on the walls. The mosaic ceiling and the pavement are just the same as when it was devoted to the worship of the jolly god. The mosaics are beautiful, and perfect models of that sort of ceiling. The pavement is covered with names and other scribblings cut out upon it, all ancient Roman. Not a column has been removed or mutilated. The fact is, Rome possesses several complete specimens of places of heathen worship; this temple, the Pantheon, and San Stefano Rotondo are perfect in the inside, the Pantheon within and without, Vesta and Fortuna Virilis perfect on the outside.
In the Rospigliosi Palace is the famous Aurora of Guido. It is in excellent preservation, and three artists were copying it in oils. One copy was just finished, and admirably done, for which the painter asked forty louis. I begin to like frescoes better than oils; there is such a life and brilliancy about them. At the Quirinal, which was fitted up for the King of Rome and inhabited by the Emperor of Austria, we saw everything but the Pope's apartments. It is a delightful house, and commands a charming view of Rome. The Pope always goes there the last day of the Holy Week, and stays there all the summer. Nothing can be more melancholy than his life as described by the _custode_; he gets up very early, lives entirely alone and with the greatest simplicity. In short, it shows what a strange thing ambition is, which will sacrifice the substantial pleasures of life for the miserable shadow of grandeur. Coming home we stopped by accident at the Capuchins, and looked in to see Guido's St. Michael, with which I was disappointed till I looked at it from a distance. We then went to their catacombs, the most curious place I ever saw. There are a series of chapels in the cloisters, or rather compartments of one chapel, entirely fitted up with human bones arranged symmetrically and with all sorts of devices. They are laid out in niches, and each niche is occupied by the skeleton of a friar in the robes of his order; a label is attached to it with the name of the skeleton and the date of his death. Beneath are mounds of earth, each tenanted by a dead friar with similar labels. When a friar dies, the oldest buried friar, or rather his skeleton, is taken up and promoted to a niche, and the newly defunct takes possession of his grave; and so they go on in succession. I was so struck by this strange sight that, when I came home at night, I ventured on the following description of it:--