The collection of antiquities belonging to the Philharmonic society is
very respectable; they reminded me of the Arundel marbles at Oxford, and
I said so. "_Oh!_" replied the man who shewed these, "_that collection
was very valuable to be sure, but the bad air, and the smoke of coal
fires in England, have ruined them long ago_." I suspected that my
gentleman talked by rote, and examining the book called _Verona
illustrata_, found the remark there; but that is _malasede_, and a very
ridiculous prejudice. I will confess however, if they please, that our
original treaty between Mardonius and the Persian army, at the end of
which the Greek general Aristides, although himself a Sabian, attested
the fun as witness, in compliance with their religion who worshipped
that luminary, at least held it in the highest veneration, as the
residence of Oromasdes the good Principle, who was considered by the
Magians as for ever clothed with light: I will consider _that_, I say,
if they insist upon it, as a marble of less consequence than the last
will and testament of an old inhabitant of Sparta which is shewn at
Verona, and which _they say_ disposes of the iron money used during the
first of many years that the laws of Lycurgus lasted.

Here is a very fine palace belonging to the Bevi-l'acqua family, besides
the Casa Verzi, as famous for its elegant Doric architecture, as the
charming mistress of it for her Attic wit.

St. Zeno is the church which struck me most: the eternal and all-seeing
eye placed over the door; Fortune's wheel too, composed of six figures
curiously disposed, and not unlike our man alphabet, two mounting, two
sitting, and two tumbling, over against it: on the outside of the wheel
this distich,

En ego Fortuna moderor mortalibus usum,