Having taken note of these objects, we went to the museum, in an edifice
on our left, entering the piazza, and here, in the vestibule, we found
various old statues and relics. Ascending the stairs, we passed through
a long gallery, and, turning to our left, examined somewhat more
carefully a suite of rooms running parallel with it. The first of these
contained busts of the Caesars and their kindred, from the epoch of the
mightiest Julius downward; eighty-three, I believe, in all. I had seen a
bust of Julius Caesar in the British Museum, and was surprised at its
thin and withered aspect; but this head is of a very ugly old man
indeed,--wrinkled, puckered, shrunken, lacking breadth and substance;
careworn, grim, as if he had fought hard with life, and had suffered in
the conflict; a man of schemes, and of eager effort to bring his schemes
to pass. His profile is by no means good, advancing from the top of his
forehead to the tip of his nose, and retreating, at about the same angle,
from the latter point to the bottom of his chin, which seems to be thrust
forcibly down into his meagre neck,--not that he pokes his head forward,
however, for it is particularly erect.

The head of Augustus is very beautiful, and appears to be that of a
meditative, philosophic man, saddened with the sense that it is not very
much worth while to be at the summit of human greatness after all. It is
a sorrowful thing to trace the decay of civilization through this series
of busts, and to observe how the artistic skill, so requisite at first,
went on declining through the dreary dynasty of the Caesars, till at
length the master of the world could not get his head carved in better
style than the figure-head of a ship.

In the next room there were better statues than we had yet seen; but in
the last room of the range we found the "Dying Gladiator," of which I had
already caught a glimpse in passing by the open door. It had made all