the wall. Immediately after this I came to the gate of San Giovanni,
just within which is the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and there I was
glad to rest myself upon a bench before proceeding homeward.

There was a French sentinel at this gateway, as at all the others; for
the Gauls have always been a pest to Rome, and now gall her worse than
ever. I observed, too, that an official, in citizen's dress, stood there
also, and appeared to exercise a supervision over some carts with country
produce, that were entering just then.


February 25th.--We went this forenoon to the Palazzo Borghese, which is
situated on a street that runs at right angles with the Corso, and very
near the latter. Most of the palaces in Rome, and the Borghese among
them, were built somewhere about the sixteenth century; this in 1590, I
believe. It is an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of a
quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms comprising the picture-gallery
forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the
ground-floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court,
surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series
of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have
many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings
and beautiful frescos, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat
central part of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures
of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished
and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and
seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown
over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the
damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic
tables, which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles