George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[64] and shelter of the people frequenting the Theatre, was a wide range of buildings, including two or three temples, of which remains are found now in two churches in the neighborhood, and several columns and inscriptions in the streets. No doubt, originally, everything here was in the most magnificent style, as well as on the grandest plan; for Pliny enumerates some of the finest works of Grecian art as having stood here, and among the rest, the very Cupid which Cicero (VI. contra Verrem) reproaches Verres with having stolen, and which was the work of Praxiteles. Now, however, so little remains,—it is all so scattered,—and it is scattered through such a filthy and squalid part of the city, that it requires a very decided antiquarian taste to enjoy it.¹ . . . .

December 23.—I went to see Cardinal Fesch this morning, and sat an hour with him. He is now seventy-four years old, and is somewhat, though not much, changed since I saw him nineteen years ago. Indeed, he is uncommonly hale and well-preserved for his years; dresses with ecclesiastical precision and niceness, and has the most downright good-natured ways with him, as he always had. He talked a vast deal of nonsense about the cholera and cordons; undertook to be learned about the plagues of ancient and modern times, but succeeded only in making a clumsy and awkward display of scraps of knowledge which . . . . he knew not how to put together; and finally he told me of a plan he has now in progress, for establishing an academy of sculpture and design in Ajaccio, in Corsica; but I could not find out that he had any further present purpose in relation to the matter than to erect a building, and fill it with casts and the refuse pictures of his own admirable gallery. However, if his vanity gets excited, his legacies may be worth something.² . . . .

In the evening we had a visit from the kind Chevalier Kestner, after which I passed an hour quietly and agreeably at the Princess Borghese's, where I met the Chigis, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, and only one or two other persons. Lord Stuart, who was thirteen years British Ambassador at Paris, remembered me, and reminded me of a conversation I had with him eighteen years ago, which surprised me very much, as I never saw him but once.