It Is Also My Will That All My
Domestic Slaves Shall Be Declared Free By The City Praetor, And
Dismissed With Their Mothers, After Having Received Each, A Suit
Of Cloaths, And A Pound Weight Of Pure Silver From My Heirs And
Executors.
- At my farm in Lusitania, July 25.
During the Viriatin
war.
My paper scarce affords room to assure you that I am ever, - Dear
Sir, Your faithful, etc.
LETTER XXXIII
NICE, March 30, 1765.
DEAR SIR, - YOU must not imagine I saw one half of the valuable
pictures and statues of Rome; there is such a vast number of both
in this capital, that I might have spent a whole year in taking
even a transient view of them; and, after all, some of them would
have been overlooked. The most celebrated pieces, however, I have
seen; and therefore my curiosity is satisfied. Perhaps, if I had
the nice discernment and delicate sensibility of a true
connoisseur, this superficial glimpse would have served only to
whet my appetite, and to detain me the whole winter at Rome. In
my progress through the Vatican, I was much pleased with the
School of Athens, by Raphael, a piece which hath suffered from
the dampness of the air. The four boys attending to the
demonstration of the mathematician are admirably varied in the
expression. Mr. Webb's criticism on this artist is certainly
just. He was perhaps the best ethic painter that ever the world
produced. No man ever expressed the sentiments so happily, in
visage, attitude, and gesture:
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