If I was so struck with the appearance of this interesting edifice outside, how much more so should I have been on seeing the inside, were not the niches, where formerly stood the statues of the Gods, filled with tawdry dolls representing the Virgin Mary and _he_ and _she_ saints. The columns and pilasters in the interior of this temple are beautiful, all of _jaune antique_ and one entire stone each. How much better would it have been to replace the statues of the _Dii Majorum Gentium_ which occupied the niches, by statues in marble of the Apostles, instead of the dolls dressed in tawdry colors, and the frippery gilding of the altars on which they stand, which disfigure this noble building. The Pantheon was built by Agrippa as the inscription shews. In the interior are sixteen columns of _jaune antique_. The bronze that formerly ornamented this temple was made use of to fabricate the baldachin of St Peter's. Of late years it has been the fashion to erect monuments affixed to the walls of the interior of the Pantheon to the memory of the great men and heroes of poetry, painting, sculpture and music who were natives of Italy, or for foreigners, celebrated for their excellence in those arts, who have died in Rome. Here are for instance, tablets to the memory of Metastasio, Rafael Mengs, Sacchini, Poussin, Winckelmann; the Phidias of modern days, the illustrious Canova, has recommended the placing in the Pantheon of the busts in marble of all the great men who have flourished in Italy, as the most appropriate ornament to this temple. He himself with a princely liberality has made a present to it of the busts of Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Alfieri, Michel Angelo, Rafaello, Metastasio and various other worthies. These busts are all the production either of Canova himself, or made by his pupils under his direction; they are not the least remarkable ornament of the place. In the centre of the _Piazza della Rotonda_ stands an obelisk brought from Egypt, which belonged to a temple sacred to Isis in that country. I next repaired to the _Piazza di Navona_, a large and spacious square, where there is a superb fountain representing a vast rock with four colossal figures, one of which reclines at the foot of the rock, at each angle of the pedestal that supports it, and it is surmounted by an Obelisk which was brought from Egypt and was found in the gardens of Sallust. The four colossal figures represent the four river Gods of the four great rivers in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, viz., the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, and the Plata. The statue of the Nile has his head half-concealed by a cloak, emblematical of the source of that river not being discovered. In the _Piazza_ are frequently held fairs, shews of wild beasts, theatrical exhibitions and sometimes combats of wild beasts.