Our next step will be to the Ripetta, the resort of the smaller barks which navigate the Tiber. A large flight of steps leads down to the water, and a ferry will, if you please, carry you to a footpath across some meadows, affording a pleasanter, but somewhat longer, walk to the Vatican. The long succession of streets which conducts us to the Ponte Sant Angelo, is one of the most disagreeable of the principal avenues of Rome. In it we find the great Palazzo Borghese, shaped as you are told, like a harpsichord, not however from any predilection for this form, but to accommodate it to the shape of the ground. Externally, it has no architectural merit except that of size. Each story has its mezzanine, an arrangement which would be convenient in a large hotel, for the independent accommodation of a number of families, but which wants the unity of a princely residence. The court is admired by some persons, but I do not much like it; it is surrounded by arches supported on coupled columns; an arrangement which has neither the solidity of a pier, nor the lightness, and grace, of a single column. But who thinks of the architecture, while painting here displays all its glories. The collection is immense, but what is more, the pictures are wonderfully fine. The _Deposition_ from the cross, though executed before Raphael had gained the richness and force of colour exhibited in his latest pictures, in design, and expression, may rank with anything he ever did. I must not begin upon this subject; criticisms on paintings if not excellent, are worthless, and since I cannot hope that mine will stand in the first predicament, I will not expose them to the latter imputation. The Church of Sant Agostino, is not praiseworthy for its architecture, but it contains some fine Guercinos, and a head of Isaiah by Raphael, which is much admired. In the convent is a library of old books (there are no new ones in Rome), which is open to the public every morning from eight to twelve, except on feast days. From Sant Agostino, we may visit San Luigi de’ Francesi, which is very rich, and rather handsome (I speak of the inside, the outsides of Roman churches I seldom pretend to criticise). The dome springs from the same height as the vaulting of the nave, the diameter being from angle to angle. Its merits consist in a remarkably fine Francesco Bassan, a painter usually little thought of in Rome but this is really worth seeing for the character of the heads; and a chapel, containing a copy by Guido, of the Santa Cecilia of Raphael, and adorned by the frescos of Domenichino.