Garrick’s sale in 1823 for 1,650 guineas--a great price then. There are fine Canalettis and Turners, and many pleasing pictures by inferior artists. Of course the great attraction is the famous Belzoni sarcophagus, purchased for £2,000. But with all these evidences of good taste there is an extraordinary mixture of fantastic, if not eccentric, things, which seems incredible in a man thus cultivated. Thus, on the basement floor there is a sort of theatrical or Vauxhall imitation of a monk’s cell, contrived by some arrangement of old stones and tawdry stained glass, of the yellow tint which was in high fashion for hall lamps and greenhouses forty or fifty years ago, and so delighted was the owner with his contrivance that he thus expatiated on the result:-- “Returning from the oratory, you proceed to the _Parloir_ (as he calls it) of Padre Giovanni. The scriptural subjects represented on glass are suited to the destination of the place, and increase its sombre characters. The other works of intellectual and highly-gifted talent, combined with the statues, etc., _impress the spectator with reverence for the monk_. From Padre Giovanni’s room the ruins of a monastery arrest the attention. The interest created in the mind of the spectator on visiting the abode of this monk will not be weakened _by wandering among the ruins of this once noble monastery_. The tomb of the monk, _composed_ from the remains of an old ornament, _adds to the gloomy scenery of this hallowed place_. The pavement, _composed of the tops and bottoms of broken bottles found among the gravel dug out_ for the foundation of the monastery, furnishes an admirable lesson of simplicity and economy, and _shows the unremitting assiduity of the pious monk_. The stone structure at the head of the monk’s grave _contains the remains of Fanny, the favoured companion, the delight, the solace of his leisure hours_, whose portrait, painted by James Ward, R.A., may be seen in the breakfast-room.” All which nonsense about “_Parloirs_” and Padre Giovanni and his faithful dog can only cause a smile. Leaving the “ruins,” turn we now, as the old guide book would put it, to the “monument court”: “in the centre is an architectural _Pasticico_, of about thirty feet high, composed of an extraordinary miscellaneous jumble, the pedestal upon which the cast of the Belvedere Apollo was placed, a marble capital of Hindoo architecture, a capital in stone like that at Tivoli, and another of a Gothic sort. These are surmounted by various architectural groups placed one upon the other, _and the whole is terminated by a pineapple_.”