[Footnote 406: 'When we reflect upon the divinity of those intellects of the old world ... when we see the corpse of this noble city, mother and queen of the world, so piteously mangled ... how many Pontiffs have allowed the ruin and defacement of ancient temples, statues, arches, and other buildings, the glory of their founders! How many have suffered their foundations to be undermined for the mere sake of quarrying _pozzolana_, whereby in a short time the buildings themselves have fallen to earth! How much lime has been made of statues and other antique decorations! I should not hesitate to say that the whole of this new Rome which now meets the eye, great as it is, and fair, and beautified with palaces and churches and other buildings, has been cemented with lime made from antique marbles.'] Raphael's own death followed close upon the execution of the first part of a Roman map designed by him. Great interest had been excited in the world of letters by his undertaking; and its failure through his untimely end aroused the keenest disappointment. The epigrams quoted below in a footnote express these feelings with more depth of emotion than scholarly elegance.[407] How Raphael's design would have been carried out it is impossible to guess. Archæological zeal is impotent to stay the march of time, except by sacrifice of much that neglect alone makes venerable; and it may fairly be questioned whether it is wise to lay the hand of the restorer on these relics of the past. We at least, who during the last few years have seen the Coliseum and the Baths of Caracalla stripped of their romantic vegetation, the Palatine ruins fortified with modern masonry, and the dubious guesses of antiquaries placarded upon sign-posts for the instruction of Sunday visitors, may feel, perhaps, that a worse fate than slow decay or ruthless mutilation was still in store for the majestic corpse of ancient Rome. Nothing, in truth, is less sublime or more pitiful than a dismantled brick wall, robbed of its marbles and mosaics, naked of the covering of herbs that nature gave it, patched with plaster, propped with stonework, bound by girders, and smeared over with the trail of worse than snails or blindworms--pedants bent on restoration. [Footnote 407: Tot proceres Romam, tam longa struxerat ætas, Totque hostes et tot sæcula diruerant; Nunc Romam in Româ quærit reperitque Raphael; Quærere magni hominis, sed reperire Dei est. Celio Calcagnini.