Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present ConditionBucke, Charles
History
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition
Bucke, Charles
Cities and towns, Ancient
The manner, in which the traveller should survey the curiosities of
Rome, must be determined by the length of time which he can afford for
that purpose. “There are two modes of seeing Rome,” says Mr. Mathews;
“the topographical, followed by Vasi, who parcels out the town into
eight divisions, and jumbles every thing together,—antiquities,
churches, and palaces, if their situation be contiguous; and the
chronological,—which would carry you regularly from the house of
Romulus to the palace of the reigning pontiff. The first mode is the
most expeditious, and the least expensive; for even if the traveller
walk afoot, the economy of time is worth considering; and after all that
can be urged in favour of the chronological order, on the score of
reason, Vasi’s plan is perhaps the best. For all that is worth seeing at
all is worth seeing twice. Vasi’s mode hurries you through every thing;
but it enables you to select and note down those objects that are worthy
of public examination, and these may be afterwards studied at leisure.
Of the great majority of sights it must be confessed that all we obtain
for our labour is the knowledge that they are not worth seeing;—but
this is a knowledge, that no one is willing to receive upon the
authority of another, and Vasi’s plan offers a most expeditious mode of
arriving at this truth by one’s own proper experience. His plan is,
however, too expeditious; for he would get through the whole town, with
all its wonders, ancient and modern, in eight days!”
Expeditious as it is, some of our indefatigable countrymen have
contrived to hit upon one still more so. You may tell them that the
antiquaries allow eight days for the tour, and they will boast of having
beaten the antiquaries, and “done it in six.” This rapid system may do,
or rather must do, for those who have no time for any other; but to the
traveller who wishes to derive instruction and profit from his visit, a
more leisurely survey is essential. “For my own part,” says Mr. Woods,
“the first eight days I spent in Rome were all hurry and confusion, and
I could attend to nothing systematically, nor even examine any thing
with accuracy; a sort of restless eagerness to see every thing and know
every thing, gave me no power of fixing my attention on any one
particular.”
We must now close our account: not that we have by any means exhausted
the subject, for it demands volumes and years; whereas our space is
limited, and our time is short. We shall, therefore, devote the
remainder of our space and time to the impressions with which the ruins
of this city have been viewed by several elegant and accomplished
travellers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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