The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IVGreville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- George IV, 1820-1830; Great Britain -- History -- William IV, 1830-1837
In the morning to St. John Lateran, where, as my _laquais de
place_ said, 'converted Jews, or Turks, or _Lutherans_' were
baptised; got too late for the baptism, which I believe is a
farce regularly got up, but heard the High Mass. The churches
were crowded all this week with pilgrims, whose appearance is
always very picturesque. Went into the cloisters, and was shown
by the monk or priest (whichever he was) some very remarkable
articles that they possess--a bit of the column on which the cock
stood when he crowed after Peter's three denials; a slab showing
the exact height of Jesus Christ, as he could just stand under
it,[19] and two halves which had once been a whole column, but
which was broken when the veil of the Temple was rent on the
death of Christ. The column is adorned with sculpture, which they
say is Jewish, and was brought to Rome with the Holy Stairs. Then
to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where they were performing High
Mass, with many assistants and a full choir, but without a
congregation; there were not six people in the church. To Minerva
Medica, a questionable and uninteresting ruin, and besides
falling to pieces. To the Barberini Palace, where there is little
besides the Cenci, which is worth going any distance to see. To
the Doria, a magnificent palace, with an immense number of
pictures, and some very fine ones, which I was hurried through.
To the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, which is in the middle of the
wall of Aurelian, and forms the back of a very pretty Protestant
burial ground, the greatest number of those who have been buried
there being of course English. It is on the side of a hill with
high, turreted walls behind it. There are two rows of white
marble tombs, whose diminutive proportions form a contrast with
the enormous sepulchre of the Roman. Round some of the tombstones
rose-trees and other shrubs have been planted, and all but one
adorned with epitaphs and inscriptions in Latin, English, German,
and Italian. That one is the tomb of the pretty Miss Bathurst who
was drowned in the Tiber. Her mother was to have returned to Rome
and supply the epitaph, but she has never come, and it has not
even her name inscribed upon it. I copied the following, which
are apparently intended for Latin verses, from one of the tombs--
of Frederica Ursulina Arabella de Montmorency, by her father,
Colonel Raymond Henry de Montmorency, whose feelings set quantity
at defiance:--
Frederica quae Claris fueram praelata puellis
Illa ego hoc brevi condita sum tumulo;
Cui formam pulcherrimam, charites tribuere decoram
Quam Deus cunctis artibus erudiit.
[19] He must have been just six feet high.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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