Breakfasted with Bunsen at the Capitol; Lovaine, Morier, Haddington, Hamilton, Kestner, Falck, G. Fitzclarence, Sir W. Gell, a little Italian servant, and Mr. Hall, Bunsen's brother-in-law. Haddington told the story of Canning's sending to Bagot a despatch in cipher, containing these lines:-- In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch Is giving too little and asking too much; With equal protection the French are content: So we'll lay on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent. _Chorus of Officers._--We'll lay, &c. _Chorus of Douaniers._--Nous frapperons Falck avec Twenty per cent. He received the despatch at dinner, and sent it to be deciphered. After some hours they brought him word they did not know what to make of it, for it seemed to be in verse, when he at once saw there was a joke. Went to see the excavations in the Via Triumphalis and the Temple of Concord, and heard Bunsen's theory of the Forum. Bunsen gives different names to the remains of the temples in the Forum from those which have been usually given, and by which they are known, and on very plausible grounds, drawn chiefly from accounts in different Roman authors and peculiarities in the buildings themselves. The Temple of Fortune he thinks was the Basilica of Augustus, and the Temple of Jupiter Tonans the Temple of Saturn; but all his reasons I need not put down if I could remember them, for are they not written in the voluminous work he is going to publish in four or six volumes octavo? Bunsen's history is rather curious. He was a poor German student destined for the Church; came to Rome, and got employed by Niebuhr, from whom he first got a taste for antiquities. The King of Prussia came to Rome and saw him; he was struck with his knowledge and the character he heard of him, and consulted him about a new Liturgy he wished to introduce into Prussia. Bunsen gave him so much satisfaction in that matter, as well as in some others which were entrusted to him, that on Niebuhr's return to Prussia he was appointed to succeed him, and has been at Rome ever since--thirteen years. Some say he is not a profound man, and that his speculations about the ruins are all wrong. He talks English, French, and Italian like his own language. [Page Head: SIGHTS OF ROME]