Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/134

124 The gallery which encloses the fore-court is also small, and the channelled Doric dwarfs have a mean appearance by the side of the smooth Ionic giants. But we pardon this discrepancy on account of the fine institution which has been founded among the columns. Here is kept a number of antiquities, which have mostly been dug up in and about Verona. Something, they say, has even been found in the Amphitheatre. There are Etruscan, Greek, and Roman specimens, down to the latest times, and some even of more modern date. The bas-reliefs are inserted in the walls, and provided with the numbers which Maffei gave them when he described them in his work, "Verona Illustrata." There are altars, fragments of columns, and other relics of the sort; an admirable tripod of white marble, upon which there are genii occupied with the attributes of the gods. Raphael has imitated and improved this kind of thing in the scrolls of the Farnesina.

The wind which blows from the graves of the ancients comes fragrantly over hills of roses. The tombs give touching evidences of a genuine feeling, and always bring life back to us. Here is a man by the side of his wife, who peeps out of a niche, as if it were a window. Here are father and mother, with their son between them, eyeing each other as naturally as possible. Here a couple are grasping each other's hands. Here a father, resting on his couch, seems to be amused by his family. The immediate proximity of these stones was to me highly touching. They belong to a later school of art, but are simple, natural, and generally pleasing. Here a man in armour is on his knees, in expectation of a joyful resurrection. With more or less of talent, the artist has produced the mere simple presence of the persons, and has thus given a permanent continuation to their existence. They do not fold their hands, they do not look toward heaven; but they are here below just what they were and just