Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/242

228 The artist, my informant, was Heinrich Meyer, a Swiss, who for some years had been studying at Rome with a friend of the name of Rolla, and who had taken excellent drawings in Spain of antique busts, and was well read in the history of art.

I have now been here seven days, and have, by degrees, formed in my mind a general idea of the city. We go diligently backward and forward. While I am thus making myself acquainted with the plan of old and new Rome, viewing the ruins and the buildings, visiting this and that villa, the grandest and most remarkable objects are slowly and leisurely contemplated. I do but keep my eyes open, and see, and then go and come again; for it is only in Rome one can duly prepare himself for Rome.

It must, however, be confessed that it is a sad and melancholy business to prick and track out ancient Rome in new Rome: however, it must be done, and we may hope at least for an incalculable gratification. We meet with traces both of majesty and of ruin, which alike surpass all conception. What the barbarians spared, the builders of new Rome made havoc of.

When one thus beholds an object two thousand years old and more, but so manifoldly and thoroughly altered by the changes of time, but sees, nevertheless, the same soil, the same mountains, and often, indeed, the same walls and columns, one becomes, as it were, a contemporary of the great counsels of fortune; and thus it becomes difficult for the observer to trace from the beginning Rome following Rome, and not only new Rome succeeding the old, but also the several epochs of both old and new in succession. I endeavour, first of all, to grope my way alone through the obscurer parts; for this is the only plan by which one can hope fully and completely to turn to use the excellent