George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

‘ [179] to be improved here. Antiquity and he contradict one another’; and since I have been here I have seen and felt a thousand proofs of the justness of the remark. . . . . Simond himself, though I think him in general a cool, impartial man, stands up a mere Frenchman as soon as you get him upon the subject of antiquities, of which he seems to have about as just notions as divines have of the world before the flood. Mazois, who is preparing a work on Pompeii, which will at least have splendor and accuracy to recommend it, if not taste or learning, is, I think, the best of his nation here, though certainly Simond is the most cultivated and interesting.

Of the Russians there are a good many that circulate in general society, and talk French and English fluently; but, really, wherever I have seen this people, I have found them so abdicating their nationality and taking the hue of the society they are among, that I have lost much of my respect for them. Two, however, whom I have known here are men to be respected anywhere. . . . . One of them is Admiral Tchitchagof, who made so much noise in the war of 1812, and who is simple and respectable, though I should not have imagined that he was distinguished for his talents. The other is Italinski, the Russian Ambassador, whom I know more, because I am in the habit of going frequently to see him. He is the author of the Explanations to the three volumes of Tischbein's Etruscan Vases, and a man of Eastern learning, particularly in the modern languages of Asia. . . . . He is now infirm, though not very old; gentle and kind in his manners; living rather retired for a public minister, though with a kind of hospitality that in his hands takes the form of Eastern luxury. At his dinners, when I was there, there was either fashion or splendor, which he did not seem much to enjoy, . . . . .or else a simply learned meeting of a few friends he knew well, . . . .such as Fea, the head of the Roman antiquaries, Ackerbladt the Swede, Wiegel from Dresden, etc., which was more pleasant than any society of the sort in Rome.

The Portuguese had, the greater part of the winter, a splendid representation here . . . . . Count Funchal . . . . is now, at the age of sixty, a dignified representative of his government. As he is ambassador, and therefore the very sovereign present, besides being rich, there is a state and magnificence in his house such as I have not seen anywhere else. . . . . Where it is not necessary for him to play the king, he is simple and unaffected; and his literary dinners, if not so pleasant as those of the Russian minister, because he has not the personal means to make them so, are still much sought after,. . . . and it is thought