In the room at the entrance of the hall are two cabinets, each a wonder

in its way,--one being adorned with precious stones; the other with ivory

carvings of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, and of the frescos of

Raphael's Loggie. The world has ceased to be so magnificent as it once

was. Men make no such marvels nowadays. The only defect that I remember

in this hall was in the marble steps that ascend to the elevated

apartment at the end of it; a large piece had been broken out of one of

them, leaving a rough irregular gap in the polished marble stair. It is

not easy to conceive what violence can have done this, without also doing

mischief to all the other splendor around it.

April 16th.--We went this morning to the Academy of St. Luke (the Fine

Arts Academy at Rome) in the Via Bonella, close by the Forum. We rang

the bell at the house door; and after a few moments it was unlocked or

unbolted by some unseen agency from above, no one making his appearance

to admit us. We ascended two or three flights of stairs, and entered a

hall, where was a young man, the custode, and two or three artists

engaged in copying some of the pictures. The collection not being vastly

large, and the pictures being in more presentable condition than usual, I

enjoyed them more than I generally do; particularly a Virgin and Child by

Vandyke, where two angels are singing and playing, one on a lute and the

other on a violin, to remind the holy infant of the strains he used to

hear in heaven. It is one of the few pictures that there is really any

pleasure in looking at. There were several paintings by Titian, mostly

of a voluptuous character, but not very charming; also two or more by

Guido, one of which, representing Fortune, is celebrated. They did not

impress me much, nor do I find myself strongly drawn towards Guido,

though there is no other painter who seems to achieve things so magically

and inscrutably as he sometimes does. Perhaps it requires a finer taste

than mine to appreciate him; and yet I do appreciate him so far as to see

that his Michael, for instance, is perfectly beautiful. . . . . In the

gallery, there are whole rows of portraits of members of the Academy of

St. Luke, most of whom, judging by their physiognomies, were very

commonplace people; a fact which makes itself visible in a portrait,

however much the painter may try to flatter his sitter. Several of the

pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists, now exhibited in

the gallery, were formerly kept in a secret cabinet in the Capitol, being

considered of a too voluptuous character for the public eye. I did not

think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a hundred other

pictures that are shown and looked at without scruple;--Calypso and her

nymphs, a knot of nude women by Titian, is perhaps as objectionable as

any. But even Titian's flesh-tints cannot keep, and have not kept their

warmth through all these centuries. The illusion and lifelikeness

effervesces and exhales out of a picture as it grows old; and we go on

talking of a charm that has forever vanished.

From St. Luke's we went to San Pietro in Vincoli, occupying a fine

position on or near the summit of the Esquiline mount. A little abortion

of a man (and, by the by, there are more diminutive and ill-shapen men

and women in Rome than I ever saw elsewhere, a phenomenon to be accounted

for, perhaps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant in

swaddling-clothes), this two-foot abortion hastened before us, as we drew

nigh, to summon the sacristan to open the church door. It was a needless

service, for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi. San Pietro is a

simple and noble church, consisting of a nave divided from the side

aisles by rows of columns, that once adorned some ancient temple; and its

wide, unencumbered interior affords better breathing-space than most

churches in Rome. The statue of Moses occupies a niche in one of the

side aisles on the right, not far from the high altar. I found it grand

and sublime, with a beard flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic

figure, but not so benign as it were desirable that such strength should

be. The horns, about which so much has been said, are not a very

prominent feature of the statue, being merely two diminutive tips rising

straight up over his forehead, neither adding to the grandeur of the

head, nor detracting sensibly from it. The whole force of this statue is

not to be felt in one brief visit, but I agree with an English gentleman,

who, with a large party, entered the church while we were there, in

thinking that Moses has "very fine features,"--a compliment for which the

colossal Hebrew ought to have made the Englishman a bow.

Besides the Moses, the church contains some attractions of a pictorial

kind, which are reposited in the sacristy, into which we passed through a

side door. The most remarkable of these pictures is a face and bust of

Hope, by Guido, with beautiful eyes lifted upwards; it has a grace which

artists are continually trying to get into their innumerable copies, but

always without success; for, indeed, though nothing is more true than the

existence of this charm in the picture, yet if you try to analyze it, or

even look too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with more

trusting simplicity.

Leaving the church, we wandered to the Coliseum, and to the public

grounds contiguous to them, where a score and more of French drummers

were beating each man his drum, without reference to any rub-a-dub but

his own. This seems to be a daily or periodical practice and point of

duty with them. After resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we

came slowly home, through the Basilica of Constantine, and along the

shady sides of the streets and piazzas, sometimes, perforce, striking

boldly through the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as to

shrivel us up bodily. It has been a most beautiful and perfect day as

regards weather, clear and bright, very warm in the sunshine, yet

freshened throughout by a quiet stir in the air. Still there is

something in this air malevolent, or, at least, not friendly. The Romans

lie down and fall asleep in it, in any vacant part of the streets, and

wherever they can find any spot sufficiently clean, and among the ruins

of temples. I would not sleep in the open air for whatever my life may

be worth.

On our way home, sitting in one of the narrow streets, we saw an old

woman spinning with a distaff; a far more ancient implement than the

spinning-wheel, which the housewives of other nations have long since

laid aside.

April 18th.--Yesterday, at noon, the whole family of us set out on a

visit to the Villa Borghese and its grounds, the entrance to which is

just outside of the Porta del Popolo. After getting within the grounds,

however, there is a long walk before reaching the casino, and we found

the sun rather uncomfortably hot, and the road dusty and white in the

sunshine; nevertheless, a footpath ran alongside of it most of the way

through the grass and among the young trees. It seems to me that the

trees do not put forth their leaves with nearly the same magical rapidity

in this southern land at the approach of summer, as they do in more

northerly countries. In these latter, having a much shorter time to

develop themselves, they feel the necessity of making the most of it.

But the grass, in the lawns and enclosures along which we passed, looked

already fit to be mowed, and it was interspersed with many flowers.

Saturday being, I believe, the only day of the week on which visitors are

admitted to the casino, there were many parties in carriages, artists on

foot, gentlemen on horseback, and miscellaneous people, to whom the door

was opened by a custode on ringing a bell. The whole of the basement

floor of the casino, comprising a suite of beautiful rooms, is filled

with statuary. The entrance hall is a very splendid apartment, brightly

frescoed, and paved with ancient mosaics, representing the combats with

beasts and gladiators in the Coliseum, curious, though very rudely and

awkwardly designed, apparently after the arts had begun to decline. Many

of the specimens of sculpture displayed in these rooms are fine, but none

of them, I think, possess the highest merit. An Apollo is beautiful; a

group of a fighting Amazon, and her enemies trampled under her horse's

feet, is very impressive; a Faun, copied from that of Praxiteles, and

another, who seems to be dancing, were exceedingly pleasant to look at.

I like these strange, sweet, playful, rustic creatures, . . . . linked so

prettily, without monstrosity, to the lower tribes. . . . . Their

character has never, that I know of, been wrought out in literature; and

something quite good, funny, and philosophical, as well as poetic, might

very likely be educed from them. . . . . The faun is a natural and

delightful link betwixt human and brute life, with something of a divine

character intermingled.

The gallery, as it is called, on the basement floor of the casino, is

sixty feet in length, by perhaps a third as much in breadth, and is

(after all I have seen at the Colonna Palace and elsewhere) a more

magnificent hall than I imagined to be in existence. It is floored with

rich marble in beautifully arranged compartments, and the walls are

almost entirely eased with marble of various sorts, the prevailing kind

being giallo antico, intermixed with verd antique, and I know not what

else; but the splendor of the giallo antico gives the character to the

room, and the large and deep niches along the walls appear to be lined

with the same material. Without coming to Italy, one can have no idea of

what beauty and magnificence are produced by these fittings up of

polished marble. Marble to an American means nothing but white

limestone.

This hall, moreover, is adorned with pillars of Oriental alabaster, and

wherever is a space vacant of precious and richly colored marble it is

frescoed with arabesque ornaments; and over the whole is a coved and

vaulted ceiling, glowing with picture. There never can be anything

richer than the whole effect. As to the sculpture here it was not very

fine, so far as I can remember, consisting chiefly of busts of the

emperors in porphyry; but they served a good purpose in the upholstery

way. There were also magnificent tables, each composed of one great slab

of porphyry; and also vases of nero antico, and other rarest substance.

It remains to be mentioned that, on this almost summer day, I was quite

chilled in passing through these glorious halls; no fireplace anywhere;

no possibility of comfort; and in the hot season, when their coolness

might be agreeable, it would be death to inhabit them.

Ascending a long winding staircase, we arrived at another suite of rooms,

containing a good many not very remarkable pictures, and a few more

pieces of statuary. Among the latter, is Canova's statue of Pauline, the

sister of Bonaparte, who is represented with but little drapery, and in

the character of Venus holding the apple in her hand. It is admirably

done, and, I have no doubt, a perfect likeness; very beautiful too; but

it is wonderful to see how the artificial elegance of the woman of this

world makes itself perceptible in spite of whatever simplicity she could

find in almost utter nakedness. The statue does not afford pleasure in

the contemplation.

In one of these upper rooms are some works of Bernini; two of them,

Aeneas and Anchises, and David on the point of slinging a stone at

Goliath, have great merit, and do not tear and rend themselves quite out

of the laws and limits of marble, like his later sculpture. Here is also

his Apollo overtaking Daphne, whose feet take root, whose, finger-tips

sprout into twigs, and whose tender body roughens round about with bark,

as he embraces her. It did not seem very wonderful to me; not so good as

Hillard's description of it made me expect; and one does not enjoy these

freaks in marble.

We were glad to emerge from the casino into the warm sunshine; and, for

my part, I made the best of my way to a large fountain, surrounded by a

circular stone seat of wide sweep, and sat down in a sunny segment of the

circle. Around grew a solemn company of old trees,--ilexes, I believe,--

with huge, contorted trunks and evergreen branches, . . . . deep groves,

sunny openings, the airy gush of fountains, marble statues, dimly visible

in recesses of foliage, great urns and vases, terminal figures, temples,

--all these works of art looking as if they had stood there long enough

to feel at home, and to be on friendly and familiar terms with the grass

and trees. It is a most beautiful place, . . . . and the Malaria is its

true master and inhabitant!

April 22d.--We have been recently to the studio of Mr. Brown [now dead],

the American landscape-painter, and were altogether surprised and

delighted with his pictures. He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite

unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy; he talks

ungrammatically, and in Yankee idioms; walks with a strange, awkward gait

and stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque; but wins one's

confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an

artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment.

His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most

beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really

magical,-- the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a light

even beyond the limits of the picture,--and yet his sunrises and sunsets,

and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although their

excellence required somewhat longer study, to be fully appreciated. I

seemed to receive more pleasure front Mr. Brown's pictures than from any

of the landscapes by the old masters; and the fact serves to strengthen

me in the belief that the most delicate if not the highest charm of a

picture is evanescent, and that we continue to admire pictures

prescriptively and by tradition, after the qualities that first won

them their fame have vanished. I suppose Claude was a greater

landscape-painter than Brown; but for my own pleasure I would prefer one

of the latter artist's pictures,--those of the former being quite changed

from what he intended them to be by the effect of time on his pigments.

Mr. Brown showed us some drawings from nature, done with incredible care

and minuteness of detail, as studies for his paintings. We complimented

him on his patience; but he said, "O, it's not patience,--it's love!" In

fact, it was a patient and most successful wooing of a beloved object,

which at last rewarded him by yielding itself wholly.

We have likewise been to Mr. B------'s [now dead] studio, where we saw

several pretty statues and busts, and among them an Eve, with her wreath

of fig-leaves lying across her poor nudity; comely in some points, but

with a frightful volume of thighs and calves. I do not altogether see

the necessity of ever sculpturing another nakedness. Man is no longer a

naked animal; his clothes are as natural to him as his skin, and

sculptors have no more right to undress him than to flay him.

Also, we have seen again William Story's Cleopatra,--a work of genuine

thought and energy, representing a terribly dangerous woman; quiet enough

for the moment, but very likely to spring upon you like a tigress. It is

delightful to escape to his creations from this universal prettiness,

which seems to be the highest conception of the crowd of modern

sculptors, and which they almost invariably attain.

Miss Bremer called on us the other day. We find her very little changed

from what she was when she came to take tea and spend an evening at our

little red cottage, among the Berkshire hills, and went away so

dissatisfied with my conversational performances, and so laudatory of my

brow and eyes, while so severely criticising my poor mouth and chin. She

is the funniest little old fairy in person whom one can imagine, with a

huge nose, to which all the rest of her is but an insufficient appendage;

but you feel at once that she is most gentle, kind, womanly, sympathetic,

and true. She talks English fluently, in a low quiet voice, but with

such an accent that it is impossible to understand her without the

closest attention. This was the real cause of the failure of our

Berkshire interview; for I could not guess, half the time, what she was

saying, and, of course, had to take an uncertain aim with my responses.

A more intrepid talker than myself would have shouted his ideas across

the gulf; but, for me, there must first be a close and unembarrassed

contiguity with my companion, or I cannot say one real word. I doubt

whether I have ever really talked with half a dozen persons in my life,

either men or women.

To-day my wife and I have been at the picture and sculpture galleries of

the Capitol. I rather enjoyed looking at several of the pictures, though

at this moment I particularly remember only a very beautiful face of a

man, one of two heads on the same canvas by Vandyke. Yes; I did look

with new admiration at Paul Veronese's "Rape of Europa." It must have

been, in its day, the most brilliant and rejoicing picture, the most

voluptuous, the most exuberant, that ever put the sunshine to shame. The

bull has all Jupiter in him, so tender and gentle, yet so passionate,

that you feel it indecorous to look at him; and Europa, under her thick

rich stuffs and embroideries, is all a woman. What a pity that such a

picture should fade, and perplex the beholder with such splendor shining

through such forlornness!

We afterwards went into the sculpture-gallery, where I looked at the Faun

of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar charm in it; a sylvan

beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. The lengthened, but

not preposterous ears, and the little tail, which we infer, have an

exquisite effect, and make the spectator smile in his very heart. This

race of fauns was the most delightful of all that antiquity imagined. It

seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might

be contrived on the idea of their species having become intermingled with

the human race; a family with the faun blood in them, having prolonged

itself from the classic era till our own days. The tail might have

disappeared, by dint of constant intermarriages with ordinary mortals;

but the pretty hairy ears should occasionally reappear in members of the

family; and the moral instincts and intellectual characteristics of the

faun might be most picturesquely brought out, without detriment to the

human interest of the story. Fancy this combination in the person of a

young lady!

I have spoken of Mr. Gibson's colored statues. It seems (at least Mr.

Nichols tells me) that he stains them with tobacco juice. . . . . Were he

to send a Cupid to America, he need not trouble himself to stain it

beforehand.

April 25th.--Night before last, my wife and I took a moonlight ramble

through Rome, it being a very beautiful night, warm enough for comfort,

and with no perceptible dew or dampness. We set out at about nine

o'clock, and, our general direction being towards the Coliseum, we soon

came to the Fountain of Trevi, full on the front of which the moonlight

fell, making Bernini's sculptures look stately and beautiful, though the

semicircular gush and fall of the cascade, and the many jets of the

water, pouring and bubbling into the great marble basin, are of far more

account than Neptune and his steeds, and the rest of the figures. . . . .

We ascended the Capitoline Hill, and I felt a satisfaction in placing my

hand on those immense blocks of stone, the remains of the ancient

Capitol, which form the foundation of the present edifice, and will make

a sure basis for as many edifices as posterity may choose to rear upon

it, till the end of the world. It is wonderful, the solidity with which

those old Romans built; one would suppose they contemplated the whole

course of Time as the only limit of their individual life. This is not

so strange in the days of the Republic, when, probably, they believed in

the permanence of their institutions; but they still seemed to build for

eternity, in the reigns of the emperors, when neither rulers nor people

had any faith or moral substance, or laid any earnest grasp on life.

Reaching the top of the Capitoline Hill, we ascended the steps of the

portal of the Palace of the Senator, and looked down into the piazza,

with the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the centre of it. The

architecture that surrounds the piazza is very ineffective; and so, in my

opinion, are all the other architectural works of Michael Angelo,

including St. Peter's itself, of which he has made as little as could

possibly be made of such a vast pile of material. He balances everything

in such a way that it seems but half of itself.

We soon descended into the piazza, and walked round and round the statue

of Marcus Aurelius, contemplating it from every point and admiring it in

all. . . . . On these beautiful moonlight nights, Rome appears to keep

awake and stirring, though in a quiet and decorous way. It is, in fact,

the pleasantest time for promenades, and we both felt less wearied than

by any promenade in the daytime, of similar extent, since our residence

in Rome. In future, I mean to walk often after nightfall.

Yesterday, we set out betimes, and ascended the dome of St. Peter's. The

best view of the interior of the church, I think, is from the first

gallery beneath the dome. The whole inside of the dome is set with

mosaic-work, the separate pieces being, so far as I could see, about half

an inch square. Emerging on the roof, we had a fine view of all the

surrounding Rome, including the Mediterranean Sea in the remote distance.

Above us still rose the whole mountain of the great dome, and it made an

impression on me of greater height and size than I had yet been able to

receive. The copper ball at the summit looked hardly bigger than a man

could lift; and yet, a little while afterwards, U----, J-----, and I

stood all together in that ball, which could have contained a dozen more

along with us. The esplanade of the roof is, of course, very extensive;

and along the front of it are ranged the statues which we see from below,

and which, on nearer examination, prove to be roughly hewn giants. There

is a small house on the roof, where, probably, the custodes of this part

of the edifice reside; and there is a fountain gushing abundantly into a

stone trough, that looked like an old sarcophagus. It is strange where

the water comes from at such a height. The children tasted it, and

pronounced it very warm and disagreeable. After taking in the prospect

on all sides we rang a bell, which summoned a man, who directed us

towards a door in the side of the dome, where a custode was waiting to

admit us. Hitherto the ascent had been easy, along a slope without

stairs, up which, I believe, people sometimes ride on donkeys. The rest

of the way we mounted steep and narrow staircases, winding round within

the wall, or between the two walls of the dome, and growing narrower and

steeper, till, finally, there is but a perpendicular iron ladder, by

means of which to climb into the copper ball. Except through small

windows and peep-holes, there is no external prospect of a higher point

than the roof of the church. Just beneath the ball there is a circular

room capable of containing a large company, and a door which ought to

give access to a gallery on the outside; but the custode informed us that

this door is never opened. As I have said, U----, J-----, and I

clambered into the copper ball, which we found as hot as an oven; and,

after putting our hands on its top, and on the summit of St. Peter's,

were glad to clamber down again. I have made some mistake, after all, in

my narration. There certainly is a circular balcony at the top of the

dome, for I remember walking round it, and looking, not only across the

country, but downwards along the ribs of the dome; to which are attached

the iron contrivances for illuminating it on Easter Sunday. . . . .

Before leaving the church we went to look at the mosaic copy of the

"Transfiguration," because we were going to see the original in the

Vatican, and wished to compare the two. Going round to the entrance of

the Vatican, we went first to the manufactory of mosaics, to which we had

a ticket of admission. We found it a long series of rooms, in which the

mosaic artists were at work, chiefly in making some medallions of the

heads of saints for the new church of St. Paul's. It was rather coarse

work, and it seemed to me that the mosaic copy was somewhat stiffer and

more wooden than the original, the bits of stone not flowing into color

quite so freely as paint from a brush. There was no large picture now in

process of being copied; but two or three artists were employed on small

and delicate subjects. One had a Holy Family of Raphael in hand; and the

Sibyls of Guercino and Domenichino were hanging on the wall, apparently

ready to be put into mosaic. Wherever great skill and delicacy, on the

artists' part were necessary, they seemed quite adequate to the occasion;

but, after all, a mosaic of any celebrated picture is but a copy of a

copy. The substance employed is a stone-paste, of innumerable different

views, and in bits of various sizes, quantities of which were seen in

cases along the whole series of rooms.

We next ascended an amazing height of staircases, and walked along I know

not what extent of passages, . . . . till we reached the picture-gallery

of the Vatican, into which I had never been before. There are but three

rooms, all lined with red velvet, on which hung about fifty pictures,

each one of them, no doubt, worthy to be considered a masterpiece. In

the first room were three Murillos, all so beautiful that I could have

spent the day happily in looking at either of them; for, methinks, of all

painters he is the tenderest and truest. I could not enjoy these

pictures now, however, because in the next room, and visible through the

open door, hung the "Transfiguration." Approaching it, I felt that the

picture was worthy of its fame, and was far better than I could at once

appreciate; admirably preserved, too, though I fully believe it must have

possessed a charm when it left Raphael's hand that has now vanished

forever. As church furniture and an external adornment, the mosaic copy

is preferable to the original, but no copy could ever reproduce all the

life and expression which we see here. Opposite to it hangs the

"Communion of St. Jerome," the aged, dying saint, half torpid with death

already, partaking of the sacrament, and a sunny garland of cherubs in

the upper part of the picture, looking down upon him, and quite

comforting the spectator with the idea that the old man needs only to be

quite dead in order to flit away with them. As for the other pictures I

did but glance at, and have forgotten them.

The "Transfiguration" is finished with great minuteness and detail, the

weeds and blades of grass in the foreground being as distinct as if they

were growing in a natural soil. A partly decayed stick of wood with the

bark is likewise given in close imitation of nature. The reflection of a

foot of one of the apostles is seen in a pool of water at the verge of

the picture. One or two heads and arms seem almost to project from the

canvas. There is great lifelikeness and reality, as well as higher

qualities. The face of Jesus, being so high aloft and so small in the

distance, I could not well see; but I am impressed with the idea that it

looks too much like human flesh and blood to be in keeping with the

celestial aspect of the figure, or with the probabilities of the scene,

when the divinity and immortality of the Saviour beamed from within him

through the earthly features that ordinarily shaded him. As regards the

composition of the picture, I am not convinced of the propriety of its

being in two so distinctly separate parts,--the upper portion not

thinking of the lower, and the lower portion not being aware of the

higher. It symbolizes, however, the spiritual short-sightedness of

mankind that, amid the trouble and grief of the lower picture, not a

single individual, either of those who seek help or those who would

willingly afford it, lifts his eyes to that region, one glimpse of which

would set everything right. One or two of the disciples point upward,

but without really knowing what abundance of help is to be had there.

April 27th.--To-day we have all been with Mr. Akers to some studios of

painters; first to that of Mr. Wilde, an artist originally from Boston.

His pictures are principally of scenes from Venice, and are miracles of

color, being as bright as if the light were transmitted through rubies

and sapphires. And yet, after contemplating them awhile, we became

convinced that the painter had not gone in the least beyond nature, but,

on the contrary, had fallen short of brilliancies which no palette, or

skill, or boldness in using color, could attain. I do not quite know

whether it is best to attempt these things. They may be found in nature,

no doubt, but always so tempered by what surrounds them, so put out of

sight even while they seem full before our eyes, that we question the

accuracy of a faithful reproduction of them on canvas. There was a

picture of sunset, the whole sky of which would have outshone any gilded

frame that could have been put around it. There was a most gorgeous

sketch of a handful of weeds and leaves, such as may be seen strewing

acres of forest-ground in an American autumn. I doubt whether any other

man has ever ventured to paint a picture like either of these two, the

Italian sunset or the American autumnal foliage. Mr. Wilde, who is still

young, talked with genuine feeling and enthusiasm of his art, and is

certainly a man of genius.

We next went to the studio of an elderly Swiss artist, named Mueller, I

believe, where we looked at a great many water-color and crayon drawings

of scenes in Italy, Greece, and Switzerland. The artist was a quiet,

respectable, somewhat heavy-looking old gentleman, from whose aspect one

would expect a plodding pertinacity of character rather than quickness of

sensibility. He must have united both these qualities, however, to

produce such pictures as these, such faithful transcripts of whatever

Nature has most beautiful to show, and which she shows only to those who

love her deeply and patiently. They are wonderful pictures, compressing

plains, seas, and mountains, with miles and miles of distance, into the

space of a foot or two, without crowding anything or leaving out a

feature, and diffusing the free, blue atmosphere throughout. The works

of the English watercolor artists which I saw at the Manchester

Exhibition seemed to me nowise equal to these. Now, here are three

artists, Mr. Brown, Mr. Wilde, and Mr. Mueller, who have smitten me with

vast admiration within these few days past, while I am continually

turning away disappointed from the landscapes of the most famous among

the old masters, unable to find any charm or illusion in them. Yet I

suppose Claude, Poussin, and Salvator Rosa must have won their renown by

real achievements. But the glory of a picture fades like that of a

flower.

Contiguous to Mr. Mueller's studio was that of a young German artist, not

long resident in Rome, and Mr. Akers proposed that we should go in there,

as a matter of kindness to the young man, who is scarcely known at all,

and seldom has a visitor to look at his pictures. His studio comprised

his whole establishment; for there was his little bed, with its white

drapery, in a corner of the small room, and his dressing-table, with its

brushes and combs, while the easel and the few sketches of Italian scenes

and figures occupied the foreground. I did not like his pictures very

well, but would gladly have bought them all if I could have afforded it,

the artist looked so cheerful, patient, and quiet, doubtless amidst huge

discouragement. He is probably stubborn of purpose, and is the sort of

man who will improve with every year of his life. We could not speak his

language, and were therefore spared the difficulty of paying him any

compliments; but Miss Shepard said a few kind words to him in German.

and seemed quite to win his heart, insomuch that he followed her with

bows and smiles a long way down the staircase. It is a terrible

business, this looking at pictures, whether good or bad, in the presence

of the artists who paint them; it is as great a bore as to hear a poet

read his own verses. It takes away all my pleasure in seeing the

pictures, and even remakes me question the genuineness of the impressions

which I receive from them.

After this latter visit Mr. Akers conducted us to the shop of the

jeweller Castellani, who is a great reproducer of ornaments in the old

Roman and Etruscan fashion. These antique styles are very fashionable

just now, and some of the specimens he showed us were certainly very

beautiful, though I doubt whether their quaintness and old-time

curiousness, as patterns of gewgaws dug out of immemorial tombs, be not

their greatest charm. We saw the toilet-case of an Etruscan lady,--that

is to say, a modern imitation of it,--with her rings for summer and

winter, and for every day of the week, and for thumb and fingers; her

ivory comb; her bracelets; and more knick-knacks than I can half

remember. Splendid things of our own time were likewise shown us; a

necklace of diamonds worth eighteen thousand scudi, together with

emeralds and opals and great pearls. Finally we came away, and my wife

and Miss Shepard were taken up by the Misses Weston, who drove with them

to visit the Villa Albani. During their drive my wife happened to raise

her arm, and Miss Shepard espied a little Greek cross of gold which had

attached itself to the lace of her sleeve. . . . . Pray heaven the

jeweller may not discover his loss before we have time to restore the

spoil! He is apparently so free and careless in displaying his precious

wares,--putting inestimable genes and brooches great and small into the

hands of strangers like ourselves, and leaving scores of them strewn on

the top of his counter,--that it would seem easy enough to take a diamond

or two; but I suspect there must needs be a sharp eye somewhere. Before

we left the shop he requested me to honor him with my autograph in a

large book that was full of the names of his visitors. This is probably

a measure of precaution.

April 30th.--I went yesterday to the sculpture-gallery of the Capitol,

and looked pretty thoroughly through the busts of the illustrious men,

and less particularly at those of the emperors and their relatives. I

likewise took particular note of the Faun of Praxiteles, because the idea

keeps recurring to me of writing a little romance about it, and for that

reason I shall endeavor to set down a somewhat minutely itemized detail

of the statue and its surroundings. . . . .

We have had beautiful weather for two or three days, very warm in the

sun, yet always freshened by the gentle life of a breeze, and quite cool

enough the moment you pass within the limit of the shade. . . . .

In the morning there are few people there (on the Pincian) except the

gardeners, lazily trimming the borders, or filling their watering-pots

out of the marble-brimmed basin of the fountain; French soldiers, in

their long mixed-blue surtouts, and wide scarlet pantaloons, chatting

with here and there a nursery-maid and playing with the child in her

care; and perhaps a few smokers, . . . . choosing each a marble seat or

wooden bench in sunshine or shade as best suits him. In the afternoon,

especially within an hour or two of sunset, the gardens are much more

populous, and the seats, except when the sun falls full upon them, are

hard to come by. Ladies arrive in carriages, splendidly dressed;

children are abundant, much impeded in their frolics, and rendered stiff

and stately by the finery which they wear; English gentlemen and

Americans with their wives and families; the flower of the Roman

population, too, both male and female, mostly dressed with great nicety;

but a large intermixture of artists, shabbily picturesque; and other

persons, not of the first stamp. A French band, comprising a great many

brass instruments, by and by begins to play; and what with music,

sunshine, a delightful atmosphere, flowers, grass, well-kept pathways,

bordered with box-hedges, pines, cypresses, horse-chestnuts, flowering

shrubs, and all manner of cultivated beauty, the scene is a very lively

and agreeable one. The fine equipages that drive round and round through

the carriage-paths are another noticeable item. The Roman aristocracy

are magnificent in their aspect, driving abroad with beautiful horses,

and footmen in rich liveries, sometimes as many as three behind and one

sitting by the coachman.

May 1st.--This morning, I wandered for the thousandth time through some

of the narrow intricacies of Rome, stepping here and there into a church.

I do not know the name of the first one, nor had it anything that in Rome

could be called remarkable, though, till I came here, I was not aware

that any such churches existed,--a marble pavement in variegated

compartments, a series of shrines and chapels round the whole floor, each

with its own adornment of sculpture and pictures, its own altar with tall

wax tapers before it, some of which were burning; a great picture over

the high altar, the whole interior of the church ranged round with

pillars and pilasters, and lined, every inch of it, with rich yellow

marble. Finally, a frescoed ceiling over the nave and transepts, and a

dome rising high above the central part, and filled with frescos brought

to such perspective illusion, that the edges seem to project into the

air. Two or three persons are kneeling at separate shrines; there are

several wooden confessionals placed against the walls, at one of which

kneels a lady, confessing to a priest who sits within; the tapers are

lighted at the high altar and at one of the shrines; an attendant is

scrubbing the marble pavement with a broom and water, a process, I should

think, seldom practised in Roman churches. By and by the lady finishes

her confession, kisses the priest's hand, and sits down in one of the

chairs which are placed about the floor, while the priest, in a black

robe, with a short, white, loose jacket over his shoulders, disappears by

a side door out of the church. I, likewise, finding nothing attractive

in the pictures, take my departure. Protestantism needs a new apostle to

convert it into something positive. . . . .

I now found my way to the Piazza Navona. It is to me the most

interesting piazza in Rome; a large oblong space, surrounded with tall,

shabby houses, among which there are none that seem to be palaces. The

sun falls broadly over the area of the piazza, and shows the fountains in

it;--one a large basin with great sea-monsters, probably of Bernini's

inventions, squirting very small streams of water into it; another of the

fountains I do not at all remember; but the central one is an immense

basin, over which is reared an old Egyptian obelisk, elevated on a rock,

which is cleft into four arches. Monstrous devices in marble, I know not

of what purport, are clambering about the cloven rock or burrowing

beneath it; one and all of them are superfluous and impertinent, the only

essential thing being the abundant supply of water in the fountain. This

whole Piazza Navona is usually the scene of more business than seems to

be transacted anywhere else in Rome; in some parts of it rusty iron is

offered for sale, locks and keys, old tools, and all such rubbish; in

other parts vegetables, comprising, at this season, green peas, onions,

cauliflowers, radishes, artichokes, and others with which I have never

made acquaintance; also, stalls or wheelbarrows containing apples,

chestnuts (the meats dried and taken out of the shells), green almonds in

their husks, and squash-seeds,--salted and dried in an oven,--apparently

a favorite delicacy of the Romans. There are also lemons and oranges;

stalls of fish, mostly about the size of smelts, taken from the Tiber;

cigars of various qualities, the best at a baioccho and a half apiece;

bread in loaves or in small rings, a great many of which are strung

together on a long stick, and thus carried round for sale. Women and men

sit with these things for sale, or carry them about in trays or on boards

on their heads, crying them with shrill and hard voices. There is a

shabby crowd and much babble; very little picturesqueness of costume or

figure, however, the chief exceptions being, here and there, an old

white-bearded beggar. A few of the men have the peasant costume,--a

short jacket and breeches of light blue cloth and white stockings,--the

ugliest dress I ever saw. The women go bareheaded, and seem fond of

scarlet and other bright colors, but are homely and clumsy in form. The

piazza is dingy in its general aspect, and very dirty, being strewn with

straw, vegetable-tops, and the rubbish of a week's marketing; but there

is more life in it than one sees elsewhere in Rome.

On one side of the piazza is the Church of St. Agnes, traditionally said

to stand on the site of the house where that holy maiden was exposed to

infamy by the Roman soldiers, and where her modesty and innocence were

saved by miracle. I went into the church, and found it very splendid,

with rich marble columns, all as brilliant as if just built; a frescoed

dome above; beneath, a range of chapels all round the church, ornamented

not with pictures but bas-reliefs, the figures of which almost step and

struggle out of the marble. They did not seem very admirable as works of

art, none of them explaining themselves or attracting me long enough to

study out their meaning; but, as part of the architecture of the church,

they had a good effect. Out of the busy square two or three persons had

stepped into this bright and calm seclusion to pray and be devout, for a

little while; and, between sunrise and sunset of the bustling market-day,

many doubtless snatch a moment to refresh their souls.

In the Pantheon (to-day) it was pleasant looking up to the circular

opening, to see the clouds flitting across it, sometimes covering it

quite over, then permitting a glimpse of sky, then showing all the circle

of sunny blue. Then would come the ragged edge of a cloud, brightened

throughout with sunshine, passing and changing quickly,--not that the

divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through

the medium of earthly influences. The great slanting beam of sunshine

was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust,

or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow. Insects were

playing to and fro in the beam, high up toward the opening. There is a

wonderful charm in the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a

swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening and sporting in the

broad ray, to gladden the faith of worshippers on the pavement beneath;

or angels bearing prayers upward, or bringing down responses to them,

visible with dim brightness as they pass through the pathway of heaven's

radiance, even the many hues of their wings discernible by a trusting

eye; though, as they pass into the shadow, they vanish like the motes.

So the sunbeam would represent those rays of divine intelligence which

enable us to see wonders and to know that they are natural things.

Consider the effect of light and shade in a church where the windows are

open and darkened with curtains that are occasionally lifted by a breeze,

letting in the sunshine, which whitens a carved tombstone on the pavement

of the church, disclosing, perhaps, the letters of the name and

inscription, a death's-head, a crosier, or other emblem; then the curtain

falls and the bright spot vanishes.

May 8th.--This morning my wife and I went to breakfast with Mrs. William

Story at the Barberini Palace, expecting to meet Mrs. Jameson, who has

been in Rome for a month or two. We had a very pleasant breakfast, but

Mrs. Jameson was not present on account of indisposition, and the only

other guests were Mrs. A------ and Mrs. H------, two sensible American

ladies. Mrs. Story, however, received a note from Mrs. Jameson, asking

her to bring us to see her at her lodgings; so in the course of the

afternoon she called on us, and took us thither in her carriage. Mrs.

Jameson lives on the first piano of an old palazzo on the Via di Ripetta,

nearly opposite the ferry-way across the Tiber, and affording a pleasant

view of the yellow river and the green bank and fields on the other side.

I had expected to see an elderly lady, but not quite so venerable a one

as Mrs. Jameson proved to be; a rather short, round, and massive

personage, of benign and agreeable aspect, with a sort of black skullcap

on her head, beneath which appeared her hair, which seemed once to have

been fair, and was now almost white. I should take her to be about

seventy years old. She began to talk to us with affectionate

familiarity, and was particularly kind in her manifestations towards

myself, who, on my part, was equally gracious towards her. In truth, I

have found great pleasure and profit in her works, and was glad to hear

her say that she liked mine. We talked about art, and she showed us a

picture leaning up against the wall of the room; a quaint old Byzantine

painting, with a gilded background, and two stiff figures (our Saviour

and St. Catherine) standing shyly at a sacred distance from one another,

and going through the marriage ceremony. There was a great deal of

expression in their faces and figures; and the spectator feels, moreover,

that the artist must have been a devout man,--an impression which we

seldom receive from modern pictures, however awfully holy the subject, or

however consecrated the place they hang in. Mrs. Jameson seems to be

familiar with Italy, its people and life, as well as with its

picture-galleries. She is said to be rather irascible in her temper; but

nothing could be sweeter than her voice, her look, and all her

manifestations to-day. When we were coming away she clasped my hand in

both of hers, and again expressed the pleasure of having seen me, and her

gratitude to me for calling on her; nor did I refrain from responding

Amen to these effusions. . . . .

Taking leave of Mrs. Jameson, we drove through the city, and out of the

Lateran Gate; first, however, waiting a long while at Monaldini's

bookstore in the Piazza de' Spagna for Mr. Story, whom we finally took up

in the street, after losing nearly an hour.

Just two miles beyond the gate is a space on the green campagna where,

for some time past, excavations have been in progress, which thus far

have resulted in the discovery of several tombs, and the old, buried, and

almost forgotten church or basilica of San Stefano. It is a beautiful

spot, that of the excavations, with the Alban hills in the distance, and

some heavy, sunlighted clouds hanging above, or recumbent at length upon

them, and behind the city and its mighty dome. The excavations are an

object of great interest both to the Romans and to strangers, and there

were many carriages and a great many visitors viewing the progress of the

works, which are carried forward with greater energy than anything else I

have seen attempted at Rome. A short time ago the ground in the vicinity

was a green surface, level, except here and there a little hillock, or

scarcely perceptible swell; the tomb of Cecilia Metella showing itself a

mile or two distant, and other rugged ruins of great tombs rising on the

plain. Now the whole site of the basilica is uncovered, and they have

dug into the depths of several tombs, bringing to light precious marbles,

pillars, a statue, and elaborately wrought sarcophagi; and if they were

to dig into almost every other inequality that frets the surface of the

campagna, I suppose the result might be the same. You cannot dig six

feet downward anywhere into the soil, deep enough to hollow out a grave,

without finding some precious relic of the past; only they lose somewhat

of their value when you think that you can almost spurn them out of the

ground with your foot. It is a very wonderful arrangement of Providence

that these things should have been preserved for a long series of coming

generations by that accumulation of dust and soil and grass and trees and

houses over them, which will keep them safe, and cause their reappearance

above ground to be gradual, so that the rest of the world's lifetime may

have for one of its enjoyments the uncovering of old Rome.

The tombs were accessible by long flights of steps going steeply

downward, and they were thronged with so many visitors that we had to

wait some little time for our own turn. In the first into which we

descended we found two tombs side by side, with only a partition wall

between; the outer tomb being, as is supposed, a burial-place constructed

by the early Christians, while the adjoined and minor one was a work of

pagan Rome about the second century after Christ. The former was much

less interesting than the latter. It contained some large sarcophagi,

with sculpture upon them of rather heathenish aspect; and in the centre

of the front of each sarcophagus was a bust in bas-relief, the features

of which had never been wrought, but were left almost blank, with only

the faintest indications of a nose, for instance. It is supposed that

sarcophagi were kept on hand by the sculptors, and were bought ready

made, and that it was customary to work out the portrait of the deceased

upon the blank face in the centre; but when there was a necessity for

sudden burial, as may have been the case in the present instance, this

was dispensed with.

The inner tomb was found without any earth in it, just as it had been

left when the last old Roman was buried there; and it being only a week

or two since it was opened, there was very little intervention of

persons, though much of time, between the departure of the friends of the

dead and our own visit. It is a square room, with a mosaic pavement, and

is six or seven paces in length and breadth, and as much in height to the

vaulted roof. The roof and upper walls are beautifully ornamented with

frescos, which were very bright when first discovered, but have rapidly

faded since the admission of the air, though the graceful and joyous

designs, flowers and fruits and trees, are still perfectly discernible.

The room must have been anything but sad and funereal; on the contrary,

as cheerful a saloon, and as brilliant, if lighted up, as one could

desire to feast in. It contained several marble sarcophagi, covering

indeed almost the whole floor, and each of them as much as three or four

feet in length, and two much longer. The longer ones I did not

particularly examine, and they seemed comparatively plainer; but the

smaller sarcophagi were covered with the most delicately wrought and

beautiful bas-reliefs that I ever beheld; a throng of glad and lovely

shapes in marble clustering thickly and chasing one another round the

sides of these old stone coffins. The work was as perfect as when the

sculptor gave it his last touch; and if he had wrought it to be placed in

a frequented hall, to be seen and admired by continual crowds as long as

the marble should endure, he could not have chiselled with better skill

and care, though his work was to be shut up in the depths of a tomb

forever. This seems to me the strangest thing in the world, the most

alien from modern sympathies. If they had built their tombs above

ground, one could understand the arrangement better; but no sooner had

they adorned them so richly, and furnished them with such exquisite

productions of art, than they annihilated them with darkness. It was an

attempt, no doubt, to render the physical aspect of death cheerful, but

there was no good sense in it.

We went down also into another tomb close by, the walls of which were

ornamented with medallions in stucco. These works presented a numerous

series of graceful designs, wrought by the hand in the short space of

(Mr. Story said it could not have been more than) five or ten minutes,

while the wet plaster remained capable of being moulded; and it was

marvellous to think of the fertility of the artist's fancy, and the

rapidity and accuracy with which he must have given substantial existence

to his ideas. These too--all of them such adornments as would have

suited a festal hall--were made to be buried forthwith in eternal

darkness. I saw and handled in this tomb a great thigh-bone, and

measured it with my own; it was one of many such relics of the guests who

were laid to sleep in these rich chambers. The sarcophagi that served

them for coffins could not now be put to a more appropriate use than as

wine-coolers in a modern dining-room; and it would heighten the enjoyment

of a festival to look at them.

We would gladly have stayed much longer; but it was drawing towards

sunset, and the evening, though bright, was unusually cool, so we drove

home; and on the way, Mr. Story told us of the horrible practices of the

modern Romans with their dead,--how they place them in the church, where,

at midnight, they are stripped of their last rag of funeral attire, put

into the rudest wooden coffins, and thrown into a trench,--a half-mile,

for instance, of promiscuous corpses. This is the fate of all, except

those whose friends choose to pay an exorbitant sum to have them buried

under the pavement of a church. The Italians have an excessive dread of

corpses, and never meddle with those of their nearest and dearest

relatives. They have a horror of death, too, especially of sudden death,

and most particularly of apoplexy; and no wonder, as it gives no time for

the last rites of the Church, and so exposes them to a fearful risk of

perdition forever. On the whole, the ancient practice was, perhaps, the

preferable one; but Nature has made it very difficult for us to do

anything pleasant and satisfactory with a dead body. God knows best; but

I wish he had so ordered it that our mortal bodies, when we have done

with them, might vanish out of sight and sense, like bubbles. A person

of delicacy hates to think of leaving such a burden as his decaying

mortality to the disposal of his friends; but, I say again, how

delightful it would be, and how helpful towards our faith in a blessed

futurity, if the dying could disappear like vanishing bubbles, leaving,

perhaps, a sweet fragrance diffused for a minute or two throughout the

death-chamber. This would be the odor of sanctity! And if sometimes the

evaporation of a sinful soul should leave an odor not so delightful, a

breeze through the open windows would soon waft it quite away.

Apropos of the various methods of disposing of dead bodies, William Story

recalled a newspaper paragraph respecting a ring, with a stone of a new

species in it, which a widower was observed to wear upon his finger.

Being questioned as to what the gem was, he answered, "It is my wife."

He had procured her body to be chemically resolved into this stone. I

think I could make a story on this idea: the ring should be one of the

widower's bridal gifts to a second wife; and, of course, it should have

wondrous and terrible qualities, symbolizing all that disturbs the quiet

of a second marriage,--on the husband's part, remorse for his

inconstancy, and the constant comparison between the dead wife of his

youth, now idealized, and the grosser reality which he had now adopted

into her place; while on the new wife's finger it should give pressures,

shooting pangs into her heart, jealousies of the past, and all such

miserable emotions.

By the by, the tombs which we looked at and entered may have been

originally above ground, like that of Cecilia Metella, and a hundred

others along the Appian Way; though, even in this case, the beautiful

chambers must have been shut up in darkness. Had there been windows,

letting in the light upon the rich frescos and exquisite sculptures,

there would have been a satisfaction in thinking of the existence of so

much visual beauty, though no eye had the privilege to see it. But

darkness, to objects of sight, is annihilation, as long as the darkness

lasts.

May 9th.--Mrs. Jameson called this forenoon to ask us to go and see her

this evening; . . . . so that I had to receive her alone, devolving part

of the burden on Miss Shepard and the three children, all of whom I

introduced to her notice. Finding that I had not been farther beyond the

walls of Rome than the tomb of Cecilia Metella, she invited me to take a

drive of a few miles with her this afternoon. . . . . The poor lady seems

to be very lame; and I am sure I was grateful to her for having taken the

trouble to climb up the seventy steps of our staircase, and felt pain at

seeing her go down them again. It looks fearfully like the gout, the

affection being apparently in one foot. The hands, by the way, are

white, and must once have been, perhaps now are, beautiful. She must

have been a perfectly pretty woman in her day,--a blue or gray eyed,

fair-haired beauty. I think that her hair is not white, but only flaxen

in the extreme.

At half past four, according to appointment, I arrived at her lodgings,

and had not long to wait before her little one-horse carriage drove up to

the door, and we set out, rumbling along the Via Scrofa, and through the

densest part of the city, past the theatre of Marcellus, and thence along

beneath the Palatine Hill, and by the Baths of Caracalla, through the

gate of San Sebastiano. After emerging from the gate, we soon came to

the little Church of "Domine, quo vadis?" Standing on the spot where St.

Peter is said to have seen a vision of our Saviour bearing his cross,

Mrs. Jameson proposed to alight; and, going in, we saw a cast from

Michael Angelo's statue of the Saviour; and not far from the threshold of

the church, yet perhaps in the centre of the edifice, which is extremely

small, a circular stone is placed, a little raised above the pavement,

and surrounded by a low wooden railing. Pointing to this stone, Mrs.

Jameson showed me the prints of two feet side by side, impressed into its

surface, as if a person had stopped short while pursuing his way to Rome.

These, she informed me, were supposed to be the miraculous prints of the

Saviour's feet; but on looking into Murray, I am mortified to find that

they are merely facsimiles of the original impressions, which are

treasured up among the relics of the neighboring Basilica of San

Sebastiano. The marks of sculpture seemed to me, indeed, very evident in

these prints, nor did they indicate such beautiful feet as should have

belonged to the hearer of the best of glad tidings.

Hence we drove on a little way farther, and came to the Basilica of San

Sebastiano, where also we alighted, and, leaning on my arm, Mrs. Jameson

went in. It is a stately and noble interior, with a spacious

unencumbered nave, and a flat ceiling frescoed and gilded. In a chapel

at the left of the entrance is the tomb of St. Sebastian,--a sarcophagus

containing his remains, raised on high before the altar, and beneath it a

recumbent statue of the saint pierced with gilded arrows. The sculpture

is of the school of Bernini,--done after the design of Bernini himself,

Mrs. Jameson said, and is more agreeable and in better taste than most of

his works. We walked round the basilica, glancing at the pictures in the

various chapels, none of which seemed to be of remarkable merit, although

Mrs. Jameson pronounced rather a favorable verdict on one of St. Francis.

She says that she can read a picture like the page of a book; in fact,

without perhaps assuming more taste and judgment than really belong to

her, it was impossible not to perceive that she gave her companion no

credit for knowing one single simplest thing about art. Nor, on the

whole, do I think she underrated me; the only mystery is, how she came to

be so well aware of my ignorance on artistical points.

In the basilica the Franciscan monks were arranging benches on the floor

of the nave, and some peasant children and grown people besides were

assembling, probably to undergo an examination in the catechism, and we

hastened to depart, lest our presence should interfere with their

arrangements. At the door a monk met us, and asked for a contribution in

aid of his church, or some other religious purpose. Boys, as we drove

on, ran stoutly along by the side of the chaise, begging as often as they

could find breath, but were constrained finally to give up the pursuit.

The great ragged bulks of the tombs along the Appian Way now hove in

sight, one with a farm-house on its summit, and all of them

preposterously huge and massive. At a distance, across the green

campagna on our left, the Claudian aqueduct strode away over miles of

space, and doubtless reached even to that circumference of blue hills

which stand afar off, girdling Rome about. The tomb of Cecilia Metella

came in sight a long while before we reached it, with the warm buff hue

of its travertine, and the gray battlemented wall which the Caetanis

erected on the top of its circular summit six hundred years ago. After

passing it, we saw an interminable line of tombs on both sides of the

way, each of which might, for aught I know, have been as massive as that

of Cecilia Metella, and some perhaps still more monstrously gigantic,

though now dilapidated and much reduced in size. Mrs. Jameson had an

engagement to dinner at half past six, so that we could go but a little

farther along this most interesting road, the borders of which are strewn

with broken marbles; fragments of capitals, and nameless rubbish that

once was beautiful. Methinks the Appian Way should be the only entrance

to Rome,--through an avenue of tombs.

The day had been cloudy, chill, and windy, but was now grown calmer and

more genial, and brightened by a very pleasant sunshine, though great

dark clouds were still lumbering up the sky. We drove homeward, looking

at the distant dome of St. Peter's and talking of many things,--painting,

sculpture, America, England, spiritualism, and whatever else came up.

She is a very sensible old lady, and sees a great deal of truth; a good

woman, too, taking elevated views of matters; but I doubt whether she has

the highest and finest perceptions in the world. At any rate, she

pronounced a good judgment on the American sculptors now in Rome,

condemning them in the mass as men with no high aims, no worthy

conception of the purposes of their art, and desecrating marble by the

things they wrought in it. William Story, I presume, is not to be

included in this censure, as she had spoken highly of his sculpturesque

faculty in our previous conversation. On my part, I suggested that the

English sculptors were little or nothing better than our own, to which

she acceded generally, but said that Gibson had produced works equal to

the antique,--which I did not dispute, but still questioned whether the

world needed Gibson, or was any the better for him. We had a great

dispute about the propriety of adopting the costume of the day in modern

sculpture, and I contended that either the art ought to be given up

(which possibly would be the best course), or else should be used for

idealizing the man of the day to himself; and that, as Nature makes us

sensible of the fact when men and women are graceful, beautiful, and

noble, through whatever costume they wear, so it ought to be the test of

the sculptor's genius that he should do the same. Mrs. Jameson decidedly

objected to buttons, breeches, and all other items of modern costume;

and, indeed, they do degrade the marble, and make high sculpture utterly

impossible. Then let the art perish as one that the world has done with,

as it has done with many other beautiful things that belonged to an

earlier time.

It was long past the hour of Mrs. Jameson's dinner engagement when we

drove up to her door in the Via Ripetta. I bade her farewell with much

good-feeling on my own side, and, I hope, on hers, excusing myself,

however, from keeping the previous engagement to spend the evening with

her, for, in point of fact, we had mutually had enough of one another for

the time being. I am glad to record that she expressed a very favorable

opinion of our friend Mr. Thompson's pictures.

May 12th.--To-day we have been to the Villa Albani, to which we had a

ticket of admission through the agency of Mr. Cass (the American

Minister). We set out between ten and eleven o'clock, and walked through

the Via Felice, the Piazza Barberini, and a long, heavy, dusty range of

streets beyond, to the Porta Salara, whence the road extends, white and

sunny, between two high blank walls to the gate of the villa, which is at

no great distance. We were admitted by a girl, and went first to the

casino, along an aisle of overshadowing trees, the branches of which met

above our heads. In the portico of the casino, which extends along its

whole front, there are many busts and statues, and, among them, one of

Julius Caesar, representing him at an earlier period of life than others

which I have seen. His aspect is not particularly impressive; there is a

lack of chin, though not so much as in the older statues and busts.

Within the edifice there is a large hall, not so brilliant, perhaps, with

frescos and gilding as those at the Villa Borghese, but lined with the

most beautiful variety of marbles. But, in fact, each new splendor of

this sort outshines the last, and unless we could pass from one to

another all in the same suite, we cannot remember them well enough to

compare the Borghese with the Albani, the effect being more on the fancy

than on the intellect. I do not recall any of the sculpture, except a

colossal bas-relief of Antinous, crowned with flowers, and holding

flowers in his hand, which was found in the ruins of Hadrian's Villa.

This is said to be the finest relic of antiquity next to the Apollo and

the Laocoon; but I could not feel it to be so, partly, I suppose, because

the features of Autinous do not seem to me beautiful in themselves; and

that heavy, downward look is repeated till I am more weary of it than of

anything else in sculpture. We went up stairs and down stairs, and saw a

good many beautiful things, but none, perhaps, of the very best and

beautifullest; and second-rate statues, with the corroded surface of old

marble that has been dozens of centuries under the ground, depress the

spirits of the beholder. The bas-relief of Antinous has at least the

merit of being almost as white and fresh, and quite as smooth, as if it

had never been buried and dug up again. The real treasures of this

villa, to the number of nearly three hundred, were removed to Paris by

Napoleon, and, except the Antinous, not one of them ever came back.

There are some pictures in one or two of the rooms, and among them I

recollect one by Perugino, in which is a St. Michael, very devout and

very beautiful; indeed, the whole picture (which is in compartments,

representing the three principal points of the Saviour's history)

impresses the beholder as being painted devoutly and earnestly by a

religious man. In one of the rooms there is a small bronze Apollo,

supposed by Winckelmann to be an original of Praxiteles; but I could not

make myself in the least sensible of its merit.

The rest of the things in the casino I shall pass over, as also those in

the coffee-house,--an edifice which stands a hundred yards or more from

the casino, with an ornamental garden, laid out in walks and flower-plats

between. The coffee-house has a semicircular sweep of porch with a good

many statues and busts beneath it, chiefly of distinguished Romans. In

this building, as in the casino, there are curious mosaics, large vases

of rare marble, and many other things worth long pauses of admiration;

but I think that we were all happier when we had done with the works of

art, and were at leisure to ramble about the grounds. The Villa Albani

itself is an edifice separate from both the coffee-house and casino, and

is not opened to strangers. It rises, palace-like, in the midst of the

garden, and, it is to be hoped, has some possibility of comfort amidst

its splendors.--Comfort, however, would be thrown away upon it; for

besides that the site shares the curse that has fallen upon every

pleasant place in the vicinity of Rome, . . . . it really has no occupant

except the servants who take care of it. The Count of Castelbarco, its

present proprietor, resides at Milan. The grounds are laid out in the

old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of

great height and density, and as even as a brick wall at the top and

sides. There are also alleys forming long vistas between the trunks and

beneath the boughs of oaks, ilexes, and olives; and there are shrubberies

and tangled wildernesses of palm, cactus, rhododendron, and I know not

what; and a profusion of roses that bloom and wither with nobody to pluck

and few to look at them. They climb about the sculpture of fountains,

rear themselves against pillars and porticos, run brimming over the

walls, and strew the path with their falling leaves. We stole a few, and

feel that we have wronged our consciences in not stealing more. In one

part of the grounds we saw a field actually ablaze with scarlet poppies.

There are great lagunas; fountains presided over by naiads, who squirt

their little jets into basins; sunny lawns; a temple, so artificially

ruined that we half believed it a veritable antique; and at its base a

reservoir of water, in which stone swans seemed positively to float;

groves of cypress; balustrades and broad flights of stone stairs,

descending to lower levels of the garden; beauty, peace, sunshine, and

antique repose on every side; and far in the distance the blue hills that

encircle the campagna of Rome. The day was very fine for our purpose;

cheerful, but not too bright, and tempered by a breeze that seemed even a

little too cool when we sat long in the shade. We enjoyed it till three

o'clock. . . . .

At the Capitol there is a sarcophagus with a most beautiful bas-relief of

the discovery of Achilles by Ulysses, in which there is even an

expression of mirth on the faces of many of the spectators. And to-day

at the Albani a sarcophagus was ornamented with the nuptials of Peleus

and Thetis.

Death strides behind every man, to be sure, at more or less distance,

and, sooner or later, enters upon any event of his life; so that, in this

point of view, they might each and all serve for bas-reliefs on a

sarcophagus; but the Romans seem to have treated Death as lightly and

playfully as they could, and tried to cover his dart with flowers,

because they hated it so much.

May 15th.--My wife and I went yesterday to the Sistine Chapel, it being

my first visit. It is a room of noble proportions, lofty and long,

though divided in the midst by a screen or partition of white marble,

which rises high enough to break the effect of spacious unity. There are

six arched windows on each side of the chapel, throwing down their light

from the height of the walls, with as much as twenty feet of space (more

I should think) between them and the floor. The entire walls and ceiling

of this stately chapel are covered with paintings in fresco, except the

space about ten feet in height from the floor, and that portion was

intended to be adorned by tapestries from pictures by Raphael, but, the

design being prevented by his premature death, the projected tapestries

have no better substitute than paper-hangings. The roof, which is flat

at top, and coved or vaulted at the sides, is painted in compartments by

Michael Angelo, with frescos representing the whole progress of the world

and of mankind from its first formation by the Almighty . . . . till

after the flood. On one of the sides of the chapel are pictures by

Perugino, and other old masters, of subsequent events in sacred history;

and the entire wall behind the altar, a vast expanse from the ceiling to

the floor, is taken up with Michael Angelo's summing up of the world's

history and destinies in his "Last Judgment."

There can be no doubt that while these frescos continued in their

perfection, there was nothing else to be compared with the magnificent

and solemn beauty of this chapel. Enough of ruined splendor still

remains to convince the spectator of all that has departed; but methinks

I have seen hardly anything else so forlorn and depressing as it is now,

all dusky and dim, even the very lights having passed into shadows, and

the shadows into utter blackness; so that it needs a sunshiny day, under

the bright Italian heavens, to make the designs perceptible at all. As

we sat in the chapel there were clouds flitting across the sky; when the

clouds came the pictures vanished; when the sunshine broke forth the

figures sadly glimmered into something like visibility,--the Almighty

moving in chaos,--the noble shape of Adam, the beautiful Eve; and,

beneath where the roof curves, the mighty figures of sibyls and prophets,

looking as if they were necessarily so gigantic because the thought

within them was so massive. In the "Last Judgment" the scene of the

greater part of the picture lies in the upper sky, the blue of which

glows through betwixt the groups of naked figures; and above sits Jesus,

not looking in the least like the Saviour of the world, but, with

uplifted arm, denouncing eternal misery on those whom he came to save. I

fear I am myself among the wicked, for I found myself inevitably taking

their part, and asking for at least a little pity, some few regrets, and

not such a stern denunciatory spirit on the part of Him who had thought

us worth dying for. Around him stand grim saints, and, far beneath,

people are getting up sleepily out of their graves, not well knowing what

is about to happen; many of them, however, finding themselves clutched by

demons before they are half awake. It would be a very terrible picture

to one who should really see Jesus, the Saviour, in that inexorable

judge; but it seems to me very undesirable that he should ever be

represented in that aspect, when it is so essential to our religion to

believe him infinitely kinder and better towards us than we deserve. At

the last day--I presume, that is, in all future days, when we see

ourselves as we are--man's only inexorable judge will be himself, and the

punishment of his sins will be the perception of them.

In the lower corner of this great picture, at the right hand of the

spectator, is a hideous figure of a damned person, girdled about with a

serpent, the folds of which are carefully knotted between his thighs, so

as, at all events, to give no offence to decency. This figure represents

a man who suggested to Pope Paul III. that the nudities of the "Last

Judgment" ought to be draped, for which offence Michael Angelo at once

consigned him to hell. It shows what a debtor's prison and dungeon of

private torment men would make of hell if they had the control of it. As

to the nudities, if they were ever more nude than now, I should suppose,

in their fresh brilliancy, they might well have startled a not very

squeamish eye. The effect, such as it is, of this picture, is much

injured by the high altar and its canopy, which stands close against the

wall, and intercepts a considerable portion of the sprawl of nakedness

with which Michael Angelo has filled his sky. However, I am not

unwilling to believe, with faith beyond what I can actually see, that the

greatest pictorial miracles ever yet achieved have been wrought upon the

walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In the afternoon I went with Mr. Thompson to see what bargain could be

made with vetturinos for taking myself and family to Florence. We talked

with three or four, and found them asking prices of various enormity,

from a hundred and fifty scudi down to little more than ninety; but Mr.

Thompson says that they always begin in this way, and will probably come

down to somewhere about seventy-five. Mr. Thompson took me into the Via

Portoghese, and showed me an old palace, above which rose--not a very

customary feature of the architecture of Rome--a tall, battlemented

tower. At one angle of the tower we saw a shrine of the Virgin, with a

lamp, and all the appendages of those numerous shrines which we see at

the street-corners, and in hundreds of places about the city. Three or

four centuries ago, this palace was inhabited by a nobleman who had an

only son and a large pet monkey, and one day the monkey caught the infant

up and clambered to this lofty turret, and sat there with him in his arms

grinning and chattering like the Devil himself. The father was in

despair, but was afraid to pursue the monkey lest he should fling down

the child from the height of the tower and make his escape. At last he

vowed that if the boy were safely restored to him he would build a shrine

at the summit of the tower, and cause it to be kept as a sacred place

forever. By and by the monkey came down and deposited the child on the

ground; the father fulfilled his vow, built the shrine, and made it

obligatory, on all future possessors of the palace to keep the lamp

burning before it. Centuries have passed, the property has changed

hands; but still there is the shrine on the giddy top of the tower, far

aloft over the street, on the very spot where the monkey sat, and there

burns the lamp, in memory of the father's vow. This being the tenure by

which the estate is held, the extinguishment of that flame might yet turn

the present owner out of the palace.

May 21st.--Mamma and I went, yesterday forenoon, to the Spada Palace,

which we found among the intricacies of Central Rome; a dark and massive

old edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on which are adorned

with statues in niches, and sculptured ornaments. A woman led us up a

staircase, and ushered us into a great gloomy hall, square and lofty, and

wearing a very gray and ancient aspect, its walls being painted in

chiaroscuro, apparently a great many years ago. The hall was lighted by

small windows, high upward from the floors, and admitting only a dusky

light. The only furniture or ornament, so far as I recollect, was the

colossal statue of Pompey, which stands on its pedestal at one side,

certainly the sternest and severest of figures, and producing the most

awful impression on the spectator. Much of the effect, no doubt, is due

to the sombre obscurity of the hall, and to the loneliness in which the

great naked statue stands. It is entirely nude, except for a cloak that

hangs down from the left shoulder; in the left hand, it holds a globe;

the right arm is extended. The whole expression is such as the statue

might have assumed, if, during the tumult of Caesar's murder, it had

stretched forth its marble hand, and motioned the conspirators to give

over the attack, or to be quiet, now that their victim had fallen at its

feet. On the left leg, about midway above the ankle, there is a dull,

red stain, said to be Caesar's blood; but, of course, it is just such a

red stain in the marble as may be seen on the statue of Antinous at the

Capitol. I could not see any resemblance in the face of the statue to

that of the bust of Pompey, shown as such at the Capitol, in which there

is not the slightest moral dignity, or sign of intellectual eminence. I

am glad to have seen this statue, and glad to remember it in that gray,

dim, lofty hall; glad that there were no bright frescos on the walls, and

that the ceiling was wrought with massive beams, and the floor paved with

ancient brick.

From this anteroom we passed through several saloons containing pictures,

some of which were by eminent artists; the Judith of Guido, a copy of

which used to weary me to death, year after year, in the Boston

Athenaeum; and many portraits of Cardinals in the Spada family, and other

pictures, by Guido. There were some portraits, also of the family, by

Titian; some good pictures by Guercino; and many which I should have been

glad to examine more at leisure; but, by and by, the custode made his

appearance, and began to close the shutters, under pretence that the

sunshine would injure the paintings,--an effect, I presume, not very

likely to follow after two or three centuries' exposure to light, air,

and whatever else might hurt them. However, the pictures seemed to be in

much better condition, and more enjoyable, so far as they had merit, than

those in most Roman picture-galleries; although the Spada Palace itself

has a decayed and impoverished aspect, as if the family had dwindled from

its former state and grandeur, and now, perhaps, smuggled itself into

some out-of-the-way corner of the old edifice. If such be the case,

there is something touching in their still keeping possession of Pompey's

statue, which makes their house famous, and the sale of which might give

them the means of building it up anew; for surely it is worth the whole

sculpture-gallery of the Vatican.

In the afternoon Mr. Thompson and I went, for the third or fourth time,

to negotiate with vetturinos. . . . . So far as I know them they are a

very tricky set of people, bent on getting as much as they can, by hook

or by crook, out of the unfortunate individual who falls into their

hands. They begin, as I have said, by asking about twice as much as they

ought to receive; and anything between this exorbitant amount and the

just price is what they thank heaven for, as so much clear gain.

Nevertheless, I am not quite sure that the Italians are worse than other

people even in this matter. In other countries it is the custom of

persons in trade to take as much as they can get from the public,

fleecing one man to exactly the same extent as another; here they take

what they can obtain from the individual customer. In fact, Roman

tradesmen do not pretend to deny that they ask and receive different

prices from different people, taxing them according to their supposed

means of payment; the article supplied being the same in one case as in

another. A shopkeeper looked into his books to see if we were of the

class who paid two pauls, or only a paul and a half for candles; a

charcoal-dealer said that seventy baiocchi was a very reasonable sum for

us to pay for charcoal, and that some persons paid eighty; and Mr.

Thompson, recognizing the rule, told the old vetturino that "a hundred

and fifty scudi was a very proper charge for carrying a prince to

Florence, but not for carrying me, who was merely a very good artist."

The result is well enough; the rich man lives expensively, and pays a

larger share of the profits which people of a different system of

trade-morality would take equally from the poor man. The effect on the

conscience of the vetturino, however, and of tradesmen of all kinds,

cannot be good; their only intent being, not to do justice between man

and man, but to go as deep as they can into all pockets, and to the very

bottom of some.

We had nearly concluded a bargain, a day or two ago, with a vetturino to

take or send us to Florence, via Perugia, in eight days, for a hundred

scudi; but he now drew back, under pretence of having misunderstood the

terms, though, in reality, no doubt, he was in hopes of getting a better

bargain from somebody else. We made an agreement with another man, whom

Mr. Thompson knows and highly recommends, and immediately made it sure

and legally binding by exchanging a formal written contract, in which

everything is set down, even to milk, butter, bread, eggs, and coffee,

which we are to have for breakfast; the vetturino being to pay every

expense for himself, his horses, and his passengers, and include it

within ninety-five scudi, and five crowns in addition for

buon-mano. . . . . .

May 22d.--Yesterday, while we were at dinner, Mr. ------ called. I never

saw him but once before, and that was at the door of our little red

cottage in Lenox; he sitting in a wagon with one or two of the

Sedgewicks, merely exchanging a greeting with me from under the brim of

his straw hat, and driving on. He presented himself now with a long

white beard, such as a palmer might have worn as the growth of his long

pilgrimages, a brow almost entirely bald, and what hair he has quite

hoary; a forehead impending, yet not massive; dark, bushy eyebrows and

keen eyes, without much softness in them; a dark and sallow complexion; a

slender figure, bent a little with age; but at once alert and infirm. It

surprised me to see him so venerable; for, as poets are Apollo's kinsmen,

we are inclined to attribute to them his enviable quality of never

growing old. There was a weary look in his face, as if he were tired of

seeing things and doing things, though with certainly enough still to see

and do, if need were. My family gathered about him, and he conversed

with great readiness and simplicity about his travels, and whatever other

subject came up; telling us that he had been abroad five times, and was

now getting a little home-sick, and had no more eagerness for sights,

though his "gals" (as he called his daughter and another young lady)

dragged him out to see the wonders of Rome again. His manners and whole

aspect are very particularly plain, though not affectedly so; but it

seems as if in the decline of life, and the security of his position, he

had put off whatever artificial polish he may have heretofore had, and

resumed the simpler habits and deportment of his early New England

breeding. Not but what you discover, nevertheless, that he is a man of

refinement, who has seen the world, and is well aware of his own place in

it. He spoke with great pleasure of his recent visit to Spain. I

introduced the subject of Kansas, and methought his face forthwith

assumed something of the bitter keenness of the editor of a political

newspaper, while speaking of the triumph of the administration over the

Free-Soil opposition. I inquired whether he had seen S------, and he

gave a very sad account of him as he appeared at their last meeting,

which was in Paris. S------, he thought, had suffered terribly, and

would never again be the man he was; he was getting fat; he talked

continually of himself, and of trifles concerning himself, and seemed to

have no interest for other matters; and Mr. ------ feared that the shock

upon his nerves had extended to his intellect, and was irremediable. He

said that S------ ought to retire from public life, but had no friend

true enough to tell him so. This is about as sad as anything can be. I

hate to have S------ undergo the fate of a martyr, because he was not

naturally of the stuff that martyrs are made of, and it is altogether by

mistake that he has thrust himself into the position of one. He was

merely, though with excellent abilities, one of the best of fellows, and

ought to have lived and died in good fellowship with all the world.

S------ was not in the least degree excited about this or any other

subject. He uttered neither passion nor poetry, but excellent good

sense, and accurate information on whatever subject transpired; a very

pleasant man to associate with, but rather cold, I should imagine, if one

should seek to touch his heart with one's own. He shook hands kindly all

round, but not with any warmth of gripe; although the ease of his

deportment had put us all on sociable terms with him.

At seven o'clock we went by invitation to take tea with Miss Bremer.

After much search, and lumbering painfully up two or three staircases in

vain, and at last going about in a strange circuity, we found her in a

small chamber of a large old building, situated a little way from the

brow of the Tarpeian Rock. It was the tiniest and humblest domicile that

I have seen in Rome, just large enough to hold her narrow bed, her

tea-table, and a table covered with books,--photographs of Roman ruins,

and some pages written by herself. I wonder whether she be poor.

Probably so; for she told us that her expense of living here is only five

pauls a day. She welcomed us, however, with the greatest cordiality and

lady-like simplicity, making no allusion to the humbleness of her

environment (and making us also lose sight of it, by the absence of all

apology) any more than if she were receiving us in a palace. There is

not a better bred woman; and yet one does not think whether she has any

breeding or no. Her little bit of a round table was already spread for

us with her blue earthenware teacups; and after she had got through an

interview with the Swedish Minister, and dismissed him with a hearty

pressure of his hand between both her own, she gave us our tea, and some

bread, and a mouthful of cake. Meanwhile, as the day declined, there had

been the most beautiful view over the campagna, out of one of her

windows; and, from the other, looking towards St. Peter's, the broad

gleam of a mildly glorious sunset; not so pompous and magnificent as many

that I have seen in America, but softer and sweeter in all its changes.

As its lovely hues died slowly away, the half-moon shone out brighter and

brighter; for there was not a cloud in the sky, and it seemed like the

moonlight of my younger days. In the garden, beneath her window, verging

upon the Tarpeian Rock, there was shrubbery and one large tree, softening

the brow of the famous precipice, adown which the old Romans used to

fling their traitors, or sometimes, indeed, their patriots.

Miss Bremer talked plentifully in her strange manner,--good English

enough for a foreigner, but so oddly intonated and accented, that it is

impossible to be sure of more than one word in ten. Being so little

comprehensible, it is very singular how she contrives to make her

auditors so perfectly certain, as they are, that she is talking the best

sense, and in the kindliest spirit. There is no better heart than hers,

and not many sounder heads; and a little touch of sentiment comes

delightfully in, mixed up with a quick and delicate humor and the most

perfect simplicity. There is also a very pleasant atmosphere of

maidenhood about her; we are sensible of a freshness and odor of the

morning still in this little withered rose,--its recompense for never

having been gathered and worn, but only diffusing fragrance on its stem.

I forget mainly what we talked about,--a good deal about art, of course,

although that is a subject of which Miss Bremer evidently knows nothing.

Once we spoke of fleas,--insects that, in Rome, come home to everybody's

business and bosom, and are so common and inevitable, that no delicacy is

felt about alluding to the sufferings they inflict. Poor little Miss

Bremer was tormented with one while turning out our tea. . . . . She

talked, among other things, of the winters in Sweden, and said that she

liked them, long and severe as they are; and this made me feel ashamed of

dreading the winters of New England, as I did before coming from home,

and do now still more, after five or six mild English Decembers.

By and by, two young ladies came in,--Miss Bremen's neighbors, it

seemed,--fresh from a long walk on the campagna, fresh and weary at the

same time. One apparently was German, and the other French, and they

brought her an offering of flowers, and chattered to her with

affectionate vivacity; and, as we were about taking leave, Miss Bremer

asked them to accompany her and us on a visit to the edge of the Tarpeian

Rock. Before we left the room, she took a bunch of roses that were in a

vase, and gave them to Miss Shepard, who told her that she should make

her six sisters happy by giving one to each. Then we went down the

intricate stairs, and, emerging into the garden, walked round the brow of

the hill, which plunges headlong with exceeding abruptness; but, so far

as I could see in the moonlight, is no longer quite a precipice. Then

we re-entered the house, and went up stairs and down again, through

intricate passages, till we got into the street, which was still peopled

with the ragamuffins who infest and burrow in that part of Rome. We

returned through an archway, and descended the broad flight of steps into

the piazza of the Capitol; and from the extremity of it, just at the head

of the long graded way, where Castor and Pollux and the old milestones

stand, we turned to the left, and followed a somewhat winding path, till

we came into the court of a palace. This court is bordered by a parapet,

leaning over which we saw the sheer precipice of the Tarpeian Rock, about

the height of a four-story house. . . . .

On the edge of this, before we left the court, Miss Bremer bade us

farewell, kissing my wife most affectionately on each cheek, . . . . and

then turning towards myself, . . . . she pressed my hand, and we parted,

probably never to meet again. God bless her good heart! . . . . She is a

most amiable little woman, worthy to be the maiden aunt of the whole

human race. I suspect, by the by, that she does not like me half so well

as I do her; it is my impression that she thinks me unamiable, or that

there is something or other not quite right about me. I am sorry if it

be so, because such a good, kindly, clear-sighted, and delicate person is

very apt to have reason at the bottom of her harsh thoughts, when, in

rare cases, she allows them to harbor with her.

To-day, and for some days past, we have been in quest of lodgings for

next winter; a weary search, up interminable staircases, which seduce us

upward to no successful result. It is very disheartening not to be able

to place the slightest reliance on the integrity of the people we are to

deal with; not to believe in any connection between their words and their

purposes; to know that they are certainly telling you falsehoods, while

you are not in a position to catch hold of the lie, and hold it up in

their faces.

This afternoon we called on Mr. and Mrs. ------ at the Hotel de l'Europe,

but found only the former at home. We had a pleasant visit, but I made

no observations of his character save such as I have already sufficiently

recorded; and when we had been with him a little while, Mrs. Chapman, the

artist's wife, Mr. Terry, and my friend, Mr. Thompson, came in. ------

received them all with the same good degree of cordiality that he did

ourselves, not cold, not very warm, not annoyed, not ecstatically

delighted; a man, I should suppose, not likely to have ardent individual

preferences, though perhaps capable of stern individual dislikes. But I

take him, at all events, to be a very upright man, and pursuing a narrow

track of integrity; he is a man whom I would never forgive (as I would a

thousand other men) for the slightest moral delinquency. I would not be

bound to say, however, that he has not the little sin of a fretful and

peevish habit; and yet perhaps I am a sinner myself for thinking so.

May 23d.--This morning I breakfasted at William Story's, and met there

Mr. Bryant, Mr. T------ (an English gentleman), Mr. and Mrs. Apthorp,

Miss Hosmer, and one or two other ladies. Bryant was very quiet, and

made no conversation audible to the general table. Mr. T------ talked of

English politics and public men; the "Times" and other newspapers,

English clubs and social habits generally; topics in which I could well

enough bear my part of the discussion. After breakfast, and aside from

the ladies, he mentioned an illustration of Lord Ellenborough's lack of

administrative ability,--a proposal seriously made by his lordship in

reference to the refractory Sepoys. . . . .

We had a very pleasant breakfast, and certainly a breakfast is much

preferable to a dinner, not merely in the enjoyment, while it is passing,

but afterwards. I made a good suggestion to Miss Hosmer for the design

of a fountain,--a lady bursting into tears, water gushing from a thousand

pores, in literal translation of the phrase; and to call the statue

"Niobe, all Tears." I doubt whether she adopts the idea; but Bernini

would have been delighted with it. I should think the gush of water

might be so arranged as to form a beautiful drapery about the figure,

swaying and fluttering with every breath of wind, and rearranging itself

in the calm; in which case, the lady might be said to have "a habit of

weeping." . . . . Apart, with William Story, he and I talked of the

unluckiness of Friday, etc. I like him particularly well. . . . .

We have been plagued to-day with our preparations for leaving Rome

to-morrow, and especially with verifying the inventory of furniture,

before giving up the house to our landlord. He and his daughter have

been examining every separate article, down even to the kitchen skewers,

I believe, and charging us to the amount of several scudi for cracks and

breakages, which very probably existed when we came into possession. It

is very uncomfortable to have dealings with such a mean people (though

our landlord is German),--mean in their business transactions; mean even

in their beggary; for the beggars seldom ask for more than a mezzo

baioccho, though they sometimes grumble when you suit your gratuity

exactly to their petition. It is pleasant to record that the Italians

have great faith in the honor of the English and Americans, and never

hesitate to trust entire strangers, to any reasonable extent, on the

strength of their being of the honest Anglo-Saxon race.

This evening, U---- and I took a farewell walk in the Pincian Gardens to

see the sunset; and found them crowded with people, promenading and

listening to the music of the French baud. It was the feast of

Whitsunday, which probably brought a greater throng than usual abroad.

When the sun went down, we descended into the Piazza del Popolo, and

thence into the Via Ripetta, and emerged through a gate to the shore of

the Tiber, along which there is a pleasant walk beneath a grove of trees.

We traversed it once and back again, looking at the rapid river, which

still kept its mud-puddly aspect even in the clear twilight, and beneath

the brightening moon. The great bell of St. Peter's tolled with a deep

boom, a grand and solemn sound; the moon gleamed through the branches of

the trees above us; and U---- spoke with somewhat alarming fervor of her

love for Rome, and regret at leaving it. We shall have done the child no

good office in bringing her here, if the rest of her life is to be a

dream of this "city of the soul," and an unsatisfied yearning to come

back to it. On the other hand, nothing elevating and refining can be

really injurious, and so I hope she will always be the better for Rome,

even if her life should be spent where there are no pictures, no statues,

nothing but the dryness and meagreness of a New England village.