ROME.

68 Piazza Poli, October 17th.--We left Viterbo on the 15th, and

proceeded, through Monterosi, to Sette Verse. There was nothing

interesting at Sette Verse, except an old Roman bridge, of a single arch,

which had kept its sweep, composed of one row of stones, unbroken for two

or more thousand years, and looked just as strong as ever, though gray

with age, and fringed with plants that found it hard to fix themselves in

its close crevices.

The next day we drove along the Cassian Way towards Rome. It was a most

delightful morning, a genial atmosphere; the more so, I suppose, because

this was the Campagna, the region of pestilence and death. I had a

quiet, gentle, comfortable pleasure, as if, after many wanderings, I was

drawing near Rome, for, now that I have known it once, Rome certainly

does draw into itself my heart, as I think even London, or even little

Concord itself, or old sleepy Salem, never did and never will. Besides,

we are to stay here six months, and we had now a house all prepared to

receive us; so that this present approach, in the noontide of a genial

day, was most unlike our first one, when we crept towards Rome through

the wintry midnight, benumbed with cold, ill, weary, and not knowing

whither to betake ourselves. Ah! that was a dismal tine! One thing,

however, that disturbed even my present equanimity a little was the

necessity of meeting the custom-house at the Porta del Popolo; but my

past experience warranted me in believing that even these ogres might be

mollified by the magic touch of a scudo; and so it proved. We should

have escaped any examination at all, the officer whispered me, if his

superior had not happened to be present; but, as the case stood, they

took down only one trunk from the top of the vettura, just lifted the

lid, closed it again, and gave us permission to proceed. So we came to

68 Piazza Poli, and found ourselves at once at home, in such a

comfortable, cosey little house, as I did not think existed in Rome.

I ought to say a word about our vetturino, Constantino Bacci, an

excellent and most favorable specimen of his class; for his magnificent

conduct, his liberality, and all the good qualities that ought to be

imperial, S----- called him the Emperor. He took us to good hotels, and

feasted us with the best; he was kind to us all, and especially to little

Rosebud, who used to run by his side, with her small white hand in his

great brown one; he was cheerful in his deportment, and expressed his

good spirits by the smack of his whip, which is the barometer of a

vetturino's inward weather; he drove admirably, and would rumble up to

the door of an albergo, and stop to a hair's-breadth just where it was

most convenient for us to alight; he would hire postilions and horses,

where other vetturini would take nothing better than sluggish oxen, to

help us up the hilly roads, so that sometimes we had a team of seven; he

did all that we could possibly require of him, and was content and more,

with a buon mono of five scudi, in addition to the stipulated price.

Finally, I think the tears had risen almost to his eyelids when we parted

with him.

Our friends, the Thompsons, through whose kindness we procured this

house, called to see us soon after our arrival. In the afternoon, I

walked with Rosebud to the Medici Gardens, and on our way thither, we

espied our former servant, Lalla, who flung so many and such bitter

curses after us, on our departure from Rome, sitting at her father's

fruit-stall. Thank God, they have not taken effect. After going to the

Medici, we went to the Pincian Gardens, and looked over into the Borghese

grounds, which, methought, were more beautiful than ever. The same was

true of the sky, and of every object beneath it; and as we came homeward

along the Corso, I wondered at the stateliness and palatial magnificence

of that noble street. Once, I remember, I thought it narrow, and far

unworthy of its fame.

In the way of costume, the men in goat-skin breeches, whom we met on the

Campagna, were very striking, and looked like Satyrs.

October 21st.--. . . . I have been twice to St. Peter's, and was

impressed more than at any former visit by a sense of breadth and

loftiness, and, as it were, a visionary splendor and magnificence. I

also went to the Museum of the Capitol; and the statues seemed to me more

beautiful than formerly, and I was not sensible of the cold despondency

with which I have so often viewed them. Yesterday we went to the Corsini

Palace, which we had not visited before. It stands in the Trastevere, in

the Longara, and is a stately palace, with a grand staircase, leading to

the first floor, where is situated the range of picture-rooms. There

were a good many fine pictures, but none of them have made a memorable

impression on my mind, except a portrait by Vandyke, of a man in

point-lace, very grand and very real. The room in which this picture

hung had many other portraits by Holbein, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, and

other famous painters, and was wonderfully rich in this department. In

another, there was a portrait of Pope Julius II., by Raphael, somewhat

differing from those at the Pitti and the Uffizi galleries in Florence,

and those I have seen in England and Paris; thinner, paler, perhaps

older, more severely intellectual, but at least, as high a work of art as

those.

The palace has some handsome old furniture, and gilded chairs, covered

with leather cases, possibly relics of Queen Christina's time, who died

here. I know not but the most curious object was a curule chair of

marble, sculptured all out of one piece, and adorned with bas-reliefs.

It is supposed to be Etruscan. It has a circular back, sweeping round,

so as to afford sufficient rests for the elbows; and, sitting down in it,

I discovered that modern ingenuity has not made much real improvement on

this chair of three or four thousand years ago. But some chairs are

easier for the moment, yet soon betray you, and grow the more irksome.

We strolled along Longara, and found the piazza of St. Peter's full of

French soldiers at their drill. . . . . We went quite round the interior

of the church, and perceiving the pavement loose and broken near the

altar where Guido's Archangel is placed, we picked up some bits of rosso

antico and gray marble, to be set in brooches, as relics.

We have the snuggest little set of apartments in Rome, seven rooms,

including an antechamber; and though the stairs are exceedingly narrow,

there is really a carpet on them,--a civilized comfort, of which the

proudest palaces in the Eternal City cannot boast. The stairs are very

steep, however, and I should not wonder if some of us broke our noses

down them. Narrowness of space within doors strikes us all rather

ludicrously, yet not unpleasantly, after being accustomed to the wastes

and deserts of the Montanto Villa. It is well thus to be put in training

for the over-snugness of our cottage in Concord. Our windows here look

out on a small and rather quiet piazza, with an immense palace on the

left hand, and a smaller yet statelier one on the right, and just round

the corner of the street, leading out of our piazza, is the Fountain of

Trevi, of which I can hear the plash in the evening, when other sounds

are hushed.

Looking over what I have said of Sodoma's "Christ Bound," at Sierra, I

see that I have omitted to notice what seems to me one of its most

striking characteristics,--its loneliness. You feel as if the Saviour

were deserted, both in heaven and earth; the despair is in him which made

him say, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Even in this extremity,

however, he is still Divine, and Sodoma almost seems to have reconciled

the impossibilities of combining an omnipresent divinity with a suffering

and outraged humanity. But this is one of the cases in which the

spectator's imagination completes what the artist merely hints at.

Mr. ------, the sculptor, called to see us, the other evening, and quite

paid Powers off for all his trenchant criticisms on his brother artists.

He will not allow Powers to be an artist at all, or to know anything of

the laws of art, although acknowledging him to be a great bust-maker, and

to have put together the Greek Slave and the Fisher-Boy very ingeniously.

The latter, however (he says), is copied from the Apollino in the Tribune

of the Uzi; and the former is made up of beauties that had no reference

to one another; and he affirms that Powers is ready to sell, and has

actually sold, the Greek Slave, limb by limb, dismembering it by

reversing the process of putting it together,--a head to one purchaser,

an arm or a foot to another, a hand to a third. Powers knows nothing

scientifically of the human frame, and only succeeds in representing it

as a natural bone-doctor succeeds in setting a dislocated limb by a happy

accident or special providence. (The illustration was my own, and

adopted by Mr. ------.) Yet Mr. ------ seems to acknowledge that he did

succeed. I repeat these things only as another instance how invariably

every sculptor uses his chisel and mallet to smash and deface the

marble-work of every other. I never heard Powers speak of Mr. ------,

but can partly imagine what he would have said.

Mr. ------ spoke of Powers's disappointment about the

twenty-five-thousand-dollar appropriation from Congress, and said that he

was altogether to blame, inasmuch as he attempted to sell to the nation

for that sum a statue which, to Mr. ------'s certain knowledge, he had

already offered to private persons for a fifth part of it. I have not

implicit faith in Mr. ------'s veracity, and doubt not Powers acted

fairly in his own eyes.

October 23d.--I am afraid I have caught one of the colds which the Roman

air continually affected me with last winter; at any rate, a sirocco has

taken the life out of me, and I have no spirit to do anything. This

morning I took a walk, however, out of the Porta Maggiore, and looked at

the tomb of the baker Eurysaces, just outside of the gate,--a very

singular ruin covered with symbols of the man's trade in stone-work, and

with bas-reliefs along the cornice, representing people at work, making

bread. An inscription states that the ashes of his wife are likewise

reposited there, in a bread-basket. The mausoleum is perhaps twenty feet

long, in its largest extent, and of equal height; and if good bakers were

as scarce in ancient Rome as in the modern city, I do not wonder that

they were thought worthy of stately monuments. None of the modern ones

deserve any better tomb than a pile of their own sour loaves.

I walked onward a good distance beyond the gate alongside of the arches

of the Claudian aqueduct, which, in this portion of it, seems to have had

little repair, and to have needed little, since it was built. It looks

like a long procession, striding across the Campagna towards the city,

and entering the gate, over one of its arches, within the gate, I saw two

or three slender jets of water spurting from the crevices; this aqueduct

being still in use to bring the Acqua Felice into Rome.

Returning within the walls, I walked along their inner base, to the

Church of St. John Lateran, into which I went, and sat down to rest

myself, being languid and weary, and hot with the sun, though afraid to

trust the coolness of the shade. I hate the Roman atmosphere; indeed,

all my pleasure in getting back--all my home-feeling--has already

evaporated, and what now impresses me, as before, is the languor of

Rome,--its weary pavements, its little life, pressed down by a weight of

death.

Quitting St. John Lateran, I went astray, as I do nine times out of ten

in these Roman intricacies, and at last, seeing the Coliseum in the vista

of a street, I betook myself thither to get a fresh start. Its round of

stones looked vast and dreary, but not particularly impressive. The

interior was quite deserted; except that a Roman, of respectable

appearance, was making a pilgrimage at the altars, kneeling and saying a

prayer at each one.

Outside of the Coliseum, a neat-looking little boy came and begged of me;

and I gave him a baiocco, rather because he seemed to need it so little

than for any other reason. I observed that he immediately afterwards

went and spoke to a well-dressed man, and supposed that the child was

likewise begging of him. I watched the little boy, however, and saw

that, in two or three other instances, after begging of other

individuals, he still returned to this well-dressed man; the fact being,

no doubt, that the latter was fishing for baiocci through the medium of

his child,--throwing the poor little fellow out as a bait, while he

himself retained his independent respectability. He had probably come

out for a whole day's sport; for, by and by, he went between the arches

of the Coliseum, followed by the child, and taking with him what looked

like a bottle of wine, wrapped in a handkerchief.

November 2d.--The weather lately would have suited one's ideal of an

English November, except that there have been no fogs; but of ugly,

hopeless clouds, chill, shivering winds, drizzle, and now and then

pouring rain, much more than enough. An English coal-fire, if we could

see its honest face within doors, would compensate for all the

unamiableness of the outside atmosphere; but we might ask for the

sunshine of the New Jerusalem, with as much hope of getting it. It is

extremely spirit-crushing, this remorseless gray, with its icy heart; and

the more to depress the whole family, U---- has taken what seems to be

the Roman fever, by sitting down in the Palace of the Caesars, while Mrs.

S----- sketched the ruins. . . . .

[During four months of the illness of his daughter, Mr. Hawthorne wrote

no word of Journal.--ED.]

February 27th, 1859.--For many days past, there have been tokens of the

coming Carnival in the Corso and the adjacent streets; for example, in

the shops, by the display of masks of wire, pasteboard, silk, or cloth,

some of beautiful features, others hideous, fantastic, currish, asinine,

huge-nosed, or otherwise monstrous; some intended to cover the whole

face, others concealing only the upper part, also white dominos, or robes

bedizened with gold-lace and theatric splendors, displayed at the windows

of mercers or flaunting before the doors. Yesterday, U---- and I came

along the Corso, between one and two o'clock, after a walk, and found all

these symptoms of impending merriment multiplied and intensified; . . . .

rows of chairs, set out along the sidewalks, elevated a foot or two by

means of planks; great baskets, full of confetti, for sale in the nooks

and recesses of the streets; bouquets of all qualities and prices. The

Corso was becoming pretty well thronged with people; but, until two

o'clock, nobody dared to fling as much as a rosebud or a handful of

sugar-plums. There was a sort of holiday expression, however, on almost

everybody's face, such as I have not hitherto seen in Rome, or in any

part of Italy; a smile gleaming out, an aurora of mirth, which probably

will not be very exuberant in its noontide. The day was so sunny and

bright that it made this opening scene far more cheerful than any day of

the last year's carnival. As we threaded our way through the Corso,

U---- kept wishing she could plunge into the fun and uproar as J-----

would, and for my own part, though I pretended to take no interest in the

matter, I could have bandied confetti and nosegays as readily and as

riotously as any urchin there. But my black hat and grave talma would

have been too good a mark for the combatants, . . . . so we went home

before a shot was fired. . . . .

March 7th.--I, as well as the rest of the family, have followed up the

Carnival pretty faithfully, and enjoyed it as well, or rather better

than could have been expected; principally in the street, as a more

looker-on,--which does not let one into the mystery of the fun,--and

twice from a balcony, where I threw confetti, and partly understood why

the young people like it so much. Certainly, there cannot well be a more

picturesque spectacle in human life, than that stately, palatial avenue

of the Corso, the more picturesque because so narrow, all hung with

carpets and Gobelin tapestry, and the whole palace-heights alive with

faces; and all the capacity of the street thronged with the most

fantastic figures that either the fancies of folks alive at this day are

able to contrive, or that live traditionally from year to year. . . . .

The Prince of Wales has fought manfully through the Carnival with

confetti and bouquets, and U---- received several bouquets from him, on

Saturday, as her carriage moved along.

March 8th.--I went with U---- to Mr. Motley's balcony, in the Corso, and

saw the Carnival from it yesterday afternoon; but the spectacle is

strangely like a dream, in respect to the difficulty of retaining it in

the mind and solidifying it into a description. I enjoyed it a good

deal, and assisted in so far as to pelt all the people in cylinder hats

with handfuls of confetti. The scene opens with a long array of cavalry,

who ride through the Corso, preceded by a large band, playing loudly on

their brazen instruments. . . . . There were some splendid dresses,

particularly contadina costumes of scarlet and gold, which seem to be

actually the festal attire of that class of people, and must needs be so

expensive that one must serve for a lifetime, if indeed it be not an

inheritance. . . . .

March 9th.--I was, yesterday, an hour or so among the people on the

sidewalks of the Corso, just on the edges of the fun. They appeared to

be in a decorous, good-natured mood, neither entering into the merriment,

nor harshly repelling; and when groups of maskers overflowed among them,

they received their jokes in good part. Many women of the lower class

were in the crowd of bystanders; generally broad and sturdy figures, clad

evidently in their best attire, and wearing a good many ornaments; such

as gold or coral beads and necklaces, combs of silver or gold, heavy

ear-rings, curiously wrought brooches, perhaps cameos or mosaics, though

I think they prefer purely metallic work to these. One ornament very

common among them is a large bodkin, which they stick through their hair.

It is usually of silver, but sometimes it looks like steel, and is made

in the shape of a sword,--a long Spanish thrusting sword, for example.

Dr. Franco told us a story of a woman of Trastevere, who was addressed

rudely at the Carnival by a gentleman; she warned him to desist, but as

he still persisted, she drew the bodkin from her hair, and stabbed him to

the heart.

By and by I went to Mr. Motley's balcony, and looked down on the closing

scenes of the Carnival. Methought the merry-makers labored harder to be

mirthful, and yet were somewhat tired of their eight play-days; and their

dresses looked a little shabby, rumpled, and draggled; but the lack of

sunshine--which we have had on all the preceding days--may have produced

this effect. The wheels of some of the carriages were wreathed round and

spoked with green foliage, making a very pretty and fanciful appearance,

as did likewise the harnesses of the horses, which were trimmed with

roses. The pervading noise and uproar of human voices is one of the most

effective points of the matter; but the scene is quite indescribable, and

its effect not to be conceived without both witnessing and taking part in

it. If you merely look at it, it depresses you; if you take even the

slightest share in it, you become aware that it has a fascination, and

you no longer wonder that the young people, at least, take such delight

in plunging into this mad river of fun that goes roaring between the

narrow limits of the Corso.

As twilight came on, the moccoli commenced, and as it grew darker the

whole street twinkled with lights, which would have been innumerable if

every torch-bearer had not been surrounded by a host of enemies, who

tried to extinguish his poor little twinkle. It was a pity to lose so

much splendor as there might have been; but yet there was a kind of

symbolism in the thought that every one of those thousands of twinkling

lights was in charge of somebody, who was striving with all his might to

keep it alive. Not merely the street-way, but all the balconies and

hundreds of windows were lit up with these little torches; so that it

seemed as if the stars had crumbled into glittering fragments, and rained

down upon the Corso, some of them lodging upon the palace-fronts, some

falling on the ground. Besides this, there were gas-lights burning with

a white flame; but this illumination was not half so interesting as that

of the torches, which indicated human struggle. All this time there were

myriad voices shouting, "SENZA MOCCOLO!" and mingling into one long roar.

We, in our balcony, carried on a civil war against one another's torches,

as is the custom of human beings, within even the narrowest precincts;

but after a while we grew tired, and so did the crowd, apparently; for

the lights vanished, one after another, till the gas-lights--which at

first were an unimportant part of the illumination--shone quietly out,

overpowering the scattered twinkles of the moccoli. They were what the

fixed stars are to the transitory splendors of human life.

Mr. Motley tells me, that it was formerly the custom to have a mock

funeral of harlequin, who was supposed to die at the close of the

Carnival, during which he had reigned supreme, and all the people, or as

many as chose, bore torches at his burial. But this being considered an

indecorous mockery of Popish funereal customs, the present frolic of the

moccoli was instituted,--in some sort, growing out of it.

All last night, or as much of it as I was awake, there was a noise of

song and of late revellers in the streets; but to-day we have waked up in

the sad and sober season of Lent.

It is worthy of remark, that all the jollity of the Carnival is a genuine

ebullition of spirit, without the aid of wine or strong drink.

March 11th.--Yesterday we went to the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, the

entrance to which is alongside of the Appian Way, within sight of the

tomb of Cecilia Metella. We descended not a very great way under ground,

by a broad flight of stone steps, and, lighting some wax tapers, with

which we had provided ourselves, we followed the guide through a great

many intricate passages, which mostly were just wide enough for me to

touch the wall on each side, while keeping my elbows close to my body;

and as to height, they were from seven to ten feet, and sometimes a good

deal higher It was rather picturesque, when we saw the long line of our

tapers, for another large party had joined us, twinkling along the dark

passage, and it was interesting to think of the former inhabitants of

these caverns. . . . . In one or two places there was the round mark in

the stone or plaster, where a bottle had been deposited. This was said

to have been the token of a martyr's burial-place, and to have contained

his blood. After leaving the Catacomb, we drove onward to Cecilia

Metella's tomb, which we entered and inspected. Within the immensely

massive circular substance of the tomb was a round, vacant space, and

this interior vacancy was open at the top, and had nothing but some

fallen stones and a heap of earth at the bottom.

On our way home we entered the Church of "Domine, quo vadis," and looked

at the old fragment of the Appian Way, where our Saviour met St. Peter,

and left the impression of his feet in one of the Roman paving-stones.

The stone has been removed, and there is now only a fac-simile engraved

in a block of marble, occupying the place where Jesus stood. It is a

great pity they had not left the original stone; for then all its

brother-stones in the pavement would have seemed to confirm the truth of

the legend.

While we were at dinner, a gentleman called and was shown into the

parlor. We supposed it to be Mr. May; but soon his voice grew familiar,

and my wife was sure it was General Pierce, so I left the table, and

found it to be really he. I was rejoiced to see him, though a little

saddened to see the marks of care and coming age, in many a whitening

hair, and many a furrow, and, still more, in something that seemed to

have passed away out of him, without leaving any trace. His voice,

sometimes, sounded strange and old, though generally it was what it used

to be. He was evidently glad to see me, glad to see my wife, glad to see

the children, though there was something melancholy in his tone, when he

remarked what a stout boy J----- had grown. Poor fellow! he has neither

son nor daughter to keep his heart warm. This morning I have been with

him to St. Peter's, and elsewhere about the city, and find him less

changed than he seemed to be last night; not at all changed in heart and

affections. We talked freely about all matters that came up; among the

rest, about the project--recognizable by many tokens--for bringing him

again forward as a candidate for the Presidency next year. He appears to

be firmly resolved not again to present himself to the country, and is

content to let his one administration stand, and to be judged by the

public and posterity on the merits of that. No doubt he is perfectly

sincere; no doubt, too, he would again be a candidate, if a pretty

unanimous voice of the party should demand it. I retain all my faith in

his administrative faculty, and should be glad, for his sake, to have it

fully rccognized; but the probabilities, as far as I can see, do not

indicate for him another Presidential term.

March 15th.--This morning I went with my wife and Miss Hoar to Miss

Hosmer's studio, to see her statue of Zenobia. We found her in her

premises, springing about with a bird-like action. She has a lofty room,

with a skylight window; it was pretty well warmed with a stove, and there

was a small orange-tree in a pot, with the oranges growing on it, and two

or three flower-shrubs in bloom. She herself looked prettily, with her

jaunty little velvet cap on the side of her head, whence came clustering

out, her short brown curls; her face full of pleasant life and quick

expression; and though somewhat worn with thought and struggle, handsome

and spirited. She told us that "her wig was growing as gray as a rat."

There were but very few things in the room; two or three plaster busts, a

headless cast of a plaster statue, and a cast of the Minerva Medica,

which perhaps she had been studying as a help towards the design of her

Zenobia; for, at any rate, I seemed to discern a resemblance or analogy

between the two. Zenobia stood in the centre of the room, as yet

unfinished in the clay, but a very noble and remarkable statue indeed,

full of dignity and beauty. It is wonderful that so brisk a woman could

have achieved a work so quietly impressive; and there is something in

Zenobia's air that conveys the idea of music, uproar, and a great throng

all about her; whilst she walks in the midst of it, self-sustained, and

kept in a sort of sanctity by her native pride. The idea of motion is

attained with great success; you not only perceive that she is walking,

but know at just what tranquil pace she steps, amid the music of the

triumph. The drapery is very fine and full; she is decked with

ornaments; but the chains of her captivity hang from wrist to wrist; and

her deportment--indicating a soul so much above her misfortune, yet not

insensible to the weight of it--makes these chains a richer decoration

than all her other jewels. I know not whether there be some magic in the

present imperfect finish of the statue, or in the material of clay, as

being a better medium of expression than even marble; but certainly I

have seldom been more impressed by a piece of modern sculpture. Miss

Hosmer showed us photographs of her Puck--which I have seen in the

marble--and likewise of the Will-o'-the-Wisp, both very pretty and

fanciful. It indicates much variety of power, that Zenobia should be the

sister of these, which would seem the more natural offspring of her quick

and vivid character. But Zenobia is a high, heroic ode.

. . . . On my way up the Via Babuino, I met General Pierce. We have

taken two or three walks together, and stray among the Roman ruins, and

old scenes of history, talking of matters in which he is personally

concerned, yet which are as historic as anything around us. He is

singularly little changed; the more I see him, the more I get him back,

just such as he was in our youth. This morning, his face, air, and smile

were so wonderfully like himself of old, that at least thirty years are

annihilated.

Zenobia's manacles serve as bracelets; a very ingenious and suggestive

idea.

March 18th.--I went to the sculpture-gallery of the Capitol yesterday,

and saw, among other things, the Venus in her secret cabinet. This was

my second view of her: the first time, I greatly admired her; now, she

made no very favorable impression. There are twenty Venuses whom I like

as well, or better. On the whole, she is a heavy, clumsy,

unintellectual, and commonplace figure; at all events, not in good looks

to-day. Marble beauties seem to suffer the same occasional eclipses as

those of flesh and blood. We looked at the Faun, the Dying Gladiator,

and other famous sculptures; but nothing had a glory round it, perhaps

because the sirocco was blowing. These halls of the Capitol have always

had a dreary and depressing effect upon me, very different from those of

the Vatican. I know not why, except that the rooms of the Capitol have a

dingy, shabby, and neglected look, and that the statues are dusty, and

all the arrangements less magnificent than at the Vatican. The corroded

and discolored surfaces of the statues take away from the impression of

immortal youth, and turn Apollo [The Lycian Apollo] himself into an old

stone; unless at rare intervals, when he appears transfigured by a light

gleaming from within.

March 23d.--I am wearing away listlessly these last precious days of my

abode in Rome. U----'s illness is disheartening, and by confining

------, it takes away the energy and enterprise that were the spring of

all our movements. I am weary of Rome, without having seen and known it

as I ought, and I shall be glad to get away from it, though no doubt

there will be many yearnings to return hereafter, and many regrets that I

did not make better use of the opportunities within my grasp. Still, I

have been in Rome long enough to be imbued with its atmosphere, and this

is the essential condition of knowing a place; for such knowledge does

not consist in having seen every particular object it contains. In the

state of mind in which I now stand towards Rome, there is very little

advantage to be gained by staying here longer.

And yet I had a pleasant stroll enough yesterday afternoon, all by

myself, from the Corso down past the Church of St. Andrea della Valle,--

the site where Caesar was murdered,--and thence to the Farnese Palace,

the noble court of which I entered; thence to the Piazza Cenci, where I

looked at one or two ugly old palaces, and fixed on one of them as the

residence of Beatrice's father; then past the Temple of Vesta, and

skirting along the Tiler, and beneath the Aventine, till I somewhat

unexpectedly came in sight of the gray pyramid of Caius Cestius. I went

out of the city gate, and leaned on the parapet that encloses the

pyramid, advancing its high, unbroken slope and peak, where the great

blocks of marble still fit almost as closely to one another as when they

were first laid; though, indeed, there are crevices just large enough for

plants to root themselves, and flaunt and trail over the face of this

great tomb; only a little verdure, however, over a vast space of marble,

still white in spots, but pervadingly turned gray by two thousand years'

action of the atmosphere. Thence I came home by the Caelian, and sat

down on an ancient flight of steps under one of the arches of the

Coliseum, into which the sunshine fell sidelong. It was a delightful

afternoon, not precisely like any weather that I have known elsewhere;

certainly never in America, where it is always too cold or too hot. It,

resembles summer more than anything which we New-Englanders recognize in

our idea of spring, but there was an indescribable something, sweet,

fresh, gentle, that does not belong to summer, and that thrilled and

tickled my heart with a feeling partly sensuous, partly spiritual.

I go to the Bank and read Galignani and the American newspapers; thence I

stroll to the Pincian or to the Medici Gardens; I see a good deal of

General Pierce, and we talk over his Presidential life, which, I now

really think, he has no latent desire nor purpose to renew. Yet he seems

to have enjoyed it while it lasted, and certainly he was in his element

as an administrative man; not far-seeing, not possessed of vast stores of

political wisdom in advance of his occasions, but endowed with a

miraculous intuition of what ought to be done just at the time for

action. His judgment of things about him is wonderful, and his Cabinet

recognized it as such; for though they were men of great ability, he was

evidently the master-mind among them. None of them were particularly his

personal friends when he selected them; they all loved him when they

parted; and he showed me a letter, signed by all, in which they expressed

their feelings of respect and attachment at the close of his

administration. There was a noble frankness on his part, that kept the

atmosphere always clear among them, and in reference to this

characteristic Governor Marcy told him that the years during which he had

been connected with his Cabinet had been the happiest of his life.

Speaking of Caleb Cushing, he told me that the unreliability, the

fickleness, which is usually attributed to him, is an actual

characteristic, but that it is intellectual, not moral. He has such

comprehensiveness, such mental variety and activity, that, if left to

himself, he cannot keep fast hold of one view of things, and so cannot,

without external help, be a consistent man. He needs the influence of a

more single and stable judgment to keep him from divergency, and, on this

condition, he is a most inestimable coadjutor. As regards learning and

ability, he has no superior.

Pierce spoke the other day of the idea among some of his friends that his

life had been planned, from a very early period, with a view to the

station which he ultimately reached. He smiled at the notion, said that

it was inconsistent with his natural character, and that it implied

foresight and dexterity beyond what any mortal is endowed with. I think

so too; but nevertheless, I was long and long ago aware that he cherished

a very high ambition, and that, though he might not anticipate the

highest things, he cared very little about inferior objects. Then as to

plans, I do not think that he had any definite ones; but there was in him

a subtle faculty, a real instinct, that taught him what was good for

him,--that is to say, promotive of his political success,--and made him

inevitably do it. He had a magic touch, that arranged matters with a

delicate potency, which he himself hardly recognized; and he wrought

through other minds so that neither he nor they always knew when and how

far they were under his influence. Before his nomination for the

Presidency I had a sense that it was coming, and it never seemed to me an

accident. He is a most singular character; so frank, so true, so

immediate, so subtle, so simple, so complicated.

I passed by the tower in the Via Portoghese to-day, and observed that the

nearest shop appears to be for the sale of cotton or linen cloth. . . . .

The upper window of the tower was half open; of course, like all or

almost all other Roman windows, it is divided vertically, and each half

swings back on hinges. . . . .

Last week a fritter-establishment was opened in our piazza. It was a

wooden booth erected in the open square, and covered with canvas painted

red, which looked as if it had withstood much rain and sunshine. In

front were three great boughs of laurel, not so much for shade, I think,

as ornament. There were two men, and their apparatus for business was a

sort of stove, or charcoal furnace, and a frying-pan to place over it;

they had an armful or two of dry sticks, some flour, and I suppose oil,

and this seemed to be all. It was Friday, and Lent besides, and possibly

there was some other peculiar propriety in the consumption of fritters

just then. At all events, their fire burned merrily from morning till

night, and pretty late into the evening, and they had a fine run of

custom; the commodity being simply dough, cut into squares or rhomboids,

and thrown into the boiling oil, which quickly turned them to a light

brown color. I sent J----- to buy some, and, tasting one, it resembled

an unspeakably bad doughnut, without any sweetening. In fact, it was

sour, for the Romans like their bread, and all their preparations of

flour, in a state of acetous fermentation, which serves them instead of

salt or other condiment. This fritter-shop had grown up in a night, like

Aladdin's palace, and vanished as suddenly; for after standing through

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, it was gone on Monday morning, and a

charcoal-strewn place on the pavement where the furnace had been was the

only memorial of it. It was curious to observe how immediately it became

a lounging-place for idle people, who stood and talked all day with the

fritter-friers, just as they might at any old shop in the basement, of a

palace, or between the half-buried pillars of the Temple of Minerva,

which had been familiar to them and their remote grandfathers.

April 14th.--Yesterday afternoon I drove with Mr. and Mrs. Story and Mr.

Wilde to see a statue of Venus, which has just been discovered, outside

of the Porta Portese, on the other side of the Tiber. A little distance

beyond the gate we came to the entrance of a vineyard, with a wheel-track

through the midst of it; and, following this, we soon came to a hillside,

in which an excavation had been made with the purpose of building a

grotto for keeping and storing wine. They had dug down into what seemed

to be an ancient bathroom, or some structure of that kind, the excavation

being square and cellar-like, and built round with old subterranean walls

of brick and stone. Within this hollow space the statue had been found,

and it was now standing against one of the walls, covered with a coarse

cloth, or a canvas bag. This being removed, there appeared a headless

marble figure, earth-stained, of course, and with a slightly corroded

surface, but wonderfully delicate and beautiful, the shape, size, and

attitude, apparently, of the Venus de' Medici, but, as we all thought,

more beautiful than that. It is supposed to be the original, from which

the Venus de' Medici was copied. Both arms were broken off, but the

greater part of both, and nearly the whole of one hand, had been found,

and these being adjusted to the figure, they took the well-known position

before the bosom and the middle, as if the fragmentary woman retained her

instinct of modesty to the last. There were the marks on the bosom and

thigh where the fingers had touched; whereas in the Venus de' Medici, if

I remember rightly, the fingers are sculptured quite free of the person.

The man who showed the statue now lifted from a corner a round block of

marble, which had been lying there among other fragments, and this he

placed upon the shattered neck of the Venus; and behold, it was her head

and face, perfect, all but the nose! Even in spite of this mutilation,

it seemed immediately to light up and vivify the entire figure; and,

whatever I may heretofore have written about the countenance of the Venus

de' Medici, I here record my belief that that head has been wrongfully

foisted upon the statue; at all events, it is unspeakably inferior to

this newly discovered one. This face has a breadth and front which are

strangely deficient in the other. The eyes are well opened, most unlike

the buttonhole lids of the Venus de' Medici; the whole head is so much

larger as to entirely obviate the criticism that has always been made on

the diminutive head of the De' Medici statue. If it had but a nose!

They ought to sift every handful of earth that has been thrown out of the

excavation, for the nose and the missing hand and fingers must needs be

there; and, if they were found, the effect would be like the reappearance

of a divinity upon earth. Mutilated as we saw her, it was strangely

interesting to be present at the moment, as it were, when she had just

risen from her long burial, and was shedding the unquenchable lustre

around her which no eye had seen for twenty or more centuries. The earth

still clung about her; her beautiful lips were full of it, till Mr. Story

took a thin chip of wood and cleared it away from between them.

The proprietor of the vineyard stood by; a man with the most purple face

and hugest and reddest nose that I ever beheld in my life. It must have

taken innumerable hogsheads of his thin vintage to empurple his face in

this manner. He chuckled much over the statue, and, I suppose, counts

upon making his fortune by it. He is now awaiting a bid from the Papal

government, which, I believe, has the right of pre-emption whenever any

relics of ancient art are discovered. If the statue could but be

smuggled out of Italy, it might command almost any price. There is not,

I think, any name of a sculptor on the pedestal, as on that of the Venus

de' Medici. A dolphin is sculptured on the pillar against which she

leans. The statue is of Greek marble. It was first found about eight

days ago, but has been offered for inspection only a day or two, and

already the visitors come in throngs, and the beggars gather about the

entrance of the vineyard. A wine shop, too, seems to have been opened on

the premises for the accommodation of this great concourse, and we saw a

row of German artists sitting at a long table in the open air, each with

a glass of thin wine and something to eat before him; for the Germans

refresh nature ten times to other persons once.

How the whole world might be peopled with antique beauty if the Romans

would only dig!

April 19th.--General Pierce leaves Rome this morning for Venice, by way

of Ancona, and taking the steamer thence to Trieste. I had hoped to make

the journey along with him; but U----'s terrible illness has made it

necessary for us to continue here another mouth, and we are thankful that

this seems now to be the extent of our misfortune. Never having had any

trouble before that pierced into my very vitals, I did not know what

comfort there might be in the manly sympathy of a friend; but Pierce has

undergone so great a sorrow of his own, and has so large and kindly a

heart, and is so tender and so strong, that he really did the good, and I

shall always love him the better for the recollection of his

ministrations in these dark days. Thank God, the thing we dreaded did

not come to pass.

Pierce is wonderfully little changed. Indeed, now that he has won and

enjoyed--if there were any enjoyment in it--the highest success that

public life could give him, he seems more like what he was in his early

youth than at any subsequent period. He is evidently happier than I have

ever known him since our college days; satisfied with what he has been,

and with the position in the country that remains to him, after filling

such an office. Amid all his former successes,--early as they came, and

great as they were,--I always perceived that something gnawed within him,

and kept him forever restless and miserable. Nothing he won was worth

the winning, except as a step gained toward the summit. I cannot tell

how early he began to look towards the Presidency; but I believe he would

have died an unhappy man without it. And yet what infinite chances there

seemed to be against his attaining it! When I look at it in one way, it

strikes me as absolutely miraculous; in another, it came like an event

that I had all along expected. It was due to his wonderful tact, which

is of so subtle a character that he himself is but partially sensible

of it.

I have found in him, here in Rome, the whole of my early friend, and even

better than I used to know him; a heart as true and affectionate, a mind

much widened and deepened by his experience of life. We hold just the

same relation to each other as of yore, and we have passed all the

turning-off places, and may hope to go on together still the same dear

friends as long as we live. I do not love him one whit the less for

having been President, nor for having done me the greatest good in his

power; a fact that speaks eloquently in his favor, and perhaps says a

little for myself. If he had been merely a benefactor, perhaps I might

not have borne it so well; but each did his best for the other as friend

for friend.

May 15th.--Yesterday afternoon we went to the Barberini picture-gallery

to take a farewell look at the Beatrice Cenci, which I have twice visited

before since our return from Florence. I attempted a description of it

at my first visit, more than a year ago, but the picture is quite

indescribable and unaccountable in its effect, for if you attempt to

analyze it you can never succeed in getting at the secret of its

fascination. Its peculiar expression eludes a straightforward glance,

and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls upon it

casually, as it were, and without thinking to discover anything, as if

the picture had a life and consciousness of its own, and were resolved

not to betray its secret of grief or guilt, though it wears the full

expression of it when it imagines itself unseen. I think no other such

magical effect can ever have been wrought by pencil. I looked close into

its eyes, with a determination to see all that there was in them, and

could see nothing that might not have been in any young girl's eyes; and

yet, a moment afterwards, there was the expression--seen aside, and

vanishing in a moment--of a being unhumanized by some terrible fate, and

gazing at me out of a remote and inaccessible region, where she was

frightened to be alone, but where no sympathy could reach her. The mouth

is beyond measure touching; the lips apart, looking as innocent as a

baby's after it has been crying. The picture never can be copied. Guido

himself could not have done it over again. The copyists get all sorts of

expression, gay, as well as grievous; some copies have a coquettish air,

a half-backward glance, thrown alluring at the spectator, but nobody ever

did catch, or ever will, the vanishing charm of that sorrow. I hated to

leave the picture, and yet was glad when I had taken my last glimpse,

because it so perplexed and troubled me not to be able to get hold of its

secret.

Thence we went to the Church of the Capuchins, and saw Guido's Archangel.

I have been several times to this church, but never saw the picture

before, though I am familiar with the mosaic copy at St. Peter's, and had

supposed the latter to be an equivalent representation of the original.

It is nearly or quite so as respects the general effect; but there is a

beauty in the archangel's face that immeasurably surpasses the copy,--the

expression of heavenly severity, and a degree of pain, trouble, or

disgust, at being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of

quelling and punishing it. There is something finical in the copy, which

I do not find in the original. The sandalled feet are here those of an

angel; in the mosaic they are those of a celestial coxcomb, treading

daintily, as if he were afraid they would be soiled by the touch of

Lucifer.

After looking at the Archangel we went down under the church, guided

by a fleshy monk, and saw the famous cemetery, where the dead monks of

many centuries back have been laid to sleep in sacred earth from

Jerusalem. . . . .