February 25th.--We went this forenoon to the Palazzo Borghese, which is

situated on a street that runs at right angles with the Corso, and very

near the latter. Most of the palaces in Rome, and the Borghese among

them, were built somewhere about the sixteenth century; this in 1590, I

believe. It is an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of a

quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms comprising the picture-gallery

forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the

ground-floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court,

surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series

of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have

many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings

and beautiful frescos, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat

central part of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures

of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished

and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and

seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown

over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the

damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic

tables, which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles

away with age. One beautiful hall, with a ceiling more richly gilded

than the rest, is panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which

are painted pictures, both landscapes and human figures, in oils; so that

the effect is somewhat as if you saw these objects represented in the

mirrors. These glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the

first building of the palace; for they are so much dimmed, that one's own

figure appears indistinct in them, and more difficult to be traced than

the pictures which cover them half over. It was very comfortless,--

indeed, I suppose nobody ever thought of being comfortable there, since

the house was built,--but especially uncomfortable on a chill, damp day

like this. My fingers were quite numb before I got half-way through the

suite of apartments, in spite of a brazier of charcoal which was

smouldering into ashes in two or three of the rooms. There was not, so

far as I remember, a single fireplace in the suite. A considerable

number of visitors--not many, however--were there; and a good many

artists; and three or four ladies among them were making copies of the

more celebrated pictures, and in all or in most cases missing the

especial points that made their celebrity and value. The Prince Borghese

certainly demeans himself like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing

open this invaluable collection to the public to see, and for artists to

carry away with them, and diffuse all over the world, so far as their own

power and skill will permit. It is open every day of the week, except

Saturday and Sunday, without any irksome restriction or supervision; and

the fee, which custom requires the visitor to pay to the custode, has the

good effect of making us feel that we are not intruders, nor received in

an exactly eleemosynary way. The thing could not be better managed.

The collection is one of the most celebrated in the world, and contains

between eight and nine hundred pictures, many of which are esteemed

masterpieces. I think I was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor

could achieve that free and generous surrender of myself which I have

already said is essential to the proper estimate of anything excellent.

Besides, how is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable part

of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time, among a thousand

others, all of which set forth their own claims in an equally good light?

Furthermore, there is an external weariness, and sense of a thousand-fold

sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the

old Italian masters. . . . I remember but one painter, Francia, who

seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects (Christs and

Madonnas) in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and

awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are

full of the beauty of holiness, and evidently wrought out as acts of

devotion, with the deepest sincerity; and are veritable prayers upon

canvas. . . .

I was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to come upon some Dutch

and Flemish pictures, very few, but very welcome; Rubens, Rembrandt,

Vandyke, Paul Potter, Teniers, and others,--men of flesh and blood, and

warm fists, and human hearts. As compared with them, these mighty

Italian masters seem men of polished steel; not human, nor addressing

themselves so much to human sympathies, as to a formed, intellectual

taste.

March 1st.--To-day began very unfavorably; but we ventured out at about

eleven o'clock, intending to visit the gallery of the Colonna Palace.

Finding it closed, however, on account of the illness of the custode, we

determined to go to the picture-gallery of the Capitol; and, on our way

thither, we stepped into Il Gesu, the grand and rich church of the

Jesuits, where we found a priest in white, preaching a sermon, with vast

earnestness of action and variety of tones, insomuch that I fancied

sometimes that two priests were in the agony of sermonizing at once. He

had a pretty large and seemingly attentive audience clustered round him

from the entrance of the church, half-way down the nave; while in the

chapels of the transepts and in the remoter distances were persons

occupied with their own individual devotion. We sat down near the chapel

of St. Ignazio, which is adorned with a picture over the altar, and with

marble sculptures of the Trinity aloft, and of angels fluttering at the

sides. What I particularly noted (for the angels were not very real

personages, being neither earthly nor celestial) was the great ball of

lapis lazuli, the biggest in the world, at the feet of the First Person

in the Trinity. The church is a splendid one, lined with a great variety

of precious marbles, . . . . but partly, perhaps, owing to the dusky

light, as well as to the want of cleanliness, there was a dingy effect

upon the whole. We made but a very short stay, our New England breeding

causing us to feel shy of moving about the church in sermon time.

It rained when we reached the Capitol, and, as the museum was not yet

open, we went into the Palace of the Conservators, on the opposite side

of the piazza. Around the inner court of the ground-floor, partly under

two opposite arcades, and partly under the sky, are several statues and

other ancient sculptures; among them a statue of Julius Caesar, said to

be the only authentic one, and certainly giving an impression of him more

in accordance with his character than the withered old face in the

museum; also, a statue of Augustus in middle age, still retaining a

resemblance to the bust of him in youth; some gigantic heads and hands

and feet in marble and bronze; a stone lion and horse, which lay long at

the bottom of a river, broken and corroded, and were repaired by

Michel Angelo; and other things which it were wearisome to set down.

We inquired of two or three French soldiers the way into the

picture-gallery; but it is our experience that French soldiers in

Rome never know anything of what is around them, not even the name of

the palace or public place over which they stand guard; and though

invariably civil, you might as well put a question to a statue of an old

Roman as to one of them. While we stood under the loggia, however,

looking at the rain plashing into the court, a soldier of the Papal Guard

kindly directed us up the staircase, and even took pains to go with us to

the very entrance of the picture-rooms. Thank Heaven, there are but two

of them, and not many pictures which one cares to look at very long.

Italian galleries are at a disadvantage as compared with English ones,

inasmuch as the pictures are not nearly such splendid articles of

upholstery; though, very likely, having undergone less cleaning and

varnishing, they may retain more perfectly the finer touches of the

masters. Nevertheless, I miss the mellow glow, the rich and mild

external lustre, and even the brilliant frames of the pictures I have

seen in England. You feel that they have had loving care taken of them;

even if spoiled, it is because they have been valued so much. But these

pictures in Italian galleries look rusty and lustreless, as far as the

exterior is concerned; and, really, the splendor of the painting, as a

production of intellect and feeling, has a good deal of difficulty in

shining through such clouds.

There is a picture at the Capitol, the "Rape of Europa," by Paul

Veronese, that would glow with wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a

magnificent frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish; and it is a

kind of picture that would not be desecrated, as some deeper and holier

ones might be, by any splendor of external adornment that could be

bestowed on it. It is deplorable and disheartening to see it in faded

and shabby plight,--this joyous, exuberant, warm, voluptuous work. There

is the head of a cow, thrust into the picture, and staring with wild,

ludicrous wonder at the godlike bull, so as to introduce quite a new

sentiment.

Here, and at the Borghese Palace, there were some pictures by Garofalo,

an artist of whom I never heard before, but who seemed to have been a man

of power. A picture by Marie Subleyras--a miniature copy from one by her

husband, of the woman anointing the feet of Christ--is most delicately

and beautifully finished, and would be an ornament to a drawing-room; a

thing that could not truly be said of one in a hundred of these grim

masterpieces. When they were painted life was not what it is now, and

the artists had not the same ends in view. . . . It depresses the

spirits to go from picture to picture, leaving a portion of your vital

sympathy at every one, so that you come, with a kind of half-torpid

desperation, to the end. On our way down the staircase we saw several

noteworthy bas-reliefs, and among them a very ancient one of Curtius

plunging on horseback into the chasm in the Forum. It seems to me,

however, that old sculpture affects the spirits even more dolefully than

old painting; it strikes colder to the heart, and lies heavier upon it,

being marble, than if it were merely canvas.

My wife went to revisit the museum, which we had already seen, on the

other side of the piazza; but, being cold, I left her there, and went out

to ramble in the sun; for it was now brightly, though fitfully, shining

again. I walked through the Forum (where a thorn thrust itself out and

tore the sleeve of my talma) and under the Arch of Titus, towards the

Coliseum. About a score of French drummers were beating a long, loud

roll-call, at the base of the Coliseum, and under its arches; and a score

of trumpeters responded to these, from the rising ground opposite the

Arch of Constantine; and the echoes of the old Roman ruins, especially

those of the Palace of the Caesars, responded to this martial uproar of

the barbarians. There seemed to be no cause for it; but the drummers

beat, and the trumpeters blew, as long as I was within hearing.

I walked along the Appian Way as far as the Baths of Caracalla. The

Palace of the Caesars, which I have never yet explored, appears to be

crowned by the walls of a convent, built, no doubt, out of some of the

fragments that would suffice to build a city; and I think there is

another convent among the baths. The Catholics have taken a peculiar

pleasure in planting themselves in the very citadels of paganism, whether

temples or palaces. There has been a good deal of enjoyment in the

destruction of old Rome. I often think so when I see the elaborate pains

that have been taken to smash and demolish some beautiful column, for no

purpose whatever, except the mere delight of annihilating a noble piece

of work. There is something in the impulse with which one sympathizes;

though I am afraid the destroyers were not sufficiently aware of the

mischief they did to enjoy it fully. Probably, too, the early Christians

were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan temples, before the

happy thought occurred of converting them into churches.

March 3d.--This morning was U----'s birthday, and we celebrated it by

taking a barouche, and driving (the whole family) out on the Appian Way

as far as the tomb of Cecilia Metella. For the first time since we came

to Rome, the weather was really warm,--a kind of heat producing languor

and disinclination to active movement, though still a little breeze which

was stirring threw an occasional coolness over us, and made us distrust

the almost sultry atmosphere. I cannot think the Roman climate healthy

in any of its moods that I have experienced.

Close on the other side of the road are the ruins of a Gothic chapel,

little more than a few bare walls and painted windows, and some other

fragmentary structures which we did not particularly examine. U---- and

I clambered through a gap in the wall, extending from the basement of the

tomb, and thus, getting into the field beyond, went quite round the

mausoleum and the remains of the castle connected with it. The latter,

though still high and stalwart, showed few or no architectural features

of interest, being built, I think, principally of large bricks, and not

to be compared to English ruins as a beautiful or venerable object.

A little way beyond Cecilia Metella's tomb, the road still shows a

specimen of the ancient Roman pavement, composed of broad, flat

flagstones, a good deal cracked and worn, but sound enough, probably, to

outlast the little cubes which make the other portions of the road so

uncomfortable. We turned back from this point and soon re-entered the

gate of St. Sebastian, which is flanked by two small towers, and just

within which is the old triumphal arch of Drusus,--a sturdy construction,

much dilapidated as regards its architectural beauty, but rendered far

more picturesque than it could have been in its best days by a crown of

verdure on its head. Probably so much of the dust of the highway has

risen in clouds and settled there, that sufficient soil for shrubbery to

root itself has thus been collected, by small annual contributions, in

the course of two thousand years. A little farther towards the city we

turned aside from the Appian Way, and came to the site of some ancient

Columbaria, close by what seemed to partake of the character of a villa

and a farm-house. A man came out of the house and unlocked a door in a

low building, apparently quite modern; but on entering we found ourselves

looking into a large, square chamber, sunk entirely beneath the surface

of the ground. A very narrow and steep staircase of stone, and evidently

ancient, descended into this chamber; and, going down, we found the walls

hollowed on all sides into little semicircular niches, of which, I

believe, there were nine rows, one above another, and nine niches in

each row. Thus they looked somewhat like the little entrances to a

pigeon-house, and hence the name of Columbarium. Each semicircular niche

was about a foot in its semidiameter. In the centre of this subterranean

chamber was a solid square column, or pier, rising to the roof, and

containing other niches of the same pattern, besides one that was high

and deep, rising to the height of a man from the floor on each of the

four sides. In every one of the semicircular niches were two round holes

covered with an earthen plate, and in each hole were ashes and little

fragments of bones,--the ashes and bones of the dead, whose names were

inscribed in Roman capitals on marble slabs inlaid into the wall over

each individual niche. Very likely the great ones in the central pier

had contained statues, or busts, or large urns; indeed, I remember that

some such things were there, as well as bas-reliefs in the walls; but

hardly more than the general aspect of this strange place remains in my

mind. It was the Columbarium of the connections or dependants of the

Caesars; and the impression left on me was, that this mode of disposing

of the dead was infinitely preferable to any which has been adopted since

that day. The handful or two of dry dust and bits of dry bones in each

of the small round holes had nothing disgusting in them, and they are no

drier now than they were when first deposited there. I would rather have

my ashes scattered over the soil to help the growth of the grass and

daisies; but still I should not murmur much at having them decently

pigeon-holed in a Roman tomb.

After ascending out of this chamber of the dead, we looked down into

another similar one, containing the ashes of Pompey's household, which

was discovered only a very few years ago. Its arrangement was the same

as that first described, except that it had no central pier with a

passage round it, as the former had.

While we were down in the first chamber the proprietor of the spot--a

half-gentlemanly and very affable kind of person--came to us, and

explained the arrangements of the Columbarium, though, indeed, we

understood them better by their own aspect than by his explanation. The

whole soil around his dwelling is elevated much above the level of the

road, and it is probable that, if he chose to excavate, he might bring to

light many more sepulchral chambers, and find his profit in them too, by

disposing of the urns and busts. What struck me as much as anything was

the neatness of these subterranean apartments, which were quite as fit to

sleep in as most of those occupied by living Romans; and, having

undergone no wear and tear, they were in as good condition as on the day

they were built.

In this Columbarium, measuring about twenty feet square, I roughly

estimate that there have been deposited together the remains of at least

seven or eight hundred persons, reckoning two little heaps of bones and

ashes in each pigeon-hole, nine pigeon-holes in each row, and nine rows

on each side, besides those on the middle pier. All difficulty in

finding space for the dead would be obviated by returning to the ancient

fashion of reducing them to ashes,--the only objection, though a very

serious one, being the quantity of fuel that it would require. But

perhaps future chemists may discover some better means of consuming or

dissolving this troublesome mortality of ours.

We got into the carriage again, and, driving farther towards the city,

came to the tomb of the Scipios, of the exterior of which I retain no

very definite idea. It was close upon the Appian Way, however, though

separated from it by a high fence, and accessible through a gateway,

leading into a court. I think the tomb is wholly subterranean, and that

the ground above it is covered with the buildings of a farm-house; but of

this I cannot be certain, as we were led immediately into a dark,

underground passage, by an elderly peasant, of a cheerful and affable

demeanor. As soon as he had brought us into the twilight of the tomb, he

lighted a long wax taper for each of us, and led us groping into blacker

and blacker darkness. Even little R----- followed courageously in the

procession, which looked very picturesque as we glanced backward or

forward, and beheld a twinkling line of seven lights, glimmering faintly

on our faces, and showing nothing beyond. The passages and niches of the

tomb seem to have been hewn and hollowed out of the rock, not built by

any art of masonry; but the walls were very dark, almost black, and our

tapers so dim that I could not gain a sufficient breadth of view to

ascertain what kind of place it was. It was very dark, indeed; the

Mammoth Cave of Kentucky could not be darker. The rough-hewn roof was

within touch, and sometimes we had to stoop to avoid hitting our heads;

it was covered with damps, which collected and fell upon us in occasional

drops. The passages, besides being narrow, were so irregular and

crooked, that, after going a little way, it would have been impossible to

return upon our steps without the help of the guide; and we appeared to

be taking quite an extensive ramble underground, though in reality I

suppose the tomb includes no great space. At several turns of our dismal

way, the guide pointed to inscriptions in Roman capitals, commemorating

various members of the Scipio family who were buried here; among them, a

son of Scipio Africanus, who himself had his death and burial in a

foreign land. All these inscriptions, however, are copies,--the

originals, which were really found here, having been removed to the

Vatican. Whether any bones and ashes have been left, or whether any were

found, I do not know. It is not, at all events, a particularly

interesting spot, being such shapeless blackness, and a mere dark hole,

requiring a stronger illumination than that of our tapers to distinguish

it from any other cellar. I did, at one place, see a sort of frieze,

rather roughly sculptured; and, as we returned towards the twilight of

the entrance-passage, I discerned a large spider, who fled hastily away

from our tapers,--the solitary living inhabitant of the tomb of the

Scipios.

One visit that we made, and I think it was before entering the city

gates, I forgot to mention. It was to an old edifice, formerly called

the Temple of Bacchus, but now supposed to have been the Temple of Virtue

and Honor. The interior consists of a vaulted hall, which was converted

from its pagan consecration into a church or chapel, by the early

Christians; and the ancient marble pillars of the temple may still be

seen built in with the brick and stucco of the later occupants. There is

an altar, and other tokens of a Catholic church, and high towards the

ceiling, there are some frescos of saints or angels, very curious

specimens of mediaeval, and earlier than mediaeval art. Nevertheless,

the place impressed me as still rather pagan than Christian. What is

most remarkable about this spot or this vicinity lies in the fact that

the Fountain of Egeria was formerly supposed to be close at hand; indeed,

the custode of the chapel still claims the spot as the identical one

consecrated by the legend. There is a dark grove of trees, not far from

the door of the temple; but Murray, a highly essential nuisance on such

excursions as this, throws such overwhelming doubt, or rather

incredulity, upon the site, that I seized upon it as a pretext for not

going thither. In fact, my small capacity for sight-seeing was already

more than satisfied.

On account of ------ I am sorry that we did not see the grotto, for her

enthusiasm is as fresh as the waters of Egeria's well can be, and she has

poetical faith enough to light her cheerfully through all these mists of

incredulity.

Our visits to sepulchral places ended with Scipio's tomb, whence we

returned to our dwelling, and Miss M------ came to dine with us.

March 10th.--On Saturday last, a very rainy day, we went to the Sciarra

Palace, and took U---- with us. It is on the Corso, nearly opposite to

the Piazza Colonna. It has (Heaven be praised!) but four rooms of

pictures, among which, however, are several very celebrated ones. Only a

few of these remain in my memory,--Raphael's "Violin Player," which I am

willing to accept as a good picture; and Leonardo da Vinci's "Vanity and

Modesty," which also I can bring up before my mind's eye, and find it

very beautiful, although one of the faces has an affected smile, which I

have since seen on another picture by the same artist, Joanna of Aragon.

The most striking picture in the collection, I think, is Titian's "Bella

Donna,"--the only one of Titian's works that I have yet seen which makes

an impression on me corresponding with his fame. It is a very splendid

and very scornful lady, as beautiful and as scornful as Gainsborough's

Lady Lyndoch, though of an entirely different type. There were two

Madonnas by Guido, of which I liked the least celebrated one best; and

several pictures by Garofalo, who always produces something noteworthy.

All the pictures lacked the charm (no doubt I am a barbarian to think it

one) of being in brilliant frames, and looked as if it were a long, long

while since they were cleaned or varnished. The light was so scanty,

too, on that heavily clouded day, and in those gloomy old rooms of the

palace, that scarcely anything could be fairly made out.

[I cannot refrain from observing here, that Mr. Hawthorne's inexorable

demand for perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy

pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond

measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the

keenest apprehension. The usual careless observation of people both of

the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect

world. But the insight which Mr. Hawthorne possessed was only equalled

by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived,

from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intellectual. It is not,

therefore, mere love of upholstery that impels him to ask for perfect

settings to priceless gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which

always made me feel that "the New Jerusalem," "even like a jasper stone,

clear as crystal," "where shall in no wise enter anything that defileth,

neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy

him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. It may give an idea of

this exquisite nicety of feeling to mention, that one day he took in his

fingers a half-bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an

infinite joy, remarked, "This is perfect. On earth a flower only can be

perfect."--ED.]

The palace is about two hundred and fifty years old, and looks as if it

had never been a very cheerful place; most shabbily and scantily

furnished, moreover, and as chill as any cellar. There is a small

balcony, looking down on the Corso, which probably has often been filled

with a merry little family party, in the carnivals of days long past. It

has faded frescos, and tarnished gilding, and green blinds, and a few

damask chairs still remain in it.

On Monday we all went to the sculpture-gallery of the Vatican, and saw as

much of the sculpture as we could in the three hours during which the

public are admissible. There were a few things which I really enjoyed,

and a few moments during which I really seemed to see them; but it is in

vain to attempt giving the impression produced by masterpieces of art,

and most in vain when we see them best. They are a language in

themselves, and if they could be expressed as well any way except by

themselves, there would have been no need of expressing those particular

ideas and sentiments by sculpture. I saw the Apollo Belvedere as

something ethereal and godlike; only for a flitting moment, however, and

as if he had alighted from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight,

and then had withdrawn himself again. I felt the Laocoon very

powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange

calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the

sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of Niagara, which

does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and

ever. I have not had so good a day as this (among works of art) since we

came to Rome; and I impute it partly to the magnificence of the

arrangements of the Vatican,--its long vistas and beautiful courts, and

the aspect of immortality which marble statues acquire by being kept free

from dust. A very hungry boy, seeing in one of the cabinets a vast

porphyry vase, forty-four feet in circumference, wished that he had it

full of soup.

Yesterday, we went to the Pamfili Doria Palace, which, I believe, is the

most splendid in Rome. The entrance is from the Corso into a court,

surrounded by a colonnade, and having a space of luxuriant verdure and

ornamental shrubbery in the centre. The apartments containing pictures

and sculptures are fifteen in number, and run quite round the court in

the first piano,--all the rooms, halls, and galleries of beautiful

proportion, with vaulted roofs, some of which glow with frescos; and all

are colder and more comfortless than can possibly be imagined without

having been in them. The pictures, most of them, interested me very

little. I am of opinion that good pictures are quite as rare as good

poets; and I do not see why we should pique ourselves on admiring any but

the very best. One in a thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause

of men, from generation to generation, till its colors fade or blacken

out of sight, and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in

garrets, or painted over by newer artists, just as tolerable poets are

shelved when their little day is over. Nevertheless, there was one long

gallery containing many pictures that I should be glad to see again under

more favorable circumstances, that is, separately, and where I might

contemplate them quite undisturbed, reclining in an easy-chair. At one

end of the long vista of this gallery is a bust of the present Prince

Doria, a smooth, sharp-nosed, rather handsome young man, and at the other

end his princess, an English lady of the Talbot family, apparently a

blonde, with a simple and sweet expression. There is a noble and

striking portrait of the old Venetian admiral, Andrea Doria, by Sebastian

del Piombo, and some other portraits and busts of the family.

In the whole immense range of rooms I saw but a single fireplace, and

that so deep in the wall that no amount of blaze would raise the

atmosphere of the room ten degrees. If the builder of the palace, or any

of his successors, have committed crimes worthy of Tophet, it would be a

still worse punishment for him to wander perpetually through this suite

of rooms on the cold floors of polished brick tiles or marble or mosaic,

growing a little chiller and chiller through every moment of eternity,--

or, at least, till the palace crumbles down upon him.

Neither would it assuage his torment in the least to be compelled to gaze

up at the dark old pictures,--the ugly ghosts of what may once have been

beautiful. I am not going to try any more to receive pleasure from a

faded, tarnished, lustreless picture, especially if it be a landscape.

There were two or three landscapes of Claude in this palace, which I

doubt not would have been exquisite if they had been in the condition of

those in the British National Gallery; but here they looked most forlorn,

and even their sunshine was sunless. The merits of historical painting

may be quite independent of the attributes that give pleasure, and a

superficial ugliness may even heighten the effect; but not so of

landscapes.

Via Porta, Palazzo Larazani, March 11th.--To-day we called at Mr.

Thompson's studio, and . . . . he had on the easel a little picture of

St. Peter released from prison by the angel, which I saw once before. It

is very beautiful indeed, and deeply and spiritually conceived, and I

wish I could afford to have it finished for myself. I looked again, too,

at his Georgian slave, and admired it as much as at first view; so very

warm and rich it is, so sensuously beautiful, and with an expression of

higher life and feeling within. I do not think there is a better painter

than Mr. Thompson living,--among Americans at least; not one so earnest,

faithful, and religious in his worship of art. I had rather look at his

pictures than at any except the very finest of the old masters, and,

taking into consideration only the comparative pleasure to be derived, I

would not except more than one or two of those. In painting, as in

literature, I suspect there is something in the productions of the day

that takes the fancy more than the works of any past age,--not greater

merit, nor nearly so great, but better suited to this very present time.

After leaving him, we went to the Piazza de' Termini, near the Baths of

Diocletian, and found our way with some difficulty to Crawford's studio.

It occupies several great rooms, connected with the offices of the Villa

Negroni; and all these rooms were full of plaster casts and a few works

in marble,--principally portions of his huge Washington monument, which

he left unfinished at his death. Close by the door at which we entered

stood a gigantic figure of Mason, in bag-wig, and the coat, waistcoat,

breeches, and knee and shoe buckles of the last century, the enlargement

of these unheroic matters to far more than heroic size having a very odd

effect. There was a figure of Jefferson on the same scale; another of

Patrick Henry, besides a horse's head, and other portions of the

equestrian group which is to cover the summit of the monument. In one of

the rooms was a model of the monument itself, on a scale, I should think,

of about an inch to afoot. It did not impress me as having grown out of

any great and genuine idea in the artist's mind, but as being merely an

ingenious contrivance enough. There were also casts of statues that

seemed to be intended for some other monument referring to Revolutionary

times and personages; and with these were intermixed some ideal statues

or groups,--a naked boy playing marbles, very beautiful; a girl with

flowers; the cast of his Orpheus, of which I long ago saw the marble

statue; Adam and Eve; Flora,--all with a good deal of merit, no doubt,

but not a single one that justifies Crawford's reputation, or that

satisfies me of his genius. They are but commonplaces in marble and

plaster, such as we should not tolerate on a printed page. He seems to

have been a respectable man, highly respectable, but no more, although

those who knew him seem to have rated him much higher. It is said that

he exclaimed, not very long before his death, that he had fifteen years

of good work still in him; and he appears to have considered all his life

and labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great things that he

was to achieve hereafter. I should say, on the contrary, that he was a

man who had done his best, and had done it early; for his Orpheus is

quite as good as anything else we saw in his studio.

People were at work chiselling several statues in marble from the plaster

models,--a very interesting process, and which I should think a doubtful

and hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no risk of mischief,

and that the model is sure to be accurately repeated in the marble.

These persons, who do what is considered the mechanical part of the

business, are often themselves sculptors, and of higher reputation than

those who employ them.

It is rather sad to think that Crawford died before he could see his

ideas in the marble, where they gleam with so pure and celestial a light

as compared with the plaster. There is almost as much difference as

between flesh and spirit.

The floor of one of the rooms was burdened with immense packages,

containing parts of the Washington monument, ready to be forwarded to its

destination. When finished, and set up, it will probably make a very

splendid appearance, by its height, its mass, its skilful execution; and

will produce a moral effect through its images of illustrious men, and

the associations that connect it with our Revolutionary history; but I do

not think it will owe much to artistic force of thought or depth of

feeling. It is certainly, in one sense, a very foolish and illogical

piece of work,--Washington, mounted on an uneasy steed, on a very narrow

space, aloft in the air, whence a single step of the horse backward,

forward, or on either side, must precipitate him; and several of his

contemporaries standing beneath him, not looking up to wonder at his

predicament, but each intent on manifesting his own personality to the

world around. They have nothing to do with one another, nor with

Washington, nor with any great purpose which all are to work out

together.

March 14th.--On Friday evening I dined at Mr. T. B. Read's, the poet and

artist, with a party composed of painters and sculptors,--the only

exceptions being the American banker and an American tourist who has

given Mr. Read a commission. Next to me at table sat Mr. Gibson, the

English sculptor, who, I suppose, stands foremost in his profession at

this day. He must be quite an old man now, for it was whispered about

the table that he is known to have been in Rome forty-two years ago, and

he himself spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here, before he

once returned home. I should hardly take him to be sixty, however,

his hair being more dark than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his

features unwithered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is somewhat

venerable. . . .

He has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a bachelor, has

doubtless spent a calm life among his clay and marble, meddling little

with the world, and entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio.

He did not talk a great deal; but enough to show that he is still an

Englishman in many sturdy traits, though his accent has something foreign

about it. His conversation was chiefly about India, and other topics of

the day, together with a few reminiscences of people in Liverpool, where

he once resided. There was a kind of simplicity both in his manner and

matter, and nothing very remarkable in the latter. . . .

The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the

Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare

none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old

Pre-Raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely

omit in their imitations. In his own art, he said the aim should be to

find out the principles on which the Greek sculptors wrought, and to do

the work of this day on those principles and in their spirit; a fair

doctrine enough, I should think, but which Mr. Gibson can scarcely be

said to practise. . . . The difference between the Pre-Raphaelites and

himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists and realists, in a

certain sense, and he a pagan idealist. Methinks they have hold of the

best end of the matter.

March 18th.--To-day, it being very bright and mild, we set out, at noon,

for an expedition to the Temple of Vesta, though I did not feel much

inclined for walking, having been ill and feverish for two or three days

past with a cold, which keeps renewing itself faster than I can get rid

of it. We kept along on this side of the Corso, and crossed the Forum,

skirting along the Capitoline Hill, and thence towards the Circus

Maximus. On our way, looking down a cross street, we saw a heavy arch,

and, on examination, made it out to be the Arch of Janus Quadrifrons,

standing in the Forum Boarium. Its base is now considerably below the

level of the surrounding soil, and there is a church or basilica close

by, and some mean edifices looking down upon it. There is something

satisfactory in this arch, from the immense solidity of its structure.

It gives the idea, in the first place, of a solid mass constructed of

huge blocks of marble, which time can never wear away, nor earthquakes

shake down; and then this solid mass is penetrated by two arched

passages, meeting in the centre. There are empty niches, three in a row,

and, I think, two rows on each face; but there seems to have been very

little effort to make it a beautiful object. On the top is some

brickwork, the remains of a mediaeval fortress built by the Frangipanis,

looking very frail and temporary being brought thus in contact with the

antique strength of the arch.

A few yards off, across the street, and close beside the basilica, is

what appears to be an ancient portal, with carved bas-reliefs, and an

inscription which I could not make out. Some Romans were lying dormant

in the sun, on the steps of the basilica; indeed, now that the sun is

getting warmer, they seem to take advantage of every quiet nook to bask

in, and perhaps to go to sleep.

We had gone but a little way from the arch, and across the Circus

Maximus, when we saw the Temple of Vesta before us, on the hank of the

Tiber, which, however, we could not see behind it. It is a most

perfectly preserved Roman ruin, and very beautiful, though so small that,

in a suitable locality, one would take it rather for a garden-house than

an ancient temple. A circle of white marble pillars, much time-worn and

a little battered, though but one of them broken, surround the solid

structure of the temple, leaving a circular walk between it and the

pillars, the whole covered by a modern roof which looks like wood, and

disgraces and deforms the elegant little building. This roof resembles,

as much as anything else, the round wicker cover of a basket, and gives a

very squat aspect to the temple. The pillars are of the Corinthian

order, and when they were new and the marble snow-white and sharply

carved and cut, there could not have been a prettier object in all Rome;

but so small an edifice does not appear well as a ruin.

Within view of it, and, indeed, a very little way off, is the Temple of

Fortuna Virilis, which likewise retains its antique form in better

preservation than we generally find a Roman ruin, although the Ionic

pillars are now built up with blocks of stone and patches of brickwork,

the whole constituting a church which is fixed against the side of a tall

edifice, the nature of which I do not know.

I forgot to say that we gained admittance into the Temple of Vesta, and

found the interior a plain cylinder of marble, about ten paces across,

and fitted up as a chapel, where the Virgin takes the place of Vesta.

In very close vicinity we came upon the Ponto Rotto, the old Pons Emilius

which was broken down long ago, and has recently been pieced out by

connecting a suspension bridge with the old piers. We crossed by this

bridge, paying a toll of a baioccho each, and stopped in the midst of the

river to look at the Temple of Vesta, which shows well, right on the

brink of the Tiber. We fancied, too, that we could discern, a little

farther down the river, the ruined and almost submerged piers of the

Sublician bridge, which Horatius Cocles defended. The Tiber here whirls

rapidly along, and Horatius must have had a perilous swim for his life,

and the enemy a fair mark at his head with their arrows. I think this is

the most picturesque part of the Tiber in its passage through Rome.

After crossing the bridge, we kept along the right bank of the river,

through the dirty and hard-hearted streets of Trastevere (which have in

no respect the advantage over those of hither Rome), till we reached St.

Peter's. We saw a family sitting before their door on the pavement in

the narrow and sunny street, engaged in their domestic avocations,--the

old woman spinning with a wheel. I suppose the people now begin to live

out of doors. We entered beneath the colonnade of St. Peter's and

immediately became sensible of an evil odor,--the bad odor of our fallen

nature, which there is no escaping in any nook of Rome. . . .

Between the pillars of the colonnade, however, we had the pleasant

spectacle of the two fountains, sending up their lily-shaped gush, with

rainbows shining in their falling spray. Parties of French soldiers, as

usual, were undergoing their drill in the piazza. When we entered the

church, the long, dusty sunbeams were falling aslantwise through the dome

and through the chancel behind it. . . .

March 23d.--On the 21st we all went to the Coliseum, and enjoyed

ourselves there in the bright, warm sun,--so bright and warm that we were

glad to get into the shadow of the walls and under the arches, though,

after all, there was the freshness of March in the breeze that stirred

now and then. J----- and baby found some beautiful flowers growing round

about the Coliseum; and far up towards the top of the walls we saw tufts

of yellow wall-flowers and a great deal of green grass growing along the

ridges between the arches. The general aspect of the place, however, is

somewhat bare, and does not compare favorably with an English ruin both

on account of the lack of ivy and because the material is chiefly brick,

the stone and marble having been stolen away by popes and cardinals to

build their palaces. While we sat within the circle, many people, of

both sexes, passed through, kissing the iron cross which stands in the

centre, thereby gaining an indulgence of seven years, I believe. In

front of several churches I have seen an inscription in Latin,

"INDULGENTIA PLENARIA ET PERPETUA PRO CUNCTIS MORTUIS ET VIVIS"; than

which, it seems to me, nothing more could be asked or desired. The terms

of this great boon are not mentioned.

Leaving the Coliseum, we went and sat down in the vicinity of the Arch of

Constantine, and J----- and R----- went in quest of lizards. J----- soon

caught a large one with two tails; one, a sort of afterthought, or

appendix, or corollary to the original tail, and growing out from it

instead of from the body of the lizard. These reptiles are very

abundant, and J----- has already brought home several, which make their

escape and appear occasionally darting to and fro on the carpet. Since

we have been here, J----- has taken up various pursuits in turn. First

he voted himself to gathering snail-shells, of which there are many

sorts; afterwards he had a fever for marbles, pieces of which he found on

the banks of the Tiber, just on the edge of its muddy waters, and in the

Palace of the Caesars, the Baths of Caracalla, and indeed wherever else

his fancy led him; verde antique, rosso antico, porphyry, giallo antico,

serpentine, sometimes fragments of bas-reliefs and mouldings, bits of

mosaic, still firmly stuck together, on which the foot of a Caesar had

perhaps once trodden; pieces of Roman glass, with the iridescence glowing

on them; and all such things, of which the soil of Rome is full. It

would not be difficult, from the spoil of his boyish rambles, to furnish

what would be looked upon as a curious and valuable museum in America.

Yesterday we went to the sculpture-galleries of the Vatican. I think I

enjoy these noble galleries and their contents and beautiful arrangement

better than anything else in the way of art, and often I seem to have a

deep feeling of something wonderful in what I look at. The Laocoon on

this visit impressed me not less than before; it is such a type of human

beings, struggling with an inextricable trouble, and entangled in a

complication which they cannot free themselves from by their own efforts,

and out of which Heaven alone can help them. It was a most powerful

mind, and one capable of reducing a complex idea to unity, that imagined

this group. I looked at Canova's Perseus, and thought it exceedingly

beautiful, but, found myself less and less contented after a moment or

two, though I could not tell why. Afterwards, looking at the Apollo, the

recollection of the Perseus disgusted me, and yet really I cannot explain

how one is better than the other.

I was interested in looking at the busts of the Triumvirs, Antony,

Augustus, and Lepidus. The first two are men of intellect, evidently,

though they do not recommend themselves to one's affections by their

physiognomy; but Lepidus has the strangest, most commonplace countenance

that can be imagined,--small-featured, weak, such a face as you meet

anywhere in a man of no mark, but are amazed to find in one of the three

foremost men of the world. I suppose that it is these weak and shallow

men, when chance raises them above their proper sphere, who commit

enormous crimes without any such restraint as stronger men would feel,

and without any retribution in the depth of their conscience. These old

Roman busts, of which there are so many in the Vatican, have often a most

lifelike aspect, a striking individuality. One recognizes them as

faithful portraits, just as certainly as if the living originals were

standing beside them. The arrangement of the hair and beard too, in many

cases, is just what we see now, the fashions of two thousand years ago

having come round again.

March 25th.--On Tuesday we went to breakfast at William Story's in the

Palazzo Barberini. We had a very pleasant time. He is one of the most

agreeable men I know in society. He showed us a note from Thackeray, an

invitation to dinner, written in hieroglyphics, with great fun and

pictorial merit. He spoke of an expansion of the story of Blue Beard,

which he himself had either written or thought of writing, in which the

contents of the several chambers which Fatima opened, before arriving at

the fatal one, were to be described. This idea has haunted my mind ever

since, and if it had but been my own I am pretty sure that it would

develop itself into something very rich. I mean to press William Story

to work it out. The chamber of Blue Beard, too (and this was a part of

his suggestion), might be so handled as to become powerfully interesting.

Were I to take up the story I would create an interest by suggesting a

secret in the first chamber, which would develop itself more and more in

every successive hall of the great palace, and lead the wife irresistibly

to the chamber of horrors.

After breakfast, we went to the Barberini Library, passing through the

vast hall, which occupies the central part of the palace. It is the most

splendid domestic hall I have seen, eighty feet in length at least, and

of proportionate breadth and height; and the vaulted ceiling is entirely

covered, to its utmost edge and remotest corners, with a brilliant

painting in fresco, looking like a whole heaven of angelic people

descending towards the floor. The effect is indescribably gorgeous. On

one side stands a Baldacchino, or canopy of state, draped with scarlet

cloth, and fringed with gold embroidery; the scarlet indicating that the

palace is inhabited by a cardinal. Green would be appropriate to a

prince. In point of fact, the Palazzo Barberini is inhabited by a

cardinal, a prince, and a duke, all belonging to the Barberini family,

and each having his separate portion of the palace, while their servants

have a common territory and meeting-ground in this noble hall.

After admiring it for a few minutes, we made our exit by a door on the

opposite side, and went up the spiral staircase of marble to the library,

where we were received by an ecclesiastic, who belongs to the Barberini

household, and, I believe, was born in it. He is a gentle, refined,

quiet-looking man, as well he may be, having spent all his life among

these books, where few people intrude, and few cares can come. He showed

us a very old Bible in parchment, a specimen of the earliest printing,

beautifully ornamented with pictures, and some monkish illuminations of

indescribable delicacy and elaboration. No artist could afford to

produce such work, if the life that he thus lavished on one sheet of

parchment had any value to him, either for what could be done or enjoyed

in it. There are about eight thousand volumes in this library, and,

judging by their outward aspect, the collection must be curious and

valuable; but having another engagement, we could spend only a little

time here. We had a hasty glance, however, of some poems of Tasso, in

his own autograph.

We then went to the Palazzo Galitzin, where dwell the Misses Weston, with

whom we lunched, and where we met a French abbe, an agreeable man, and an

antiquarian, under whose auspices two of the ladies and ourselves took

carriage for the Castle of St. Angelo. Being admitted within the

external gateway, we found ourselves in the court of guard, as I presume

it is called, where the French soldiers were playing with very dirty

cards, or lounging about, in military idleness. They were well behaved

and courteous, and when we had intimated our wish to see the interior of

the castle, a soldier soon appeared, with a large unlighted torch in his

hand, ready to guide us. There is an outer wall, surrounding the solid

structure of Hadrian's tomb; to which there is access by one or two

drawbridges; the entrance to the tomb, or castle, not being at the base,

but near its central height. The ancient entrance, by which Hadrian's

ashes, and those of other imperial personages, were probably brought into

this tomb, has been walled up,--perhaps ever since the last emperor was

buried here. We were now in a vaulted passage, both lofty and broad,

which circles round the whole interior of the tomb, from the base to the

summit. During many hundred years, the passage was filled with earth and

rubbish, and forgotten, and it is but partly excavated, even now;

although we found it a long, long and gloomy descent by torchlight to the

base of the vast mausoleum. The passage was once lined and vaulted with

precious marbles (which are now entirely gone), and paved with fine

mosaics, portions of which still remain; and our guide lowered his

flaming torch to show them to us, here and there, amid the earthy

dampness over which we trod. It is strange to think what splendor and

costly adornment were here wasted on the dead.

After we had descended to the bottom of this passage, and again retraced

our steps to the highest part, the guide took a large cannon-ball, and

sent it, with his whole force, rolling down the hollow, arched way,

rumbling, and reverberating, and bellowing forth long thunderous echoes,

and winding up with a loud, distant crash, that seemed to come from the

very bowels of the earth.

We saw the place, near the centre of the mausoleum, and lighted from

above, through an immense thickness of stone and brick, where the ashes

of the emperor and his fellow-slumberers were found. It is as much as

twelve centuries, very likely, since they were scattered to the winds,

for the tomb has been nearly or quite that space of time a fortress; The

tomb itself is merely the base and foundation of the castle, and, being

so massively built, it serves just as well for the purpose as if it were

a solid granite rock. The mediaeval fortress, with its antiquity of more

than a thousand years, and having dark and deep dungeons of its own, is

but a modern excrescence on the top of Hadrian's tomb.

We now ascended towards the upper region, and were led into the vaults

which used to serve as a prison, but which, if I mistake not, are

situated above the ancient structure, although they seem as damp and

subterranean as if they were fifty feet under the earth. We crept down

to them through narrow and ugly passages, which the torchlight would not

illuminate, and, stooping under a low, square entrance, we followed the

guide into a small, vaulted room,--not a room, but an artificial cavern,

remote from light or air, where Beatrice Cenci was confined before her

execution. According to the abbe, she spent a whole year in this

dreadful pit, her trial having dragged on through that length of time.

How ghostlike she must have looked when she came forth! Guido never

painted that beautiful picture from her blanched face, as it appeared

after this confinement. And how rejoiced she must have been to die at

last, having already been in a sepulchre so long!

Adjacent to Beatrice's prison, but not communicating with it, was that of

her step-mother; and next to the latter was one that interested me almost

as much as Beatrice's,--that of Benvenuto Cellini, who was confined here,

I believe, for an assassination. All these prison vaults are more

horrible than can be imagined without seeing them; but there are worse

places here, for the guide lifted a trap-door in one of the passages, and

held his torch down into an inscrutable pit beneath our feet. It was an

oubliette, a dungeon where the prisoner might be buried alive, and never

come forth again, alive or dead. Groping about among these sad

precincts, we saw various other things that looked very dismal; but at

last emerged into the sunshine, and ascended from one platform and

battlement to another, till we found ourselves right at the feet of the

Archangel Michael. He has stood there in bronze for I know not how many

hundred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty sword, such being

the attitude in which he appeared to one of the popes in a vision, in

token that a pestilence which was then desolating Rome was to be stayed.

There is a fine view from the lofty station over Rome and the whole

adjacent country, and the abbe pointed out the site of Ardea, of

Corioli, of Veii, and other places renowned in story. We were ushered,

too, into the French commandant's quarters in the castle. There is

a large hall, ornamented with frescos, and accessible from this a

drawing-room, comfortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furniture,

and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and other symptoms that the

place had perhaps just been vacated by civilized and kindly people. But

in one corner of the ceiling the abbe pointed out a ring, by which, in

the times of mediaeval anarchy, when popes, cardinals, and barons were

all by the ears together, a cardinal was hanged. It was not an

assassination, but a legal punishment, and he was executed in the best

apartment of the castle as an act of grace.

The fortress is a straight-lined structure on the summit of the immense

round tower of Hadrian's tomb; and to make out the idea of it we must

throw in drawbridges, esplanades, piles of ancient marble balls for

cannon; battlements and embrasures, lying high in the breeze and

sunshine, and opening views round the whole horizon; accommodation for

the soldiers; and many small beds in a large room.

How much mistaken was the emperor in his expectation of a stately, solemn

repose for his ashes through all the coming centuries, as long as the

world should endure! Perhaps his ghost glides up and down disconsolate,

in that spiral passage which goes from top to bottom of the tomb, while

the barbarous Gauls plant themselves in his very mausoleum to keep the

imperial city in awe.

Leaving the Castle of St. Angelo, we drove, still on the same side of the

Tiber, to the Villa Pamfili, which lies a short distance beyond the

walls. As we passed through one of the gates (I think it was that of San

Pancrazio) the abbe pointed out the spot where the Constable de Bourbon

was killed while attempting to scale the walls. If we are to believe

Benvenuto Cellini, it was he who shot the constable. The road to the

villa is not very interesting, lying (as the roads in the vicinity of

Rome often do) between very high walls, admitting not a glimpse of the

surrounding country; the road itself white and dusty, with no verdant

margin of grass or border of shrubbery. At the portal of the villa we

found many carriages in waiting, for the Prince Doria throws open the

grounds to all comers, and on a pleasant day like this they are probably

sure to be thronged. We left our carriage just within the entrance, and

rambled among these beautiful groves, admiring the live-oak trees, and

the stone-pines, which latter are truly a majestic tree, with tall

columnar stems, supporting a cloud-like density of boughs far aloft, and

not a straggling branch between there and the ground. They stand in

straight rows, but are now so ancient and venerable as to have lost the

formal look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that might have

arranged itself almost of its own will. Beneath them is a flower-strewn

turf, quite free of underbrush. We found open fields and lawns,

moreover, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-colored and purple and

golden, and far larger than could be found out of Italy, except in

hot-houses. Violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant. When

we consider that all this floral exuberance occurs in the midst of March,

there does not appear much ground for complaining of the Roman climate;

and so long ago as the first week of February I found daisies among the

grass, on the sunny side of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. At this

very moment I suppose the country within twenty miles of Boston may be

two feet deep with snow, and the streams solid with ice.

We wandered about the grounds, and found them very beautiful indeed;

nature having done much for them by an undulating variety of surface, and

art having added a good many charms, which have all the better effect now

that decay and neglect have thrown a natural grace over them likewise.

There is an artificial ruin, so picturesque that it betrays itself;

weather-beaten statues, and pieces of sculpture, scattered here and

there; an artificial lake, with upgushing fountains; cascades, and

broad-bosomed coves, and long, canal-like reaches, with swans taking

their delight upon them. I never saw such a glorious and resplendent

lustre of white as shone between the wings of two of these swans. It was

really a sight to see, and not to be imagined beforehand. Angels, no

doubt, have just such lustrous wings as those. English swans partake of

the dinginess of the atmosphere, and their plumage has nothing at all to

be compared to this; in fact, there is nothing like it in the world,

unless it be the illuminated portion of a fleecy, summer cloud.

While we were sauntering along beside this piece of water, we were

surprised to see U---- on the other side. She had come hither with E----

S------ and her two little brothers, and with our R-----, the whole under

the charge of Mrs. Story's nursery-maids. U---- and E---- crossed, not

over, but beneath the water, through a grotto, and exchanged greetings

with us. Then, as it was getting towards sunset and cool, we took our

departure; the abbe, as we left the grounds, taking me aside to give me a

glimpse of a Columbarium, which descends into the earth to about the

depth to which an ordinary house might rise above it. These grounds, it

is said, formed the country residence of the Emperor Galba, and he was

buried here after his assassination. It is a sad thought that so much

natural beauty and long refinement of picturesque culture is thrown away,

the villa being uninhabitable during all the most delightful season of

the year on account of malaria. There is truly a curse on Rome and all

its neighborhood.

On our way home we passed by the great Paolina fountain, and were

assailed by many beggars during the short time we stopped to look at it.

It is a very copious fountain, but not so beautiful as the Trevi, taking

into view merely the water-gush of the latter.

March 26th.--Yesterday, between twelve and one, our whole family went to

the Villa Ludovisi, the entrance to which is at the termination of a

street which passes out of the Piazza Barberini, and it is no very great

distance from our own street, Via Porta Pinciana. The grounds, though

very extensive, are wholly within the walls of the city, which skirt

them, and comprise a part of what were formerly the gardens of Sallust.

The villa is now the property of Prince Piombini, a ticket from whom

procured us admission. A little within the gateway, to the right, is a

casino, containing two large rooms filled with sculpture, much of which

is very valuable. A colossal head of Juno, I believe, is considered the

greatest treasure of the collection, but I did not myself feel it to be

so, nor indeed did I receive any strong impression of its excellence. I

admired nothing so much, I think, as the face of Penelope (if it be her

face) in the group supposed also to represent Electra and Orestes. The

sitting statue of Mars is very fine; so is the Arria and Paetus; so are

many other busts and figures.

By and by we left the casino and wandered among the grounds, threading

interminable alleys of cypress, through the long vistas of which we could

see here and there a statue, an urn, a pillar, a temple, or garden-house,

or a bas-relief against the wall. It seems as if there must have been a

time, and not so very long ago,--when it was worth while to spend money

and thought upon the ornamentation of grounds in the neighborhood of

Rome. That time is past, however, and the result is very melancholy; for

great beauty has been produced, but it can be enjoyed in its perfection

only at the peril of one's life. . . . For my part, and judging from my

own experience, I suspect that the Roman atmosphere, never wholesome, is

always more or less poisonous.

We came to another and larger casino remote from the gateway, in which

the Prince resides during two months of the year. It was now under

repair, but we gained admission, as did several other visitors, and saw

in the entrance-hall the Aurora of Guercino, painted in fresco on the

ceiling. There is beauty in the design; but the painter certainly was

most unhappy in his black shadows, and in the work before us they give

the impression of a cloudy and lowering morning which is likely enough to

turn to rain by and by. After viewing the fresco we mounted by a spiral

staircase to a lofty terrace, and found Rome at our feet, and, far off,

the Sabine and Alban mountains, some of them still capped with snow. In

another direction there was a vast plain, on the horizon of which, could

our eyes have reached to its verge, we might perhaps have seen the

Mediterranean Sea. After enjoying the view and the warm sunshine we

descended, and went in quest of the gardens of Sallust, but found no

satisfactory remains of them.

One of the most striking objects in the first casino was a group by

Bernini,--Pluto, an outrageously masculine and strenuous figure, heavily

bearded, ravishing away a little, tender Proserpine, whom he holds aloft,

while his forcible gripe impresses itself into her soft virgin flesh. It

is very disagreeable, but it makes one feel that Bernini was a man of

great ability. There are some works in literature that bear an analogy

to his works in sculpture, when great power is lavished a little outside

of nature, and therefore proves to be only a fashion,--and not

permanently adapted to the tastes of mankind.

March 27th.--Yesterday forenoon my wife and I went to St. Peter's to see

the pope pray at the chapel of the Holy Sacrament. We found a good many

people in the church, but not an inconvenient number; indeed, not so many

as to make any remarkable show in the great nave, nor even in front of

the chapel. A detachment of the Swiss Guard, in their strange,

picturesque, harlequin-like costume, were on duty before the chapel, in

which the wax tapers were all lighted, and a prie-dieu was arranged near

the shrine, and covered with scarlet velvet. On each side, along the

breadth of the side aisle, were placed seats, covered with rich tapestry

or carpeting; and some gentlemen and ladies--English, probably, or

American--had comfortably deposited themselves here, but were compelled

to move by the guards before the pope's entrance. His Holiness should

have appeared precisely at twelve, but we waited nearly half an hour

beyond that time; and it seemed to me particularly ill-mannered in the

pope, who owes the courtesy of being punctual to the people, if not to

St. Peter. By and by, however, there was a stir; the guard motioned to

us to stand away from the benches, against the backs of which we had been

leaning; the spectators in the nave looked towards the door, as if they

beheld something approaching; and first, there appeared some cardinals,

in scarlet skull-caps and purple robes, intermixed with some of the Noble

Guard and other attendants. It was not a very formal and stately

procession, but rather straggled onward, with ragged edges, the

spectators standing aside to let it pass, and merely bowing, or perhaps

slightly bending the knee, as good Catholics are accustomed to do when

passing before the shrines of saints. Then, in the midst of the purple

cardinals, all of whom were gray-haired men, appeared a stout old man,

with a white skull-cap, a scarlet, gold-embroidered cape falling over

his shoulders, and a white silk robe, the train of which was borne up by

an attendant. He walked slowly, with a sort of dignified movement,

stepping out broadly, and planting his feet (on which were red shoes)

flat upon the pavement, as if he were not much accustomed to locomotion,

and perhaps had known a twinge of the gout. His face was kindly

and venerable, but not particularly impressive. Arriving at the

scarlet-covered prie-dieu, he kneeled down and took off his white

skull-cap; the cardinals also kneeled behind and on either side of him,

taking off their scarlet skull-caps; while the Noble Guard remained

standing, six on one side of his Holiness and six on the other. The pope

bent his head upon the prie-dieu, and seemed to spend three or four

minutes in prayer; then rose, and all the purple cardinals, and bishops,

and priests, of whatever degree, rose behind and beside him. Next, he

went to kiss St. Peter's toe; at least I believe he kissed it, but I was

not near enough to be certain; and lastly, he knelt down, and directed

his devotions towards the high altar. This completed the ceremonies, and

his Holiness left the church by a side door, making a short passage into

the Vatican.

I am very glad I have seen the pope, because now he may be crossed out of

the list of sights to be seen. His proximity impressed me kindly and

favorably towards him, and I did not see one face among all his cardinals

(in whose number, doubtless, is his successor) which I would so soon

trust as that of Pio Nono.

This morning I walked as far as the gate of San Paolo, and, on

approaching it, I saw the gray sharp pyramid of Caius Cestius pointing

upward close to the two dark-brown, battlemented Gothic towers of the

gateway, each of these very different pieces of architecture looking the

more picturesque for the contrast of the other. Before approaching the

gateway and pyramid, I walked onward, and soon came in sight of Monte

Testaccio, the artificial hill made of potsherds. There is a gate

admitting into the grounds around the hill, and a road encircling its

base. At a distance, the hill looks greener than any other part of the

landscape, and has all the curved outlines of a natural hill, resembling

in shape a headless sphinx, or Saddleback Mountain, as I used to see it

from Lenox. It is of very considerable height,--two or three hundred

feet at least, I should say,--and well entitled, both by its elevation

and the space it covers, to be reckoned among the hills of Rome. Its

base is almost entirely surrounded with small structures, which seem to

be used as farm-buildings. On the summit is a large iron cross, the

Church having thought it expedient to redeem these shattered pipkins from

the power of paganism, as it has so many other Roman ruins. There was a

pathway up the hill, but I did not choose to ascend it under the hot sun,

so steeply did it clamber up. There appears to be a good depth of soil

on most parts of Monte Testaccio, but on some of the sides you observe

precipices, bristling with fragments of red or brown earthenware, or

pieces of vases of white unglazed clay; and it is evident that this

immense pile is entirely composed of broken crockery, which I should

hardly have thought would have aggregated to such a heap had it all been

thrown here,--urns, teacups, porcelain, or earthen,--since the beginning

of the world.

I walked quite round the hill, and saw, at no great distance from it, the

enclosure of the Protestant burial-ground, which lies so close to the

pyramid of Caius Cestius that the latter may serve as a general monument

to the dead. Deferring, for the present, a visit to the cemetery, or to

the interior of the pyramid, I returned to the gateway of San Paolo, and,

passing through it, took a view of it from the outside of the city wall.

It is itself a portion of the wall, having been built into it by the

Emperor Aurelian, so that about half of it lies within and half without.

The brick or red stone material of the wall being so unlike the marble of

the pyramid, the latter is as distinct, and seems as insulated, as if it

stood alone in the centre of a plain; and really I do not think there is

a more striking architectural object in Rome. It is in perfect

condition, just as little ruined or decayed as on the day when the

builder put the last peak on the summit; and it ascends steeply from its

base, with a point so sharp that it looks as if it would hardly afford

foothold to a bird. The marble was once white, but is now covered with a

gray coating like that which has gathered upon the statues of Castor and

Pollux on Monte Cavallo. Not one of the great blocks is displaced, nor

seems likely to be through all time to come. They rest one upon another,

in straight and even lines, and present a vast smooth triangle, ascending

from a base of a hundred feet, and narrowing to an apex at the height of

a hundred and twenty-five, the junctures of the marble slabs being so

close that, in all these twenty centuries, only a few little tufts of

grass, and a trailing plant or two, have succeeded in rooting themselves

into the interstices.

It is good and satisfactory to see anything which, being built for an

enduring monument, has endured so faithfully, and has a prospect of such

an interminable futurity before it. Once, indeed, it seemed likely to be

buried; for three hundred years ago it had become covered to the depth of

sixteen feet, but the soil has since been dug away from its base, which

is now lower than that of the road which passes through the neighboring

gate of San Paolo. Midway up the pyramid, cut in the marble, is an

inscription in large Roman letters, still almost as legible as when first

wrought.

I did not return through the Paolo gateway, but kept onward, round the

exterior of the wall, till I came to the gate of San Sebastiano. It was

a hot and not a very interesting walk, with only a high bare wall of

brick, broken by frequent square towers, on one side of the road, and a

bank and hedge or a garden wall on the other. Roman roads are most

inhospitable, offering no shade, and no seat, and no pleasant views of

rustic domiciles; nothing but the wheel-track of white dust, without a

foot path running by its side, and seldom any grassy margin to refresh

the wayfarer's feet.

April 3d.--A few days ago we visited the studio of Mr. ------, an

American, who seems to have a good deal of vogue as a sculptor. We found

a figure of Pocahontas, which he has repeated several times; another,

which he calls "The Wept of the Wish-ton-Wish," a figure of a smiling

girl playing with a cat and dog, and a schoolboy mending a pen. These

two last were the only ones that gave me any pleasure, or that really had

any merit; for his cleverness and ingenuity appear in homely subjects,

but are quite lost in attempts at a higher ideality. Nevertheless, he

has a group of the Prodigal Son, possessing more merit than I should have

expected from Mr. ------, the son reclining his head on his father's

breast, with an expression of utter weariness, at length finding perfect

rest, while the father bends his benign countenance over him, and seems

to receive him calmly into himself. This group (the plaster-cast

standing beside it) is now taking shape out of an immense block of

marble, and will be as indestructible as the Laocoon; an idea at once

awful and ludicrous, when we consider that it is at best but a

respectable production. I have since been told that Mr. ------ had

stolen, adopted, we will rather say, the attitude and idea of the group

from one executed by a student of the French Academy, and to be seen

there in plaster. (We afterwards saw it in the Medici Casino.)

Mr. ------ has now been ten years in Italy, and, after all this time, he

is still entirely American in everything but the most external surface of

his manners; scarcely Europeanized, or much modified even in that. He is

a native of ------, but had his early breeding in New York, and might,

for any polish or refinement that I can discern in him, still be a

country shopkeeper in the interior of New York State or New England. How

strange! For one expects to find the polish, the close grain and white

purity of marble, in the artist who works in that noble material; but,

after all, he handles club, and, judging by the specimens I have seen

here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself. Mr. ------ is

sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingenious workman, no doubt; with tact

enough, and not destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his

conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a brook runs, without

the slightest affectation. His naturalness is, in fact, a rather

striking characteristic, in view of his lack of culture, while yet his

life has been concerned with idealities and a beautiful art. What degree

of taste he pretends to, he seems really to possess, nor did I hear a

single idea from him that struck me as otherwise than sensible.

He called to see us last evening, and talked for about two hours in a

very amusing and interesting style, his topics being taken from his own

personal experience, and shrewdly treated. He spoke much of Greenough,

whom he described as an excellent critic of art, but possessed of not the

slightest inventive genius. His statue of Washington, at the Capitol, is

taken precisely from the Plodian Jupiter; his Chanting Cherubs are copied

in marble from two figures in a picture by Raphael. He did nothing that

was original with himself To-day we took R-----, and went to see Miss

------, and as her studio seems to be mixed up with Gibson's, we had an

opportunity of glancing at some of his beautiful works. We saw a Venus

and a Cupid, both of them tinted; and, side by side with them, other

statues identical with these, except that the marble was left in its pure

whiteness.

We found Miss ------ in a little upper room. She has a small, brisk,

wide-awake figure, not ungraceful; frank, simple, straightforward, and

downright. She had on a robe, I think, but I did not look so low, my

attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack of purple or

plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-pockets of which her hands were

thrust as she came forward to greet us. She withdrew one hand, however,

and presented it cordially to my wife (whom she already knew) and to

myself, without waiting for an introduction. She had on a shirt-front,

collar, and cravat like a man's, with a brooch of Etruscan gold, and on

her curly head was a picturesque little cap of black velvet, and her face

was as bright and merry, and as small of feature as a child's. It looked

in one aspect youthful, and yet there was something worn in it too.

There never was anything so jaunty as her movement and action; she was

very peculiar, but she seemed to be her actual self, and nothing affected

or made up; so that, for my part, I gave her full leave to wear what may

suit her best, and to behave as her inner woman prompts. I don't quite

see, however, what she is to do when she grows older, for the decorum of

age will not be consistent with a costume that looks pretty and excusable

enough in a young woman.

Miss ------ led us into a part of the extensive studio, or collection of

studios, where some of her own works were to be seen: Beatrice Cenci,

which did not very greatly impress me; and a monumental design, a female

figure,--wholly draped even to the stockings and shoes,--in a quiet

sleep. I liked this last. There was also a Puck, doubtless full of fun;

but I had hardly time to glance at it. Miss ------ evidently has good

gifts in her profession, and doubtless she derives great advantage from

her close association with a consummate artist like Gibson; nor yet does

his influence seem to interfere with the originality of her own

conceptions. In one way, at least, she can hardly fail to profit,--that

is, by the opportunity of showing her works to the throngs of people who

go to see Gibson's own; and these are just such people as an artist would

most desire to meet, and might never see in a lifetime, if left to

himself. I shook hands with this frank and pleasant little person, and

took leave, not without purpose of seeing her again.

Within a few days, there have been many pilgrims in Rome, who come hither

to attend the ceremonies of holy week, and to perform their vows, and

undergo their penances. I saw two of them near the Forum yesterday, with

their pilgrim staves, in the fashion of a thousand years ago. . . . I

sat down on a bench near one of the chapels, and a woman immediately came

up to me to beg. I at first refused; but she knelt down by my side, and

instead of praying to the saint prayed to me; and, being thus treated as

a canonized personage, I thought it incumbent on me to be gracious to the

extent of half a paul. My wife, some time ago, came in contact with a

pickpocket at the entrance of a church; and, failing in his enterprise

upon her purse, he passed in, dipped his thieving fingers in the holy

water, and paid his devotions at a shrine. Missing the purse, he said

his prayers, in the hope, perhaps, that the saint would send him better

luck another time.

April 10th.--I have made no entries in my journal recently, being

exceedingly lazy, partly from indisposition, as well as from an

atmosphere that takes the vivacity out of everybody. Not much has

happened or been effected. Last Sunday, which was Easter Sunday, I went

with J----- to St. Peter's, where we arrived at about nine o'clock, and

found a multitude of people already assembled in the church. The

interior was arrayed in festal guise, there being a covering of scarlet

damask over the pilasters of the nave, from base to capital, giving an

effect of splendor, yet with a loss as to the apparent dimensions of the

interior. A guard of soldiers occupied the nave, keeping open a wide

space for the passage of a procession that was momently expected, and

soon arrived. The crowd was too great to allow of my seeing it in

detail; but I could perceive that there were priests, cardinals, Swiss

guards, some of them with corselets on, and by and by the pope himself

was borne up the nave, high over the heads of all, sitting under a

canopy, crowned with his tiara. He floated slowly along, and was set

down in the neighborhood of the high altar; and the procession being

broken up, some of its scattered members might be seen here and there,

about the church,--officials in antique Spanish dresses; Swiss guards, in

polished steel breastplates; serving-men, in richly embroidered liveries;

officers, in scarlet coats and military boots; priests, and divers other

shapes of men; for the papal ceremonies seem to forego little or nothing

that belongs to times past, while it includes everything appertaining to

the present. I ought to have waited to witness the papal benediction

from the balcony in front of the church; or, at least, to hear the famous

silver trumpets, sounding from the dome; but J----- grew weary (to say

the truth, so did I), and we went on a long walk, out of the nearest city

gate, and back through the Janiculum, and, finally, homeward over the

Ponto Rotto. Standing on the bridge, I saw the arch of the Cloaca

Maxima, close by the Temple of Vesta, with the water rising within two or

three feet of its keystone.

The same evening we went to Monte Cavallo, where, from the gateway of the

Pontifical Palace, we saw the illumination of St. Peter's. Mr. Akers,

the sculptor, had recommended this position to us, and accompanied us

thither, as the best point from which the illumination could be witnessed

at a distance, without the incommodity of such a crowd as would be

assembled at the Pincian. The first illumination, the silver one, as it

is called, was very grand and delicate, describing the outline of the

great edifice and crowning dome in light; while the day was not yet

wholly departed. As ------ finally remarked, it seemed like the

glorified spirit of the Church, made visible, or, as I will add, it

looked as this famous and never-to-be-forgotten structure will look to

the imaginations of men, through the waste and gloom of future ages,

after it shall have gone quite to decay and ruin: the brilliant, though

scarcely distinct gleam of a statelier dome than ever was seen, shining

on the background of the night of Time. This simile looked prettier in

my fancy than I have made it look on paper.

After we had enjoyed the silver illumination a good while, and when all

the daylight had given place to the constellated night, the distant

outline of St. Peter's burst forth, in the twinkling of an eye, into a

starry blaze, being quite the finest effect that I ever witnessed. I

stayed to see it, however, only a few minutes; for I was quite ill and

feverish with a cold,--which, indeed, I have seldom been free from, since

my first breathing of the genial atmosphere of Rome. This pestilence

kept me within doors all the next day, and prevented me from seeing the

beautiful fireworks that were exhibited in the evening from the platform

on the Pincian, above the Piazza del Popolo.

On Thursday, I paid another visit to the sculpture-gallery of the

Capitol, where I was particularly struck with a bust of Cato the Censor,

who must have been the most disagreeable, stubborn, ugly-tempered,

pig-headed, narrow-minded, strong-willed old Roman that ever lived. The

collection of busts here and at the Vatican are most interesting, many of

the individual heads being full of character, and commending themselves

by intrinsic evidence as faithful portraits of the originals. These

stone people have stood face to face with Caesar, and all the other

emperors, and with statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, and poets of the

antique world, and have been to them like their reflections in a mirror.

It is the next thing to seeing the men themselves.

We went afterwards into the Palace of the Conservatori, and saw, among

various other interesting things, the bronze wolf suckling Romulus and

Remus, who sit beneath her dugs, with open mouths to receive the milk.

On Friday, we all went to see the Pope's Palace on the Quirinal. There

was a vast hall, and an interminable suite of rooms, cased with marble,

floored with marble or mosaics or inlaid wood, adorned with frescos on

the vaulted ceilings, and many of them lined with Gobelin tapestry; not

wofully faded, like almost all that I have hitherto seen, but brilliant

as pictures. Indeed, some of them so closely resembled paintings, that I

could hardly believe they were not so; and the effect was even richer

than that of oil-paintings. In every room there was a crucifix; but I

did not see a single nook or corner where anybody could have dreamed of

being comfortable. Nevertheless, as a stately and solemn residence for

his Holiness, it is quite a satisfactory affair. Afterwards, we went

into the Pontifical Gardens, connected with the palace. They are very

extensive, and laid out in straight avenues, bordered with walls of box,

as impervious as if of stone,--not less than twenty feet high, and

pierced with lofty archways, cut in the living wall. Some of the avenues

were overshadowed with trees, the tops of which bent over and joined one

another from either side, so as to resemble a side aisle of a Gothic

cathedral. Marble sculptures, much weather-stained, and generally

broken-nosed, stood along these stately walks; there were many fountains

gushing up into the sunshine; we likewise found a rich flower-garden,

containing rare specimens of exotic flowers, and gigantic cactuses, and

also an aviary, with vultures, doves, and singing birds. We did not see

half the garden, but, stiff and formal as its general arrangement is, it

is a beautiful place,--a delightful, sunny, and serene seclusion.

Whatever it may be to the pope, two young lovers might find the Garden of

Eden here, and never desire to stray out of its precincts. They might

fancy angels standing in the long, glimmering vistas of the avenues.

It would suit me well enough to have my daily walk along such straight

paths, for I think them favorable to thought, which is apt to be

disturbed by variety and unexpectedness.

April 12th.--We all, except R-----, went to-day to the Vatican, where we

found our way to the Stanze of Raphael, these being four rooms, or halls,

painted with frescos. No doubt they were once very brilliant and

beautiful; but they have encountered hard treatment since Raphael's time,

especially when the soldiers of the Constable de Bourbon occupied these

apartments, and made fires on the mosaic floors. The entire walls and

ceilings are covered with pictures; but the handiwork or designs of

Raphael consist of paintings on the four sides of each room, and include

several works of art. The School of Athens is perhaps the most

celebrated; and the longest side of the largest hall is occupied by a

battle-piece, of which the Emperor Constantine is the hero, and which

covers almost space enough for a real battle-field. There was a

wonderful light in one of the pictures,--that of St. Peter awakened in

his prison, by the angel; it really seemed to throw a radiance into the

hall below. I shall not pretend, however, to have been sensible of any

particular rapture at the sight of these frescos; so faded as they are,

so battered by the mischances of years, insomuch that, through all the

power and glory of Raphael's designs, the spectator cannot but be

continually sensible that the groundwork of them is an old plaster wall.

They have been scrubbed, I suppose,--brushed, at least,--a thousand times

over, till the surface, brilliant or soft, as Raphael left it, must have

been quite rubbed off, and with it, all the consummate finish, and

everything that made them originally delightful. The sterner features

remain, the skeleton of thought, but not the beauty that once clothed it.

In truth, the frescos, excepting a few figures, never had the real touch

of Raphael's own hand upon them, having been merely designed by him, and

finished by his scholars, or by other artists.

The halls themselves are specimens of antique magnificence, paved with

elaborate mosaics; and wherever there is any wood-work, it is richly

carved with foliage and figures. In their newness, and probably for a

hundred years afterwards, there could not have been so brilliant a suite

of rooms in the world.

Connected with them--at any rate, not far distant--is the little Chapel

of San Lorenzo, the very site of which, among the thousands of apartments

of the Vatican, was long forgotten, and its existence only known by

tradition. After it had been walled up, however, beyond the memory of

man, there was still a rumor of some beautiful frescos by Fra Angelico,

in an old chapel of Pope Nicholas V., that had strangely disappeared out

of the palace, and, search at length being made, it was discovered, and

entered through a window. It is a small, lofty room, quite covered over

with frescos of sacred subjects, both on the walls and ceiling, a good

deal faded, yet pretty distinctly preserved. It would have been no

misfortune to me, if the little old chapel had remained still hidden.

We next issued into the Loggie, which consist of a long gallery, or

arcade or colonnade, the whole extent of which was once beautifully

adorned by Raphael. These pictures are almost worn away, and so defaced

as to be untraceable and unintelligible, along the side wall of the

gallery; although traceries of Arabesque, and compartments where there

seem to have been rich paintings, but now only an indistinguishable waste

of dull color, are still to be seen. In the coved ceiling, however,

there are still some bright frescos, in better preservation than any

others; not particularly beautiful, nevertheless. I remember to have

seen (indeed, we ourselves possess them) a series of very spirited and

energetic engravings, old and coarse, of these frescos, the subject being

the Creation, and the early Scripture history; and I really think that

their translation of the pictures is better than the original. On

reference to Murray, I find that little more than the designs is

attributed to Raphael, the execution being by Giulio Romano and other

artists.

Escaping from these forlorn splendors, we went into the

sculpture-gallery, where I was able to enjoy, in some small degree, two

or three wonderful works of art; and had a perception that there were a

thousand other wonders around me. It is as if the statues kept, for the

most part, a veil about them, which they sometimes withdraw, and let

their beauty gleam upon my sight; only a glimpse, or two or three

glimpses, or a little space of calm enjoyment, and then I see nothing but

a discolored marble image again. The Minerva Medica revealed herself

to-day. I wonder whether other people are more fortunate than myself,

and can invariably find their way to the inner soul of a work of art. I

doubt it; they look at these things for just a minute, and pass on,

without any pang of remorse, such as I feel, for quitting them so soon

and so willingly. I am partly sensible that some unwritten rules of

taste are making their way into my mind; that all this Greek beauty has

done something towards refining me, though I am still, however, a very

sturdy Goth. . . .

April 15th.--Yesterday I went with J----- to the Forum, and descended

into the excavations at the base of the Capitol, and on the site of the

Basilica of Julia. The essential elements of old Rome are there:

columns, single, or in groups of two or three, still erect, but battered

and bruised at some forgotten time with infinite pains and labor;

fragments of other columns lying prostrate, together with rich capitals

and friezes; the bust of a colossal female statue, showing the bosom and

upper part of the arms, but headless; a long, winding space of pavement,

forming part of the ancient ascent to the Capitol, still as firm and

solid as ever; the foundation of the Capitol itself, wonderfully massive,

built of immense square blocks of stone, doubtless three thousand years

old, and durable for whatever may be the lifetime of the world; the Arch

of Septimius, Severus, with bas-reliefs of Eastern wars; the Column of

Phocas, with the rude series of steps ascending on four sides to its

pedestal; the floor of beautiful and precious marbles in the Basilica of

Julia, the slabs cracked across,--the greater part of them torn up and

removed, the grass and weeds growing up through the chinks of what

remain; heaps of bricks, shapeless bits of granite, and other ancient

rubbish, among which old men are lazily rummaging for specimens that a

stranger may be induced to buy,--this being an employment that suits the

indolence of a modern Roman. The level of these excavations is about

fifteen feet, I should judge, below the present street, which passes

through the Forum, and only a very small part of this alien surface has

been removed, though there can be no doubt that it hides numerous

treasures of art and monuments of history. Yet these remains do not make

that impression of antiquity upon me which Gothic ruins do. Perhaps it

is so because they belong to quite another system of society and epoch of

time, and, in view of them, we forget all that has intervened betwixt

them and us; being morally unlike and disconnected with them, and not

belonging to the same train of thought; so that we look across a gulf to

the Roman ages, and do not realize how wide the gulf is. Yet in that

intervening valley lie Christianity, the Dark Ages, the feudal system,

chivalry and romance, and a deeper life of the human race than Rome

brought to the verge of the gulf.

To-day we went to the Colonna Palace, where we saw some fine pictures,

but, I think, no masterpieces. They did not depress and dishearten me so

much as the pictures in Roman palaces usually do; for they were in

remarkably good order as regards frames and varnish; indeed, I rather

suspect some of them had been injured by the means adopted to preserve

their beauty. The palace is now occupied by the French Ambassador, who

probably looks upon the pictures as articles of furniture and household

adornment, and does not choose to have squares of black and forlorn

canvas upon his walls. There were a few noble portraits by Vandyke; a

very striking one by Holbein, one or two by Titian, also by Guercino, and

some pictures by Rubens, and other forestieri painters, which refreshed

my weary eyes. But--what chiefly interested me was the magnificent and

stately hall of the palace; fifty-five of my paces in length, besides a

large apartment at either end, opening into it through a pillared space,

as wide as the gateway of a city. The pillars are of giallo antico, and

there are pilasters of the same all the way up and down the walls,

forming a perspective of the richest aspect, especially as the broad

cornice flames with gilding, and the spaces between the pilasters are

emblazoned with heraldic achievements and emblems in gold, and there are

Venetian looking-glasses, richly decorated over the surface with

beautiful pictures of flowers and Cupids, through which you catch the

gleam of the mirror; and two rows of splendid chandeliers extend from end

to end of the hall, which, when lighted up, if ever it be lighted up,

now-a-nights, must be the most brilliant interior that ever mortal eye

beheld. The ceiling glows with pictures in fresco, representing scenes

connected with the history of the Colonna family; and the floor is paved

with beautiful marbles, polished and arranged in square and circular

compartments; and each of the many windows is set in a great

architectural frame of precious marble, as large as the portal of a door.

The apartment at the farther end of the hall is elevated above it, and is

attained by several marble steps, whence it must have been glorious in

former days to have looked down upon a gorgeous throng of princes,

cardinals, warriors, and ladies, in such rich attire as might be worn

when the palace was built. It is singular how much freshness and

brightness it still retains; and the only objects to mar the effect were

some ancient statues and busts, not very good in themselves, and now made

dreary of aspect by their corroded surfaces,--the result of long burial

under ground.