nance of the ascending Saviour-(in Raphael's Transfiguration)-the lightness of the whole figure, appearing as if it had no physical weight(but I do not like the Moses and Elias)-the soft touch, the Raphaelic mildness in the countenance of John, who, with the other two disciples, is prostrate on the mount: and then, in the lower painting-the poor idiot boy, the group around him, agitated, anxious, and imploring in various ways, suited to the several characters-the beauty of the woman, the mother, I suppose, who kneels beside the child, and, pointing to him, looks at the disciples with an eye to make one weep; on the other hand, the disciples, irresolute, like James and Andrew, and the one with a book-a fine figure- -or like Judas, who, in truth, is like no other, dark, cold, indifferent, and contemptuous-all this lives upon the canvass, and must live always in the memory of all who have seen it. So, also, the Domenichino-Communion of St. Jeromethough the figure of the aged saint, with his naked body, bloodless, livid, lifeless, and almost dead, is disagreeable, yet is it powerfully drawn: and the faces of the men by his side are shaded, sad, and lovely; and the little light that does fall upon them is wonderfully represented; and there is about the whole, a truth and depth of colouring, which makes you feel as if the painting could never fade, but was, indeed, destined to that immortality, which the artist has figuratively gained by it.

From these paintings, I went to the Camere di Raffaelo (the Raphael Chambers), to see his celebrated frescoes: and I yield entirely to the observation, that the power of Raphael is not known in his oil paintings.

The School of Athens here, though it is usually singled out for special admiration, and some of the figures and heads are, doubtless, of the first order, yet appears to be much injured by time, and I cannot, though I have stood a great while before it to-day, feel it to be the greatest thing here. The Heliodorus, Horseman and two Angels, in the second chamber; the Parnassus in the same; the Conflagration of the Borgo San Pietro, in the fourth chamber; and the Victory of Constantine over Maxentius, in the first chamber-are to me the great works. The horseman, especially, seems to me a sort of Apollo Belvidere in painting. He has rushed in, sent by Heaven at the prayer of the high priest Onias, to avenge the intended sacrilege of Heliodorus, prefect of Seleucus, in the pillage of the temple. In the back ground, the interior of the temple is opened to view, and Onias and his brethren are seen kneeling in prayer. It is on the pavement in front of the temple, that the horseman appears, ready to trample beneath the feet of his charger the prostrate Heliodorus. His blue mantle flies back over his shoulder, giving additional life and expression to the muscular and energetic frame which it reveals. But it is in the face that the great power lies. His dark eye is filled with sovereign indignation; his lips are clothed with triumphant wrath; his fine countenance is mantled over with an intense expression, which I cannot better characterize, than by calling it the beauty of power-of power to punish the sacrilegious intruder. The two angels that accompany him are also exquisitely painted, especially in that appearance of lightness-lightness of step, in particular-by which they seem scarcely to touch the pavement of the temple. The fear-stricken group, too, about Heliodorus, is admirably drawn.

I might go on to write many pages about the other pieces: but I am sensible that you will easily excuse such vain attempts at describing what, after all, never can be described, any more than one can take an oration of Demosthenes, and tell in other language what it is.

December 11.-Yesterday I went and lingered awhile on the Tiber, in a sort of dream of doubt whether this could be I—or whether this could be the Tioer by which I was walking. I passed over the river, and came back by the bridge of Cestius, that conducts across the Isle of Tiber-which was formed by the sheaves of Tarquin's harvest field, thrown into the river after his expulsion: so say, at least, the old annals of the early and half-fabulous history of Rome.

On coming over the bridge, I turned to the left into the Jews' quarter-situate on the bank of the river, and walled in from the rest of the city. It is curious to see how peculiar everything is in this little district; the women fairer than the Roman women generally seen in the streets, and all of them having the Jewish female countenancethe keen and dark eye, the colour in the cheek; and the men all showing the national propensity, the love of gain-saying continually, as I passed along by the shops, "Domandi, signore.'

To-day I have been to the church of San Gregorio, to see the rival frescoes of Guido and Domenichino; but they are very much faded, and they will, doubtless, fade from my memory-unless it be by a sweet boy of Domenichino's who, in his fear and agitation at the flagellation of St. Andrew-that is the subject-has pressed close up to his mother, and stands on tiptoe. We saw also the table off which Gregory is said to have eaten; and a fresco representing his sending missionaries to England.

December 12.-I have been to-day through the museum of the Capitol again, and have become a convert entirely to the common opinion about the Dying Gladiator. The truth is, I did not take time enough before, and especially, not enough of that mental time, which is quietness-ease of mind-leisure of the thoughts, to receive the impression. The gladiator has fallen, but with the last effort of his unconquerable resolution, he supports himself with his right hand and arm, and seems to contemplate his sad fate with firmness, but with a feeling of inexpressible bitterness. It is not, however, the bitterness of anger; for death is in his face, and it has tamed down the fiercer passions, and left no expression inconsistent with its own all-subduing power. Though he appears as if he might be a man of an humble and hard lot, yet there is a delicacy spread over the stronger features of his countenance that makes it almost beautiful; you feel as if there were more than the whiteness of the marble in his pale cheek. But while he thus yields to his fate, while the blood flows from his wounded side, and the pulses of life are faint and low, yet he still sustains himself; his hand is firm and strong; his brow is gathered into an expression of unconquerable resolution as well as of unavailing regret; and although when you look at the parted lips, it seems as if you could almost hear the hard breathing that issues from them, yet about the mouth there is, at the same time, the finest expression of indomitable will and invincible fortitude. In short, this is the triumph of mind over the sinkings of nature in its last hour. Everything here invites your respect, rather than your pity; and even if you should find yourself giving a tear to

the dying gladiator, you will feel that it is given quite as much to admiration as to sympathy.

December 13.-I have been to-day among the ruins of the aqueducts, Caracalla's baths, and the palace of the Caesars. I have been, in the way I like best to go, alone. There is something in the presence of these mighty relics that consorts with no human presence. They represent past ages. They strike the mind with a sort of awe, that makes the ordinary tone of conversation seem to be irreverent and profane. Let any one who would feel these ruins, see them alone. Let him listen only to the winter's wind, as it sighs through the leafless trees, or rustles in the tall reeds, or sweeps around broken columns and falling arches, shrill and mournful, as if the voice of centuries past and gone breathed in its melancholy tone. I like to walk about in such places, as if my feet obeyed no impulse but the wayward spirit of my contemplation; stopping or going on, as that spirit moveth me; now leaning against a wall, and then drawing one step after another, as if they did not belong to each other, and scarcely belonged to me; now musing, and now gazing, with none to disturb the act; now breathing a sigh, and then uttering a prayer. And surely there is cause enough for

both. For who can refuse the tribute of his sadness to a desolation so stupendous, so complete; or can help praying sometimes, in such scenes, that everything earthly, low, and selfish, may die away within him!

These aqueducts are glorious ruins, especially as you ride along the Campagna towards evening, and see a glowing western sky through the long line of arches on which they are raised. These immense works then seem to blend with the vastness of the horizon, and to partake of the sublimity of nature. The site of the palace of the Cæsars is worthy of its name; the Campagna and the Apennines on one side, and on the other, the whole of Rome; beneath it, on the left, the Forum; on the right, the mighty Coliseum. With temples and triumphal arches filling up the view around its base, what must it have been, and what ideas might it have awakened in the minds of any but the degenerate emperors who long inhabited it!

December 14.-I attended service at the Gesu e Maria, to hear an English sermon; about which I have nothing to remark, except that the preacher constantly translated the word "repent" in the new Testament, by the words "do penance;" but at the same time explained it as the doctrine of his church, that penance implied penitence as its first principle, its very essence, and that, without which the Catholic church held no penance to be satisfactory.

The interior of this church, like that of a hundred others here, is covered with precious marble, and filled with statues and paintings. Not a few of these works of art are, to be sure, quite ordinary; but I could not help being struck, to-day, with the aspect given to them in a devotional service, by the aid of a little sentiment and imagination. As I gazed around upon them, during the voluntary on the organ and the singing from the orchestra, it seemed as if every statue, and the countenances in every painting, were clothed with fivefold greater expression than before; one might feel as if they represented the hosts of heaven joining in the worship of earth; or, breaking through the barriers of wall and dome, he might behold the spaces of the universe filled with choirs of angels, and resounding with voices of thanksgiving.

CHAPTER XVIII.

VATICAN-LIBRARY -MUSEUM OF STATUES AND ANCIENT REMAINS- APOLLO DI BELVEDERE-ENGLISH COLLEGE-SARCOPHAGUS OF CECILIA METELLA — MAMERTINE PRISON-GARDEN OF SALLUST-ORDINATION SERVICE AT ST. JOHN OF LATERAN'S-THORWALSDEN'S COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS-GUIDO'S ARCHANGEL MICHAEL-PRISON OF THE ROMAN DAUGHTER-CHRISTMAS-SPECTACLE AT S. MARIA MAGGIORE-CHRISTMAS-SERVICE AT ST. PETER'S.

December 15.-I have been to-day again, and for the sixth or eighth time, over the Vatican, the pontifical palace; and I shall put down here the few words more I have to say about it.

I first went through the famous Vatican library, in which the things that interested me most, besides the immense amount of books and manuscripts, and the extent of the rooms, one range of which is twelve hundred feet long, were a fresco of Mengs, and in a small cabinet, a female head of hair, taken from one of the sarcophagi of the tomb of the Scipios.

You

The museum of statues and of ancient remains is immense. first enter a hall of ancient sarcophagi and inscriptions. Many of these inscriptions bear affecting testimony to the sorrows of bereavement the same in all ages. Carissimæ, ""Bene merenti," Venustæ Conjugi," "Optimo viro," are words of frequent occurrence

in these tablets.

Dulcissimæ,'

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In passing on, you come to the celebrated torso; but I never can go into ecstasies about the back of a man.

Before coming to this, however, you may turn to the left into some rooms of ancient busts, many of which are admirable. There is a naturalness of expression in them, that I have never seen in any collection of modern busts; and a variety too. The obtuse, the intellectual, the dull, the gay, pass before you in succession; and there is, especially, a smile upon some of the faces-upon one youth in particular, who shows his whole teeth-that is quite irresistible.

There are, indeed, many statues of children, of various ages, in the museum, which are so full of all the life, sport, drollery, and roguishness of children, that it makes a collection perfectly charming. "The ancients loved children," said a connoisseur whom I heard remarking upon these statues one day; and though it may seem a simple remark enough, one is struck with it, in looking at them.

Equally striking and natural are the statues of animals-dogs, sheep, goats, swine, &c.

The collection of objects, antique, curious, rare, and valuable-of vases, candelabra, baths, sarcophagi, in all kinds of beautiful and polished granite and marble-is immense and indescribable. At any rate, they have never yet been described. The French, when they were here, put numbers on all the works of art in the museum, in preparation for a catalogue: but like many other things which they began, while they were masters of Italy, this has failed to be completed.

But

that which interested me most, among this class of objects, was a mosaic floor, from Cicero's Tusculan villa. Though it is railed in, I was resolved to walk across it, and so I did; and doing so, was much more sure that I had trodden on the very spot on which Cicero had stood, than I shall be, if I visit the ruins of Tusculum.

I must pass over a great number of statues, to say a word of the Laocoon, and the Apollo Belvedere. I have one remark to apply to both, and that is, that the original work, the marble, in both cases, is far more powerful than any casts I have seen. I did not expect this. I did not see why the cast would not give the general, the main expression, intended to be conveyed by the original work. And so indeed it does: and when I saw the cast of the Apollo, in the Boston Atheneum, I thought nothing of the kind could ever strike me more. I was arrested and thrilled through by the very first sight of it, as if pierced with one of the arrows of the god of light. But there certainly is conveyed by the marble, though not a new idea, an expression of the great idea, which is clearly stronger than can be gained from the cast.

What the beauty and power of this unequalled statue is, it would be utterly impossible for me to express; it would be folly to attempt it. No repetition of visits, no preparation for the first visit-no praises beforehand, so prejudicial to the effect of most other works of art-can alter, diminish, or dull at all, the impression of this incomparable production. There it stands, in its unchallenged sovereignty-a god, indeed, in the dominion of the arts-commanding the homage of successive crowds, as they pass before it in successive centuries-without an equal, rival, or competitor, in all the works of the human hand. What a divinity of beauty, what a sovereignty of intellect, what dignity of conscious power, is stamped upon every feature! What an intensity of expression concentrates itself, as it were, upon every point of the Countenance, and yet spreads itself over the whole! You can hardly persuade yourself, as you gaze upon it, that there is not an actual glow upon the cheek and brow. For my own part, I am paralysed by this wonderful work, so often as I see it. I sit down and gaze upon it, in a sort of revery, and do not know but I sometimes say aloud, "Oh! Heaven!"—for really it is difficult to resist exclamations and tears.

is

December 19.-This morning I passed two or three hours at the English College. It is a Catholic institution, designed to educate young men for service in England, and has twenty or thirty students. As I happened to be with Dr. Wiseman, the rector, at the dinner hour, halfpast twelve o'clock, I went down with him to the Commons' Hall. I observed, as we entered, that one of the young men was reading aloud from a desk, and found, on inquiry, that this is their custom, both at dinner and supper; though the rule is suspended when a stranger present. At the close of dinner, we all passed from the hall to the chapel, where they knelt down for ten or fifteen minutes, in silent devotion. This service is voluntary, both as to the duration and the meditations of each individual-there being no liturgy or form for the guidance of their private thoughts—and I confess it seemed to me a very beautiful and touching service. I wish religion were stamped, more than it is with us Protestants, upon the whole face of life.

As I passed by the Farnese palace, I went into the court to see the sarcophagus of Cecilia Metella. Alas! to " "what abhorred uses may

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