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lonely and sad at that distance, as if almost regretting its own destiny, and weary of its diabolic work. It was with no ordinary feelings I bade it farewell. Those great-and if I may use the term-active features in scenery, always fasten themselves on my affections.

At night we stopped at a most primitive inn; it was built around a court, with the stables under a part of the chambers, adorned with bulrush. carpets, and window curtains, &c., of the same material. The next day we breakfasted at Mola. Not to trouble you with details of the ruins here, and skipping over also the ingratitude of a garrulous old woman, who conducted me round to see the different objects of interest, I mention only the Cenotaph of Cicero, standing near by, erected on the spot where he was murdered. He had a villa here, to which he had retired from the storm of persecution that was darkening over his head. "There is a tide in the affairs of men," and he knew that the ebb of his own had come. At length he heard that messengers were on the way to slay him. Though lying sick and almost helpless, his friends placed him in a litter, and started for the sea, for the purpose of embarking to some distant port. He had reached this spot when the murderers met him. The old orator saw that his hour had come, and prepared himself for the blow. It is said, he met his fate with the composure that became him. His cenotaph consists of three stories, but it is now in ruins. Clambering up its rough and ruined sides, I came very near breaking my neck, and thus making it stand for Cicero and me together. However consoling such an event might have been to my future fame, I was not particularly desirous for such an immediate association of our names.

I was pleased with an illustration of pride in a poor peasant girl that I passed soon after. We overtook three women, two of whom immediately began to beg. The third, a dark-eyed, handsome young creature, carrying a load on the top of her head, moved on with a stately step without deigning us a look. I asked the old women what was her name. They replied, "Elizabetta." So I called out "Elizabetta! Elizabetta!" The old women laughed, but she never turned her head or gave any sign of recognition. I saw the blood mantle in her dark brown cheek

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and her eye flash, and I half regretted my actions, and threw the money to the old women: they picked it up with a cry joy, and I could see that Elizabetta, as she turned a moment, and saw the amount, was half sorry she had lost it. So I called out again, and she turned round, but immediately wheeled back and walked on prouder than before-a perfect Dido in her bearing. It was amusing to observe the struggle between her pride and her need. She saw she had lost more than she could gain by an entire day's work, yet she was too proud to receive it as a beggar.

Towards evening we came to Fondi, the spot where Horace had such a hearty laugh over the pomposity of the Prætor. The road from thence to Terracina is anything but pleasant. We entered the town by the famous pass in which Hannibal received his first check from Fabius. It seems strange that so good a general as Hannibal should have attempted to force such a pass, against the great odds that were against him.

Terracina is a dirty hole-the women blackguards, and the landlord a rascal. So much for the town that introduced us into the dominions of his holiness. The passage of the twenty miles of Pontine marshes next morning was gloomy enough-the road goes in a straight line as far as you can see; the only terra firma in sight-and wherever the swamp showed a crust thick enough to bear, or mud dense enough to sustain an animal by sinking to its middle, there were buffaloes, half wild, and horses, browsing on the stunted herbage. That twenty miles was the gloomiest ride I ever took it seemed like passing through the very valley of death. I wonder Virgil did not fix his Avernus here, no one would then have doubted his veracity. Towards evening we began to ascend the hill to Velletri. For miles and miles we crawled up the ascent-through the town itself, (where our driver wished to stay over night, but I would not let him,) and up the mountain, which looked back on the drear region stretching away to the Pontine marshes. We reached a high elevation just as the sun was going down, and a more glorious sunset I never beheld. Far, far below us and away, slept the Mediterranean, bluer than the heavens over it, while the flaming fire-ball hung only a few feet from its surface. Underneath it, the waters piled up like a hillock of gold, while the heavens beyond seemed like the very

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portals to the world of glory. I gazed and gazed till the glorious orb disappeared, and then thought of home and friends.

The night at length enfolded us, and the stars came out one after another, while far away on the horizon, spread dim and white the tail of the unannounced comet, that is rushing through our system. Amid the deep defiles we went floundering on in the dark, our driver, now and then throwing in between his curses —“Ain't this a pretty road to ride over in the night ?” and,“ Ah, a poor vetturino never knows anything." At length we came smack up against a team that was standing still in the darkness, and amid howling, and screaming, and cursing, that were enough to deafen one, I went forward on foot and alone. I walked at least ten or twelve miles, and I hailed the lights of Albano, as if they had been those of my home. I went to bed thoroughly exhausted, and have been wandering this morning over this classic hill, but will not weary you with a description.

Yours truly.

LETTER XXIII.

The "Eternal City"-St. Peter's Church.

ROME, April, 1948.

I DATE from the ETERNAL CITY. Yesterday we descended the Albano along the Appian way, with a scene before us, if not the most magnificent, at least the richest in association, of any in the world. Just as we were leaving the village, we passed the tomb of Pompey the Great, a huge, gray structure, rising in a single square tower of gray stone, erected by Cornelia over his ashes. He sleeps well with his ivy-covered monument looking down on the Rome that was almost his. Adown the entire descent the whole desolate campagna of Rome (as far as Socrate) was in view. Amid its ruins, with its towers and domes and obelisks, arose the modern city, a living tomb-stone over the ancient one long dead. Between us and it, like long broken colonnades, stretched the miles of her ancient aqueducts.-Beyond, in the smoky distance, the blue Mediterranean drew its pencil along the sky, making a single line on the horizon, while around all, like guardian spirits, seemed to lean in mournful attitude, the ancient, silent Centuries. The grandeur and the loneliness of the wide scene weighed on my heart. ROME, the brightest vision of my early dreams, and the Mecca of all my boyish imaginations, was before me, and yet how different from those dreams! A person at home cannot appreciate the feelings of one who for the first time looks down on imperial Rome. The impressions which the imagination, from earliest childhood, has graven on the soul, and the aspect presented to the actual eye, are so widely different, that one seems struggling between waking and sleeping-he cannot wholly shake off the early dream, and he cannot believe that what rises before him is all that about which he has dreamed so long. But the very desolateness of the campagna around Rome which every

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traveller so deeply regrets is, after all, a great relief to one's feelings. It harmonises more with their mood and speaks their language. Bright fields and thrifty farm-houses and all the life and animation of a richly cultivated country would present too strong a contrast to the fallen "glory of the world." But the sterile earth, the ruins that lie strewed over the plain and the lonely aspect all things around it wear, seem to side with the pilgrim as he muses over the crumbled empire. Besides, his faith is not so grievously taxed and his convictions so incessantly shocked. He is not compelled to dig through modern improvements to read the lines that move him so deeply. There they are, the very characters the centuries have writ. . He sees the foot-prints of the mighty ages, and lays his hand on their mouldering garments. As we passed over this mournful tract, every stone that lay in the sunshine seemed a history. We were on the Appian way, over which the Roman Legions had thundered so often, and in the very plain where the Sabines-the Volsci and others had in their turn striven to crush the infant empire.

At length we entered the gates, rolled over the Celian hill and descended into the heart of modern Rome.

The sensations one experiences in passing through the streets are odd enough. His feet are on a dead empire, and here an ancient obelisk and there a fountain or a ruin keep up the mystery and awe with which he first contemplated the city. But suddenly an object passes between him and that ruin-he looks, and it is a modern belle-a Roman, with her French hat, finery and bustle, rustling by. He rubs his eyes and looks again. It cannot be for upon that proud marble front stands written in haughty characters, S. P. Q. R., "SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME." He turns; the black-eyed Roman has tripped by, but right among those grim, old columns is a blacksmith quietly shoeing a Roman's horse. Thus you go on, one moment reminded of Cæsar —the next of tobacco-one moment imagining the haughty form that once passed beneath that arch—the next seeing a beggar Crouched in his rags beneath it.

After I had become domiciled, the first object I sought was St. Peter's. Every body has written of St. Peter's, and every body says that the first view disappointed them—that the admirable pro