persecuted religion. But whether they frown or not, it is certain that all the remains of antiquity, whether religious or heroic, are made to bear marks of the ascendency of the new religion. Not a column, Egyptian or historical, stands here, but bears on its base something to this effect—that "being purified from pagan abominations, it is consecrated" thus and so, by some Pontifex Maximus.

CHAPTER XVI.

ASCENT TO THE TOP OF ST. PETER'S-MICHAEL ANGELO'S PAINTING OF THE LAST JUDGMENT-EXCURSION TO TIVOLI-WATERFALL-TEMPLES OF VESTA, AND THE TIBURTINE SIBYL-VILLA OF ADRIAN-PAINTINGS AT THE ROSPIGLIOSI PALACE-LIVING IN ROME.

In

November 29-to the top of St. Peter's; a very easy thing to do, so gradual is the ascent made. Our view stretched from the Mediterranean on one side, to the Apennines on the other, over the whole wide and desolate Campagna. This tract of country consists mostly of pasturage lands, unenclosed, with a broken surface, and few houses or trees. the comparatively small tracts upon it, where tillage is attempted-and it is attempted only by mountaineers from the Apennines, as I am told-many lives are annually the sacrifice. The diseases caused by this malaria are chiefly bilious and intermittent fevers, and being so, I see not why there is anything more mysterious about the malaria, than there is about the marsh miasma of our own country low grounds. The city is choked with rubbish; the lands want draining. But to return to the top of St. Peter's: we went up into the ball on the top of the dome, and found that, although it does not appear much larger than a man's head from below, it was of a size sufficient to hold twentytwo persons. Another fact may better show the immensity of this structure. The dome of St. Peter's is as large as the Pantheon, or rather larger indeed. That is to say, it is one hundred and forty feet in diameter at the base, and one hundred and seventy-nine feet high.* Michael Angelo boasted that he would "hang the Pantheon in air,” and this cupola is raised more than two hundred feet above the pavement of the church. But what is raised? Why, a mass of masonry; not a wooden dome, but a cupola of brick, twenty-three feet in thickness! The passage to the summit is within this wall." That is to say, as you go up this stairway, you have ten feet thickness of wall on each side of you. The whole wall is equal in thickness to the width of most of our city houses. And this stupendous mass is "hung in air." It is not only putting one immense church on the top of another, but with such walls, as were never perhaps put into any building standing on the ground, except the Pantheon.

November 30.-To-day I walked two hours on Monte Pincio; the weather so mild, as to be almost too warm; and a haze over the city and surrounding country, very like our Indian summer. There was

The Pantheon is one hundred and forty-two feet in diameter, one hundred and forty-two in height, and the wall twenty feet thick.

ASCENT TO THE TOP OF ST. PETER'S.

VILLA OF ADRIAN.

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that stillness in the air-that hush of nature in which, as in a clear evening, every sound from hill and valley comes distinct upon the ear that silence, amid which the fall of the leaf is heard-and that soft and shadowy veil upon everything which makes our Indian summer a holy season -the Sabbath of the year.

December 2.-I have been to see Michael Angelo's celebrated painting in fresco, of the Last Judgment, and I am one of the unhappy dissenters from the common opinion. In the first place, I must have leave to doubt about the design altogether-that of representing the Resurrection and Judgment, by a collection of distinctly drawn figures. It leaves nothing to the imagination. The style of Martin's pictures, it seems to me, would be far better, whatever may be thought of the execution. Much should be thrown into obscurity. But in the next place, there should, at any rate, be given a great depth, an immense perspective, to such a picture: the field of vision should stretch away as it were into infinite space. But my eye can find nothing of this. Here is a wall, the entire end of the chapel, filled with figures, and they all seem to be in the same mathematical plane, one directly above another-drawn with a staring distinctness of bold outline and muscular form, and thrown together in a strange confusion, so that the Judgment appears like a physical conflict, a rude mélée, a scene of disorder, utterly at war with the solemnity and majesty that belong even to the popular conceptions of that occasion.

December 3.-To-day I have been to Tivoli, eighteen miles from Rome, on the Consular road. The waterfall here, on the Anio, aided in its effect by the grand cavern adjacent, called the Grotto of Neptune, and by the violence of its dashing upon the rocks below-the wrestling of the furious element in the abyss to which it is plunged-may be said to be almost sublime. On the brow of the precipice above, and above this war of the wild elements, stands, appropriately, the temple of the Tiburtine Sibyl; and near it, Vesta's temple; both the most ancient ruins, in appearance, that I have seen in Italy. They are both small, but well preserved, and the latter especially is one of the most exquisite remains of antiquity. I stepped into the former, to look at the seat of the wild and mysterious prophetess: it is now a Christian chapel!

The villa of Mæcenas here- -once the seat of taste, if it be his-is now a blackened forge.

The villa of Adrian is, if less changed, even more desolate. The Theatre (for the villa was seven miles in circumference, and included many buildings) is now a cabbage garden; the Maratime Theatre is covered over with brambles; the temple in imitation of that of the Egyptian Serapis-with the covered niches for the oracles to speak forth from-and the temples of Apollo, of Diana, and of Venus-in the last of which, the Venus de Medici was found-all of them have but single mouldering arches standing; the quarters of the Pretorian Guards are silent and tenantless-the porticoes are all fallen-not a column, not a capital remains; the Latin and Greek libraries now teach wisdom only from their ruinous recesses, through which every storm rushes; and to complete the picture, that most striking of all the images of desolation ever recorded was realized to us;* *for as we

* The fox looketh out at the window."

were looking up at the ruin of the Greek library, a fox appeared on the top of the ruin, and passed down upon the other side.

The Villa D'Este in Tivoli has many fantastic fountains and cascades, and presents a noble view of the Sabine hills on the north, and of the Campagna, extending to Rome. The Campagna bordering the hills about Tivoli, is more smooth and meadow-like than I have seen it elsewhere.

December 4.-The Rospigliosi palace has a small collection of very rare paintings:

Guido's Aurora- a fresco-very celebrated and very justly. I have scarcely seen any fresco like it. The chariot of the morning, directed by Phoebus, preceded by Aurora scattering flowers from her hand, and surrounded by the Hours, is advancing amid a crimson cloud, upon the wide, blue ocean, while in the distance of the fine perspective, the horizon is glowing with the first steps of coming day. countenances of some of the Hours are very lovely, and a little study will bring them out, so as almost to make them return your glance.

The

Ludovico Carracci's Death of Samson. He is represented in a banqueting-hall, as taking hold of a pillar, which is broken in his grasp, and the building, already shattered, is evidently about to crush him and his enemies. His muscular form, and the expression of horror and agony in his face, as well as of fear in one very lovely female countenance, together with the rich tone of the whole, make this one of the finest paintings I have seen.

Domenichino: Garden of Eden; Adam, a fine face; Eve, without being handsome, a countenance marked with feeling, and full of expression; the landscape dark, as if the shadow of a thunder cloud had come over it; and so, I suppose, it is designed to be represented; for it is after the fall, as I judge, since Adam is apparently gathering leaves from a fig-tree, and presenting them to Eve.

Domenichino: Triumph of David; he is represented as a very delicate and beautiful youth; the head of Goliah borne by a page before him; while the song of triumph is chanted by the procession of women, that came with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music." But

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the Saul is above all magnificent; a tall and noble figure, a fine head and countenance, and such an expression of disappointment and sorrow, that though it be called envy, one cannot help respecting it.

Rubens: The Saviour, and Twelve Apostles-separate pictures, and very richly and elaborately wrought; with a freshness and vivacity of colouring free from extravagance, and a softness and fineness of touch, seldom seen in the paintings of Rubens.

From the Rospigliosi palace I went to see the tomb of Caius Cestius, just by the Porta di San Paolo- a beautiful pyramid; and thence to that most extraordinary hill, near the south wall, called Monte Testaccio; and so called from its having been formed of broken vases, crockery, &c. thrown out here during a course of years, or rather ages. I returned home by the Tiber, and passed the little remaining ruins of the Pons Sublicius so called from the wooden piles which supported it. It was the first bridge built over the Tiber. It was on this bridge that Horatius Coccles is related in Roman history to have stopped the army of Porsenna, till the Romans had destroyed the part behind their leader, and then threw himself into the river, and swam to the city.

ROSPIGLIOSI PALACE. PAINTINGS AT THE VATICAN.

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December 5.-Nothing specially worthy of note calls for a record this evening. I have passed the day mostly in-doors, as it is one of the many that go to make up the very large proportion of the damp, cloudy, and disagreeable ones we have here. Yet every day passed in Rome seems memorable. What an event should I not have thought it, at any former period of my life, to have passed a day in Rome! I think it such still. I do not see how life can ever be common life, on such a spot. In truth, it seems as if one had no right to enjoy the common comforts of life, amidst such ruins-the ruins of a world passed away-the mighty shadows of ancient glory spreading over every hill-the very soil we tread upon, no longer the pathways of the old Roman masters of the world, but the mouldering rubbish of their temples, their palaces, their firesides-the yet almost breathing dust of a life, signalized beyond all others in the world's great history. One feels that it would be an appropriate life here, to sit down like Marius on the ruins of Carthage-or to burrow in the Coliseum-or to pitch one's tent alone, in the waste and silent fields, amid the rank grass or the thick and towering reeds, that have overgrown so large a portion of the ancient city.

CHAPTER XVII.

VATICAN-RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION -DOMENICHINO'S COMMUNION OF ST. WALK ON THE TIBER

JEROME

THE RAPHAEL CHAMBERS

JEWS'

QUARTER STATUE OF THE DYING GLADIATOR -A WALK AMONG THE RUINS - RELIGIOUS SERVICE AT THE GESU E MARIA.

December 7.—I have been to the Vatican to-day to see two paintings, sometimes said to be the greatest in the world: namely, Raphael's Transfiguration, and

Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome.

In Raphael's picture, the transfiguration occupies the upper part of the canvass; while on the lower is a painting of the maniac youth, brought to the disciples to be healed. I must confess that the lower part is, to me, the finest picture. There is a vivacity of expression and vividness of colouring which I have not seen in any other oil painting of Raphael's. The Communion of St. Jerome, too, is a wonderfully fine, rich, deep-toned painting. Yet, although to artists, these paintings, as exhibiting light and shade, composition and colouring, may be the highest achievements of the pencil, I cannot feel as if those were, or ought to be, the greatest productions in the world, which are capable of no more highly wrought expression than these. They certainly are not the most moving pictures in the world. And yet even to my inexperienced eye, they are so beautiful, that I was fairly wearied out with pleasure and admiration in looking at them.

December 9.-Again to the great paintings at the Vatican-the greatest, as they are called. I feel, the more I look at them, that they are, indeed, great. The solemn and sublime expression in the counte

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.