Indeed one needs some direction about the best points of view. I had a grand one yesterday from the top of the Tarpeian rock, but I stumbled upon it. It embraced the whole south part of the ancient city, now a waste. The ruins of Caracalla's baths, the palace of the Caesars, the arches of Constantine and Titus, the Coliseum, and the majestic remains of the Temple of Peace, stood before me, ranged in the order in which I have mentioned them, and the solitary remnants of the Forum were at my feet. From no point have the ruins of Rome been so completely spread before me, and from no point, for that reason, perhaps, have they appeared so majestic.

December 21.-There was an ordination to-day at St. John of Lateran's, of nearly a hundred young men for the offices of priests, deacons, &c. and I spent half an hour there. I scarcely ever witness any of these Catholic ceremonies without thinking how much might be made of them in the proper hands-in the hands, that is to say, of persons of talent, taste, and sensibility-which the priests and monks usually are not. In the service to-day, for instance, music was frequently introduced; it made a part of the service, breaking in at intervals every few moments. How powerful, how overwhelming might it have been, if it had been discriminating and appropriate—if it had been a cheering tone, when resolute purpose and courageous faith were expressed on the part, or on behalf, of the candidate—if it had been tender and soothing, when his coming trials were held up before him—or if, when his holiest and deepest vows were uttered, it had been a strain low, solemn, and full of awe.

December 22.-I have visited to-day the museums of Thorwalsden and Camuccini. They are both collections of paintings by living artists. Thorwalsden himself accompanied us through his rooms, which, by the bye, were no other than his own private apartments, including even his bed-room. He appears to be about sixty years old, of a most amiable countenance, and simple, unaffected manners. His collection is very rich, especially in paintings of landscapes and ruins, and in the miniature Dutch style of common life. Of this last class are two pieces of Meyer's-(German)—"The Letter written," and "The Letter received"-capital. So in landscape is the snow-clad scene, and in architectural painting, besides other pieces, there are two of the ruins of the Forum, that are inimitably fine.

This afternoon I heard, at the Gesu e Maria, a very eloquent young Irish preacher.* His voice and manner were exceedingly good; his whole bearing and style were simple, dignified, and effective.

In short

it was, in style and manner, the best sample of preaching that I have heard since I came abroad. His subject was the Claims of the Catholic Faith; and he especially urged upon Protestants, that those who believe in the deity of Jesus Christ ought, for similar and stronger reasons, to believe in "the real presence.

December 23.-The great pleasure of to-day has been the seeing of Guido's Archangel Michael, in the Church della Concezione. A part of the design, it is true, I dislike. The devil, into whom Michael is about to plunge his sword, is represented as a man-strong, muscular, gross, passed into years, if not old, and with the head bald. Michael,

* Mr. Miley.

GUIDO'S MICHAEL.

CHURCH OF ST. NICOLAS.

133

who is represented as a youthful angel, has his foot on Satan's head, and to this part of the design I object. It is the foot of youth and strength upon the aged head. I do not like a design which presents an idea so ungrateful: and besides, the whole appearance of Satan is rather disagreeable and revolting. But turning to the Michael, no form or features expressive of youth, and beauty, and energy, and calmness, and triumph, and pity, could be more perfect. The frame is full of energy in every muscle: the lifted hand grasping a sword, is strong to execute the commission to destroy; the feet, one upon the head, and the other upon the ground, appear as if he had just alighted upon his victim; and the face-but who shall describe what it is! So youthful so delicate in its youthfulness; with the fairest possible complexion, and wavy golden ringlets; so resolute, so assured in its resoluteness; so calm, at the same time; but above all, so pervaded with inexpressible, beautiful, angelic, pure, youthful pity, with its soft shading about the eye, and its emotion almost disturbing the firm decision of the lips-and altogether so surpassingly lovely, beautiful in might, overpowering in gentleness-it is not Satan that he conquers, but every beholder!

I attended a service this morning at the English College, in which a priest, recently ordained, chanted his first mass. The service was interesting, and the music, in part, fine. Was interesting, I say-and yet who can tell, when music, strain after strain, wave after wave, is passing over his soul, now drowning it in a delirium of pleasure, and then bearing it away into boundless revery-who can tell whether he judges rightly of any of the things or themes that come before him?

December 24.-I visited to-day the Church of St. Nicolas in Carcere, built over the prison where the Roman daughter is said to have performed the celebrated act of filial piety, which saved her father's life, and eventually procured his pardon. We satisfied ourselves with looking down into the prison, into which there is no descent but by a temporary ladder: and, in the mean time, believed as much as we could about the story. And, indeed, I think it is much the wisest part to believe, in most of the cases, of interesting, wide-spread, popular legends. Why should not many of these things be true; and what so well accounts for the origin and prevalence of a story like this of the Roman daughter, as the fact? The extreme of scepticsm is quite as weak and unphilosophical as the extreme of faith, without being half so agreeable.

The town is all alive this evening with the approaching festival of Christmas - the bells ringing; the people abroad; services in the churches. We have just been to one in the Sistine Chapel; and so much does the spirit of the time possess us, that we are going at halfpast four o'clock to-morrow morning to a Christmas morning ceremonial, at the S. Maria Maggiore.

December 25. This morning we went to Maria Maggiore, an hour before day-break, and were repaid for the trouble. It was one of those sights that one must cross the ocean to see- -I might say, rather, to see anything like it. It is an immense church, divided into three naves, supported by a great number of marble and granite Ionic pillars, having large and splendid chapels on each side of it, and all lighted up this morning with rows of chandeliers and innumerable waxen tapers.

Still, however, there was left enough of obscurity in the vistas and roofs of the naves to make the church appear twice as large as it is. Among these pillars, and under these extended ranges of lights, and far away beneath these dim but gilded roofs, were to be seen a vast multitude of people, in various groups, and in almost all possible costumes and attitudes. There were soldiers in their uniforms, in two columns, stretching through the whole central pavement; there were priests in their various dresses passing to and fro in the discharge of their various offices; and groups of persons in all the variety and liberty of the Italian costumes. In one place were a company of people kneeling before an altar; in another, lying by the wall, or at the foot of a pillar, was a small cluster, weary and half asleep, of people, looking like a family of wild men and children from the mountains; other parties were walking to and fro, as we were ourselves. Meanwhile the Christmas chant sounded out from the Chapel of the Sacrament, sometimes in a thundering chorus, and then in a softer strain. On the whole, the scene, I must say, had no appropriate impressiveness; but it was nevertheless very interesting in its way-that is, as something bizarre, wild, and fantastic. It seemed as if the place were not a church, but some vast palace or mighty hostelry, described in an Arabian Night's Entertainment.

At nine o'clock this morning we went to the celebration of the high mass by the pope at St. Peter's. Here, again, was a ceremonial of exceeding splendour, and in an entirely different style. All here was order and solemnity-more appropriate, though scarcely so striking.

St. Peter's is the place of all places for a great religious celebration, where bodies of military are to be introduced. All other places they always seem to encumber; here a considerable body of troops were paraded in different divisions, and in different parts of the church, and there was ample space for them, and for all the multitude besides. One of the most striking proofs of the immense magnitude of this place I noticed to-day, in the sound of the military music, which was soft, and seemed distant, as if it had come from a field or a tract of country considerably removed. Indeed, this music was the most interesting part of the solemnities of the day, with the exception of the elevation of the host-when the whole multitude, including the military, kneel upon the pavement. This prostration of a mighty multitude, and of all the power and splendour of it, before the symbol (as it is regarded) of God's presence, is, indeed, a very affecting spectacle; and when it takes place in the noble piazza in front of St. Peter's, on occasion of the pope's benediction at Easter, and the multitude is almost countless

when every knee bows, and an immense body of troops fall prostrate on the pavement, as if awe had struck them like death, I can easily believe what a gentleman told me, that he had known a man remarkably devoid of all religious emotion, to burst into tears at the sight.

TEMPLE OF FORTUNA MULIEBRIS.- CORIOLANUS.

135

CHAPTER XIX.

TEMPLE OF FORTUNA MULIEBRIS -CORIOLANUS-CATACOMBS- -COLLEGE OF THE PROPAGANDA-MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS-THE APOLLO AND LAOCOONSERVICE AT THE GESU-CARDINALS-THE POPE-WALKS OUT OF ROME FOUNTAINS AND OBELISKS.

December 26.-I have ridden on horseback to-day to the temple of Fortuna Muliebris, four miles out of the city. This is the spot which tradition assigns for the meeting of Coriolanus with his wife and mother; the temple was erected to commemorate their success, and Rome's deliverance; and, to mark the former, was called Fortuna Muliebris, or Woman's Success, as I should render it. The temple itself is a small and ruinous building of brick, that would scarcely attract attention; but when I reflected, that it was on that gentle swell of land, perhaps, that the stern Coriolanus stood and received his imploring wife and mother, and there yielded to their tears-there passed through all the struggle and agony which brought him at length to those memorable words, Oh, my mother! thou hast saved thy country, but thou hast destroyed thy son!" it needed no ruin or monument to awaken imagination, on a spot thus consecrated to one of the noblest and most touching scenes in history. In the old Roman history, indeed, it stands quite alone. It is the only instance, I think, in which, on a public theatre, the old Roman haughtiness ever yielded to the power of the sex. And surely a nobler victim was never offered at its shrine, than Coriolanus.

66

From this spot, we returned on the Via Latina, and passed over to the Appian Way, to visit the catacombs under the church of St. Sebastian or rather, commencing there-for this subterranean burialplace extended for a number of miles, quite into the city, running under the Forum, and having an outlet in the prison under the Church of St. Peter in Carcere. The spot is very interesting, for having been the refuge and residence of the early Christians, in times of persecution. It consists of narrow passages, cut out of a spongy rock, which absorbs moisture, and thus renders the place more habitable than I could otherwise well have thought it. It was far drier than I had expected to find it. Before, it was always a mystery to me, indeed, how men could live in such a place. The guide took us to a small excavation connected with one of the passages, where was a rude chapel, having a crucifix and a place for the altar at the end. And here it was that the sad, and trembling, but true-hearted company, kneeled down to pledge their faith and trust in the name of their rejected Master. But the times of suffering for conscience, the times of moral martyrdom, are not yet passed; and St. Sebastian himself, to whom this church is dedicated, felt no keener arrows in his body* than those which often

*This was the mode of his martyrdom, and he is constantly represented in paintings with arrows piercing his body.

times pierce the soul, in the relationships, the uncertainties, the separations, the changes, and strifes, of this mortal state.

The day has been most delightful; and a ride on horseback, in the vicinity of Rome, along the majestic ruins of the aqueducts on going out; and on our return, amidst the giant remains of the Palatine, the Coliseum, and the Forum, seen by the soft and waning twilight of a lovely evening-this is enough for one day.

December 29.-I had an interview to-day with the rector, and some students, of the Propaganda. I learned from them that this celebrated institution for propagating the Catholic faith, is governed by a board of twenty cardinals; that its income is about one hundred thousand dollars* per annum; and that its present number of students is about one hundred, of whom thirteen are from the United States. The rector is a German count, apparently not more than thirty years of age-M. Reisach; and the young gentlemen with whom I met were American students. We had much conversation upon various topics, for two or three hours, some minutes of which I shall just note. They stated the surprising fact, that the pope's annual expenditure, for personal and household purposes, is only fourteen thousand dollars. They ridiculed the idea that he has sent, as has been alleged, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, from his private purse, to America; nor has the Propaganda, they say, ever expended on American missions more than thirty or forty thousand dollars. On the subject of exclusive salvation, they stated a doctrine, saving a little tinge of assumption, as liberal as any one could desire. It was, that sincere conviction of being right must spread its shield over all those who entertain it. The assumption lay in an implied reservation of rightful supremacy for the Catholic church; but they distinctly held, that if any man should leave the mother church, from sincere and honest conviction, the dissent was not to be deemed fatal.

December 30.-I hunted up this morning the mausoleum of Augustus; yes, hunted for it. Little thought the man, once deemed so important to the world, that it was said, "It had been good for mankind if he had never been born, or had never died"— little did he think the time would ever come, when his proud mausoleum must be searched for, or when found at last, would be found surrounded and hidden almost from sight by other houses-itself a stable and a tannery. I asked a picket of soldiers within fifteen rods of the spot; and with the habitual ignorance and impudence united, of the common people here, on such points, they would have sent me first to the Coliseum (a mile off), and then to the Castle of St. Angelo. Of the mausoleum of Augustus, they knew nothing! Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, celebrated by Virgil, was buried in this spot. I confess, it interested me more, as the place where this promising youth, the hope of the people, was laid down to rest as the place where Octavia poured out a mother's tears-than for any associations with imperial grandeur; although in Augustus it had a noble representative.

I went to see the Apollo and the Laocoon to-day, and gazed upon them (especially the first) for a while, with the sad feeling, that it might be my last look. Yet the Laocoon, much as the other has the

It was three hundred thousand dollars before the French were here.