The Diary of an Ennuyee Part 9

18.--We had an opportunity of witnessing to-day one of the most splendid ceremonies of the Catholic church. It is one of the four festivals at which the Pope performs ma.s.s in state at the Vatican, the anniversary of St. Peter's entrance into Rome, and of his taking possession of the Papal chair; for here St. Peter is reckoned the first Pope. To see the high priest of an ancient and wide-spread superst.i.tion publicly officiate in his sacred character, in the grandest temple in the universe, and surrounded by all the trappings of his spiritual and temporal authority, was an exhibition to make sad a reflecting mind, but to please and exalt a lively imagination: I wished myself a Roman Catholic for one half hour only. The procession, which was so arranged as to produce the most striking theatrical effect, moved up the central aisle, to strains of solemn and beautiful music from an orchestra of wind instruments. The musicians were placed out of sight, nor could I guess from what part of the buildings the sounds proceeded; but the blended harmony, so soft, yet so powerful and so equally diffused, as it floated through the long aisles and lofty domes, had a most heavenly effect. At length appeared the Pope, borne on the shoulders of his attendants, and habited in his full Pontifical robes of white and gold; fans of peac.o.c.ks' feathers were waved on each side of his throne, and boys flung clouds of incense from their censers. As the procession advanced at the slowest possible foot-pace, the Pope from time to time stretched forth his arms which were crossed upon his bosom, and solemnly blessed the people as they prostrated themselves on each side. I could have fancied it the triumphant approach of an Eastern despot, but for the mild and venerable air of the amiable old Pope, who looked as if more humbled than exalted by the pageantry around him. It might be _acting_, but if so, it was the most admirable acting I ever saw: I wish all his attendants had performed their parts as well. While the Pope a.s.sists at ma.s.s, it is not etiquette for him to do anything for himself: one Cardinal kneeling, holds the book open before him, another carries his handkerchief, a third folds and unfolds his robe, a priest on each side supports him whenever he rises or moves, so that he appears among them like a mere helpless automaton going through a certain set of mechanical motions, with which his will has nothing to do. All who approach or address him prostrate themselves and kiss his embroidered slipper before they rise.

When the whole ceremony was over, and most of the crowd dispersed, the Pope, after disrobing, was pa.s.sing through a private part of the church where we were standing accidentally, looking at one of the monuments. We made the usual obeisance, which he returned by inclining his head. He walked without support, but with great difficulty, and appeared bent by infirmity and age: his countenance has a melancholy but most benevolent expression, and his dark eyes retain uncommon l.u.s.tre and penetration. During the twenty-one years he has worn the tiara, he has suffered many vicissitudes and humiliations with dignity and fort.i.tude. He is not considered a man of very powerful intellect or very shining talents: he is not a Ganganelli or a Lambertini; but he has been happy in his choice of ministers, and his government has been distinguished by a spirit of liberality, and above all by a partiality to the English, which calls for our respect and grat.i.tude.

There were present to-day in St. Peter's about five thousand people, and the church would certainly have contained ten times the number.

19.--We went to-day to view the restored model of the Coliseum exhibited in the Piazza di Spagna; and afterwards drove to the manufactory of the beads called _Roman Pearl_, which is well worth seeing _once_. The beads are cut from thin laminae of alabaster, and then dipped into a composition made of the scales of a fish (the Argentina). When a perfect imitation of pearl is intended, they can copy the accidental defects of colour and form which occur in the real gem, as well as its brilliance, so exquisitely, as to deceive the most practised eye.

20.--I ordered the open carriage early this morning, and, attended only by Scaccia, partly drove and partly walked through some of the finest parts of ancient Rome. The day has been perfectly lovely; the sky intensely blue without a single cloud; and though I was weak and far from well, I felt the influence of the soft sunshine in every nerve: the pure elastic air seemed to penetrate my whole frame, and made my spirits bound and my heart beat quicker. It is true, I had to regret at every step the want of a more cultivated companion, and that I felt myself shamefully--no--not _shamefully_, but _lamentably_ ignorant of many things. There is so much of which I wish to know and learn more: so much of my time is spent in hunting books, and acquiring by various means the information with which I ought already to be prepared; so many days are lost by frequent indisposition, that though I enjoy, and feel the value of all I _do_ know and observe, I am tantalized by the thoughts of all I must leave behind me unseen--there must necessarily be so much of what I do not even _hear_! Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, my little excursion to-day was delightful. I took a direction just contrary to my last expedition, first by the Quattro Fontane to the Santa Maria Maggiore, which I always see with new delight; then to the ruins called the temple of Minerva Medici, which stand in a cabbage garden near another fine ruin, once called the Trofei di Mario, and now the Acqua Giulia: thence to the Porta Maggiore, built by Claudius; and round by the Santa Croce di Gerusalemme. This church was built by Helena, the mother of Constantine, and contains her tomb, besides a portion of the _True Cross_ from which it derives its name. The interior of this Basilica struck me as mean and cold. In the fine avenue in front of the Santa Croce, I paused a few minutes to look round me. To the right were the ruins of the stupendous Claudian Aqueduct with its gigantic arches, stretching away in one unbroken series far into the Campagna: behind me the amphitheatre of Castrense: to the left, other ruins, once called the Temple of Venus and Cupid, and now the Sessorium: in front, the Lateran, the obelisk of Sesostris, the Porta San Giovanni, and great part of the ancient walls; and thence the view extended to the foot of the Apennines. All this part of Rome is a scene of magnificent desolation, and of melancholy yet sublime interest: its wildness, its vastness, its waste and solitary openness, add to its effect upon the imagination. The only human beings I beheld in the compa.s.s of at least two miles, were a few herdsmen driving their cattle through the gate of San Giovanni, and two or three strangers who were sauntering about with their note books and portfolios, apparently enthusiasts like myself, lost in the memory of the past and the contemplation of the present.

I spent some time in the Lateran, then drove to the Coliseum, where I found a long procession of penitents, their figures and faces totally concealed by their masks and peculiar dress, chaunting the Via Crucis.

I then examined the site of the Temple of Venus and Rome, and satisfied myself by ocular demonstration of the truth of the measurements which gave sixty feet for the height of the columns and eighteen feet for the circ.u.mference. I knew enough of geometrical proportion to prove this to my own satisfaction. On examining the fragments which remain, each fluting measured a foot, that is, eight inches right across. This appears prodigious, but it is nevertheless true. I am forced to believe to-day what I yesterday doubted, and deemed a piece of mere antiquarian exaggeration.

This magnificent edifice was designed and built by the Emperor Adrian, who piqued himself on his skill in architecture, and carried his jealousy of other artists so far, as to banish Apollodorus, who had designed the Forum of Trajan. When he had finished the Temple of Venus and Rome, he sent to Apollodorus a plan of his stupendous structure, challenging him to find a single fault in it. The architect severely criticised some trifling oversights; and the Emperor, conscious of the justice of his criticisms, and unable to remedy the defects, ordered him to be strangled. Such was the fate of Apollodorus, whose misfortune it was to have an Emperor for his rival.

They are now clearing the steps which lead to this temple, from which it appears that the length of the portico in front was three hundred feet, and of the side five hundred feet.

While I was among these ruins, I was struck by a little limpid fountain, which gushed from the crumbling wall and lost itself among the fragments of the marble pavement. All looked dreary and desolate; and that part of the ruin which from its situation must have been the _sanctum sanctorum_, the shrine of the divinity of the place, is now a receptacle of filth and every conceivable abomination.

I walked on to the ruins now called the Basilica of Constantine, once the Temple of Peace. This edifice was in a bad style, and constructed at a period when the arts were at a low ebb: yet the ruins are vast and magnificent. The exact direction of the Via Sacra has long been a subject of vehement dispute. They have now laid open a part of it which ran in front of the Basilica: the pavement is about twelve feet below the present pavement of Rome, and the soil turned up in their excavations is formed entirely of crumbled brickwork and mortar, and fragments of marble, porphyry, and granite. I returned by the Forum and the Capitol, through the Forums of Nerva and Trajan, and so over the Monte Cavallo, home.

23.--Last night we had a numerous party, and Signor P. and his daughter came to sing. _She_ is a private singer of great talent, and came attended by her lover or her _fiance_; who, according to Italian custom, attends his mistress every where during the few weeks which precede their marriage. He is a young artist, a favourite pupil of Camuccini, and of very quiet, un.o.btrusive manners. La P. has the misfortune to be plain; her features are irregular, her complexion of a sickly paleness, and though her eyes are large and dark, they appeared totally devoid of l.u.s.tre and expression. Her plainness, the bad taste of her dress, her awkward figure, and her timid and embarra.s.sed deportment, all furnished matter of amus.e.m.e.nt and observation to some young people, (English of course,) whose propensities for _quizzing_ exceeded their good breeding and good nature. Though La P. does not understand a word of either French or English, I thought she could not mistake the significant looks and whispers of which she was the object, and I was in pain for her, and for her modest lover. I drew my chair to the piano, and tried to divert her attention by keeping her in conversation, but I could get no farther than a few questions which were answered in monosyllables.

At length she sang--and sang divinely: I found the pale automaton had a soul as well as a voice. After giving us, with faultless execution, as well as great expression, some of Rossini's finest songs, she sung the beautiful and difficult cavatina in Otello, "_a.s.sisa al pie d'un Salice_," with the most enchanting style and pathos, and then stood as unmoved as a statue while the company applauded loud and long. A moment afterwards, as she stooped to take up a music book, her lover, who had edged himself by degrees from the door to the piano, bent his head too, and murmured in a low voice, but with the most pa.s.sionate accent, "O brava, brava cara!" She replied only by a look--but it was such a look! I never saw a human countenance so entirely, so instantaneously changed in character: the vacant eyes kindled and beamed with tenderness: the pale cheek glowed, and a bright smile playing round her mouth, just parted her lips sufficiently to discover a set of teeth like pearls. I could have called her at that moment beautiful; but the change was as transient as sudden--it pa.s.sed like a gleam of light over her face and vanished, and by the time the book was placed on the desk, she looked as plain, as stupid, and as statue-like as ever. I was the only person who had witnessed this little by-scene; and it gave me pleasant thoughts and interest for the rest of the evening.

Another trait of character occurred afterwards, which amused me, but in a very different style. Our new Danish friend, the Baron B----, told us he had once been present at the decapitation of nine men, having first fortified himself with a large goblet of brandy. After describing the scene in all its horrible details, and a.s.suring us in his bad German French that it was "_une chose bien mauvaise a voir_,"

I could not help asking him with a shudder, how he felt afterwards; whether it was not weeks or months before the impressions of horror left his mind? He answered with smiling navete and taking a pinch of snuff, "_Ma foi! madame, je n'ai pas pu manger de la viande toute cette journee-la?_"

27.--We drove to the Palazzo Spada, to see the famous Spada Pompey, said to be the very statue at the base of which Caesar fell. I was pleased to find, contrary to my expectations, that this statue has great intrinsic merit, besides its celebrity, to recommend it. The extremities of the limbs have a certain clumsiness which may perhaps be a feature of resemblance, and not a fault of the sculptor; but the att.i.tude is n.o.ble, and the likeness of the head to the undisputed bust of Pompey in the Florentine gallery, struck me immediately. The Palazza Spada, with its splendid architecture, dirt, discomfort, and dilapidation, is a fair specimen of the Roman palaces in general. It contains a corridor, which from an architectural deception appears much longer than it really is. I hate tricks--in architecture especially. We afterwards visited the Pantheon, the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, (an odd combination of names,) and concluded the morning at Canova's. It is one of the pleasures of Rome to lounge in the studj of the best sculptors; and it is at Rome only that sculpture seems to flourish as in its native soil. Rome is truly the _city of the soul_, the home of art and artists. With the divine models of the Vatican ever before their eyes, these inspiring skies above their heads, and the quarries of marble at a convenient distance--it is here only they can conceive and execute those works which are formed from the _beau-ideal_; but it is not here they meet with patronage: the most beautiful things I have seen at the various studj have all been executed for English, German, and Russian n.o.blemen. The names I heard most frequently were those of the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire, Prince Esterhazy, and the King of England.

Canova has been accused of a want of simplicity, and of giving a too voluptuous expression to some of his figures: with all my admiration of his genius, I confess the censure just. It is particularly observable in the Clori svegliata (the Nymph awakened by Love), the Cupid and Psyche, for Prince Yousouppoff, the Endymion, the Graces, and some others.

In some of Thorwaldson's works there is exquisite grace, simplicity, and expression: the Shepherd Boy, the Adonis, the Jason, and the Hebe, have a great deal of antique spirit. I did not like the colossal Christ which the sculptor has just finished in clay: it is a proof that bulk alone does not const.i.tute sublimity: it is deficient in dignity, or rather in _divinity_.

At Rodolf Schadow's, I was most pleased by the Cupid and the Filatrice. His Cupid is certainly the most beautiful Cupid I ever saw, superior, I think, both to Canova's and to Thorwaldson's. The Filatrice, though so exquisitely natural and graceful, a little disappointed me; I had heard much of it, and had formed in my own imagination an idea different and superior to what I saw. This beautiful figure has repose, simplicity, nature, and grace, but I felt a _want_--the want of some internal sentiment: for instance, if, instead of watching the rotation of her spindle with such industrious attention, the Filatrice had looked careless, or absent, or pensive, or disconsolate, (like Faust's Margaret at her spinning-wheel,) she would have been more interesting--but not perhaps what the sculptor intended to represent.

Schadow is ill, but we were admitted by his order into his private study; we saw there the Bacchante, which he has just finished in clay, and which is to emulate or rival Canova's Dansatrice. He has been at work upon a small but beautiful figure of a piping Shepherd-boy, which is just made out: beside it lay Virgil's Eclogues, and his spectacles were between the leaves.[J]

Almost every thing I saw at Max Laboureur's struck me as vapid and finikin. There were some pretty groups, but nothing to tempt me to visit it again.

30.--We spent the whole morning at the Villa Albani, where there is a superb collection of antique marbles, most of them brought from the Villa of Adrian at Tivoli. To note down even a few of the objects which pleased me would be an endless task. I think the busts interested me most. There is a ba.s.so-relievo of Antinous--the beautiful head declined in his usual pensive att.i.tude: it is the most finished and faultless piece of sculpture in relievo I ever saw; and as perfect and as polished as if it came from the chisel yesterday.

There is another ba.s.so-relievo of Marcus Aurelius, and Faustina, equal to the last in execution, but not in interest.

We found Rogers in the gardens: the old poet was sunning himself--walking up and down a beautiful marble portico, lined with works of art, with his note-book in his hand. I am told he is now writing a poem of which Italy is the subject; and here, with all the Campagna di Roma spread out before him--above him, the sunshine and the cloudless skies--and all around him, the remains of antiquity in a thousand elegant, or venerable, or fanciful forms: he could not have chosen a more genial spot for inspiration. Though we disturbed his poetical reveries rather abruptly, he met us with his usual amiable courtesy, and conversed most delightfully. I never knew him more pleasant, and never saw him so animated.

Our departure from Rome has been postponed from day to day in consequence of a _trifling_ accident. An Austrian colonel was taken by the banditti near Fondi, and carried up into the mountains: ten thousand scudi were demanded for his ransom; and for many days past, the whole city has been in a state of agitation and suspense about his ultimate fate. The Austrians, roused by the insult, sent a large body of troops (some say three thousand men) against about one hundred and fifty robbers, threatening to exterminate them. They were pursued so closely, that after dragging their unfortunate captive over the mountains from one fastness to another, till he was nearly dead from exhaustion and ill-treatment, they either abandoned or surrendered him without terms. The troops immediately marched back to Naples, and the matter rests here: I cannot learn that any thing farther will be done.

The robbers being at present panic-struck by such unusual energy and activity, and driven from their accustomed haunts, by these valorous champions of good order and good policy, it is considered that the road is now more open and safe than it has been for some time, and if nothing new happens to alarm us, we set off on Friday next.

I visited to-day the baths of Dioclesian, and the n.o.ble church which Michel Angelo has constructed upon, and out of, their gigantic ruins.

It has all that grand simplicity, that _entireness_ which characterizes his works: it contains, too, some admirable pictures. On leaving the church, I saw on each side of the door, the monuments of Salvator Rosa and Carlo Maratti--what a contrast do they exhibit in their genius, in their works, in their characters, in their countenances, in their lives! Near this church (the Santa Maria dei Angeli) is the superb fountain of the Acqua Felice, the first view of which rather disappointed me. I had been told that it represented Moses striking the rock,--a magnificent idea for a fountain! but the execution falls short of the conception. The water, instead of gushing from the rock, is poured out from the mouths of two prodigious lions of basalt, brought, I believe, from Upper Egypt: they seem misplaced here. A little beyond the Ponta Pia is the Campo Scelerato, where the Vestals were interred alive. We afterwards drove to the Santi Apostoli to see the tomb of the excellent Ganganelli, by Canova. Then to Sant'

Ign.a.z.io, to see the famous ceiling painted in perspective by the jesuit Pozzo. The effect is certainly marvellous, making the interior appear to the eye, at least twice the height it really is; but though the illusion pleased me as a work of art, I thought the trickery unnecessary and misplaced. At the magnificent church of the Gesuiti (where there are two entire columns of giallo antico) I saw a list of relics for which the church is celebrated, and whose efficacy and sanct.i.ty were vouched for by a very respectable catalogue of miracles.

Among these relics there are a few worth mentioning for their oddity, viz. one of the Virgin's _shifts_, three of her hairs, and the skirt of Joseph's coat.

31.--We spent nearly the whole day in the gallery of the Vatican, and in the Pauline and Sistine chapels.

_February 1st, at Valletri._--I left Rome this morning exceedingly depressed: Madame de Stael may well call travelling _un triste plaisir_. My depression did not arise from the feeling that I left behind me any thing or any person to regret, but from mixed and melancholy emotions, and partly perhaps from that weakness which makes my hand tremble while I write--which has bound down my mind, and all its best powers, and all its faculties of enjoyment, to a languid pa.s.siveness, making me feel at every moment, I am not what I was, or ought to be, or might have been.

We arrived, after a short and most delightful journey by Albano, the Lake Nemi, Gensao, etc. at Velletri, the birth-place of that wretch Octavius, and famous for its wine. The day has been as soft and as sunny as a May-day in England, and the country, through which we travelled but too rapidly, beyond description lovely. The blue Mediterranean spread far to the west, and on the right we had the snowy mountains, with their wild fantastic peaks "rushing on the sky."

I felt it all in my heart with a mixture of sadness and delight which I cannot express.

This land was made by nature a paradise: it seems to want no charm, "unborrowed from the eye,"--but how has memory sanctified, history ill.u.s.trated, and poetry illumined the scenes around us; where every rivulet had its attendant nymph, where every wood was protected by its sylvan divinity; where every tower has its tale of heroism, and "not a mountain lifts its head unsung;" and though the faith, the glory, and the power of the antique time be pa.s.sed away--still

A spirit hangs, Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms, Statues and temples, and memorial tombs.

I can allow that one-half, at least, of the beauty and interest we see, lies in our own souls; that it is our own enthusiasm which sheds this mantle of light over all we behold: but, as colours do not exist in the objects themselves, but in the rays which paint them--so beauty is not less real, is not less BEAUTY, because it exists in the medium through which we view certain objects, rather than in those objects themselves. I have met persons who think they display a vast deal of common sense, and very uncommon strength of mind, in rising superior to all prejudices of education and illusions of romance--to whom enthusiasm is only another name for affectation--who, where the cultivated and the contemplative mind finds ample matter to excite feeling and reflection, give themselves airs of fashionable _nonchalance_, or flippant scorn--to whom the crumbling ruin is so much brick and mortar, no more--to whom the tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii is a _stack of chimneys_, the Pantheon _an old oven_, and the Fountain of Egeria a _pig-sty_. Are such persons aware that in all this there is an affectation, a thousand times more gross and contemptible, than that affectation (too frequent perhaps) which they design to ridicule?

"Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, He is a slave--the meanest we can meet."

2.--Our journey to-day has been long, but delightfully diversified, and abounding in cla.s.sical beauty and interest. I scarce know what to say, now that I open my little book to record my own sensations: they are so many, so various, so painful, so delicious--my senses and my imagination have been so enchanted, my heart so very heavy--where shall I begin?

In some of the scenes of to-day--at Terracina, particularly, there was beauty beyond what I ever beheld or imagined: the scenery of Switzerland is of a different character, and on a different scale: it is beyond comparison grander, more gigantic, more overpowering, but it is not so poetical. Switzerland is not Italy--is not the enchanting _south_. This soft balmy air, these myrtles, orange-groves, palm-trees; these cloudless skies, this bright blue sea, and sunny hills, all breathe of an enchanted land; "a land of Faery."

Between Velletri and Terracina the road runs in one undeviating line through the Pontine Marshes. The accounts we have of the baneful effects of the malaria here, and the absolute solitude, (not a human face or a human habitation intervening from one post-house to another,) invest the wild landscape with a frightful and peculiar character of desolation. As for the mere exterior of the country, I have seen more wretched and sterile looking spots, (in France, for instance,) but none that so affected the imagination and the spirits.

On leaving the Pontine Marshes, we came almost suddenly upon the sunny and luxuriant region near Terracina: here was the ancient city of Anxur; and the gothic ruins of the castle of Theodoric, which frown on the steep above, are contrasted with the delicate and Grecian proportions of the temple below. All the country round is famed in cla.s.sic and poetic lore. The Promontory (once poetically the _island_) of Circe is still the Monte Circello: here was the region of the Lestrygons, and the scene of part of the aeneid and Odyssey; and Corinne has superadded romantic and charming a.s.sociations quite as delightful, and quite as _true_.

Antiquarians, who, like politicians, "seem to see the things that are not," have placed all along this road, the sites of many a celebrated town and fane--"making hue and cry after many a city which has run away, and by certain marks and tokens pursuing to find it:" as some old author says so quaintly. At every hundred yards, fragments of masonry are seen by the road-side; portions of brickwork, sometimes traced at the bottom of a dry ditch, or incorporated into a fence; sometimes peeping above the myrtle bushes on the wild hills, where the green lizards lie basking and glittering on them in thousands, and the stupid ferocious buffalo, with his fierce red eyes, rubs his hide and glares upon us as we pa.s.s. No--not the grandest monuments of Rome--not the Coliseum itself, in all its decaying magnificence, ever inspired me with such profound emotions as did those nameless, shapeless vestiges of the dwellings of man, starting up like memorial tombs in the midst of this savage but luxuriant wilderness. Of the beautiful cities which rose along this lovely coast, the colonies of elegant and polished Greece--one after another swallowed up by the "insatiate maw"

of ancient Rome, nothing remains--their sites, their very names have pa.s.sed away and perished. We might as well hunt after a forgotten dream.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride, They had no POET, and they died!

In vain they toil'd, in vain they bled, They had no POET--and are dead.

I write this a Gaeta--a name famous in the poetical, the cla.s.sical, the military story of Italy, from the day of aeneas, from whom it received its appellation, down to the annals of the late war. On the site of our inn, (the Albergo di Cicerone,) stood Cicero's Formian Villa; and in an adjoining grove he was murdered in his litter by the satellites of the Triumviri, as he attempted to escape. I stood to-night on a little terrace, which hung over an orange grove, and enjoyed a scene which I would paint, if words were forms, and hues, and sounds--not else. A beautiful bay, enclosed by the Mola di Gaeta, on one side, and the Promontory of Misenum on the other: the sky studded with stars and reflected in a sea as blue as itself--and so gla.s.sy and unruffled, it seemed to slumber in the moonlight: now and then the murmur of a wave, not hoa.r.s.ely breaking on rock and shingles, but kissing the turfy sh.o.r.e, where oranges and myrtles grew down to the water edge. These, and the remembrances connected with all, and a mind to think, and a heart to feel, and thoughts both of pain and pleasure mingling to render the effect more deep and touching.--Why should I write this? O surely I need not fear that I shall _forget_!

LINES WRITTEN AT MOLA DI GAETA, NEAR THE RUINS OF CICERO'S FORMIAN VILLA.

We wandered through bright climes, and drank the beams Of southern suns: Elysian scenes we view'd, Such as we picture oft in those day dreams That haunt the fancy in her wildest mood.

Upon the sea-heat vestiges we stood, Where Cicero dwelt, and watch'd the latest gleams Of rosy light steal o'er the azure flood: And memory conjur'd up most glowing themes, Filling the expanded heart, till it forgot Its own peculiar grief!--O! if the dead Yet haunt our earth, around this hallow'd spot, Hovers sweet Tully's spirit, since it fled The Roman Forum--Forum now no more!

Though cold and silent be the sands we tread, Still burns the "eloquent air," and to the sh.o.r.e There rolls no wave, and through the orange shade There sighs no breath, which doth not speak of him, THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY: and though dim Her day of empire--and her laurel crown Torn and defaced, and soiled with blood and tears, And her imperial eagles trampled down-- Still with a queen-like grace, Italia wears Her garland of bright names,--her coronal of stars, (Radiant memorials of departed worth!) That shed a glory round her pensive brow, And make her still the worship of the earth!

_Naples. Sunday 3rd._--We left Gaeta early. If the scene was so beautiful in the evening--how bright, how lovely it was this morning!