GROTTO OF EGERIA.

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the ruins of temples and combs strewing the plain for miles around it, it might be called the spine to the skeleton of Rome.

We passed many ruins, made beautiful by the clinging ivy, and reached a solemn grove of ever-green oak, overlooking a secluded valley. I was soon in the meadow, leaping ditches, rustling through cane-brakes, and climbing up to mossy arches to find out the fountain of Numa's nymph; while my companion, who had less taste for the romantic, looked on complacently from the leeward side of the hill. At length we found an arched vault in the hill-side, overhung with wild vines, and shaded n summer by umbrageous trees that grow on the soil above. At the further end a stream of water gushed out from beneath a broken statue, and an aperture in the wall revealed a dark cavern behind. This, then, was "Egeria's grot." The ground was trampled by the feet of cattle, and the taste of the water was anything but pleasant. But it was not for Numa and his nymph alone, that I sought it so ardently. The sunbeam of another mind lingers on the spot. See how it gilds the ruined and neglected fount '

"The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled

With thine Elysian water-drops; the face

Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,

Whose wild, green margin, now no more erase

Art's works; no more its sparkling waters sleep,

Prisoned in marble; bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap,

The rill runs o'er, and 'round, fern, flowers and ivy creep,
Fantastically tangled."

I tried to creep into the grotto, but it was unpleasantly dark, and no nymph appeared to chase away the shadow with her lustrous eyes. The whole hill is pierced by subterranean cham

bers and passages.

I spent another Sunday morning in St. Peter's. High mass was being celebrated in one of the side Chapels, and a great number of the priesthood were present. The music was simple, solemn, and very impressive, and a fine effect was produced by the combination of the full, sonorous voices of the priests, and the divine sweetness of that band of mutilated unfortunates, who sing

here. They sang with a full, clear tone, sweet as the first lispings of a child, but it was painful to hear that melody, purchased at the expense of manhood.

Near the dome is a bronze statue of St. Peter, which seems to have a peculiar atmosphere of sanctity. People say their prayers before it by hundreds, and then kiss its toe, which is nearly worn away by the application of so many thousand lips. I saw a crowd struggle most irreverently to pay their devotion to it. There was a great deal of jostling and confusion; some went so far as to thrust the faces of others against the toe as they were about to kiss it. What is more remarkable, it is an antique statue of Jupiter, taken, I believe, from the Pantheon. An English artist, showing it to a friend, just arrived in Rome, remarked very wittily that it was the statue of Jew-Peter.

I went afterwards to the Villa Borghese, outside the Porta del Popolo. The gardens occupy thirty or forty acres, and are always thronged in the afternoon with the carriages of the Roman and foreign nobility. In summer, it must be a heavenly place; even now, with its musical fountains, long avenues, and grassy slopes, crowned with the fan-like branches of the Italian pine, it reminds one of the fairy landscapes of Boccaccio. We threaded our way through the press of carriages on the Pincian hill, and saw the enormous bulk of St. Peter's loom up against the sunset sky. I counted forty domes and spires in that part of Rome that lay below us—but on what a marble glory looked that sun eighteen centuries ago! Modern Rome—it is in comparison, a den of filth, cheats and beggars!

Yesterday, while taking a random stroll through the city, I visited the church of St. Onofrio, where Tasso is buried. It is not far from St. Peter's, on the summit of a lonely hill. The building was closed, but an old monk admitted us on application. The interior is quite small, but very old, and the floor is covered with the tombs of princes and prelates of a past century. Near the end I found a small slab with the inscription:

THE AMERICAN CONSUL.

339

Who knows not the

That was all-but what more was needed? name and fame and sufferings of the glorious bard? The pomp of gold and marble are not needed to deck the slumber of genius. On the wall, above, hangs an old and authentic portrait of him, very similar to the engravings in circulation. A crown of laurel encircles the lofty brow, and the eye has that wild, mournful expression, which accords so well with the mysterious tale of his love and madness.

Owing to the mountain storms, which imposed on us the ex. pense of a carriage-journey to Rome, we shall be prevented from going further. One great cause of this is the heavy fee required for passports in Italy. In most of the Italian cities, the cost of the different visès amounts to $4 or $5; a few such visits as these reduce our funds very materially. The American Consul's fee is $2, owing to the illiberal course of our government, in withholding all salary from her Consuls in Europe. Mr. Brown, however, in whose family we spent last evening very pleasantly, on our requesting that he would deduct something from the usual fee, kindly declined accepting anything. We felt this kindness the more, as from the character which some of our late Consuls bear in Italy, we had not anticipated it. We shall remember him with deeper gratitude than many would suppose, who have never known what it was to be a foreigner.

To-morrow, therefore, we leave Rome-here is, at last, the limit of our wanderings. We have spent much toil and privation to reach here, and now, after two weeks' rambling and musing among the mighty relics of past glory, we turn our faces homeward. The thrilling hope I cherished during the whole pilgrimage-to climb Parnassus and drink from Castaly, under the blue heaven of Greece (both far easier than the steep hill and hidden fount of poesy, I worship afar off)-to sigh for fallen art, beneath the broken friezes of the Parthenon, and look with a pilgrim's eye on the isles of Homer and of Sappho-must be given up, unwillingly and sorrowfully though it be. These glorious anticipations among the brightest that blessed my boyhood-are slowly wrung from me by stern necessity. Even Naples, the lovely Parthenope, where the Mantuan bard sleeps on the sunny shore, by the bluest of summer seas, with the disinterred Pompeii

beyond, and Pæstum amid its roses on the lonely Calabrian plain -even this, almost within sight of the cross of St. Peter's, is barred from me. Farewell then, clime of "fame and eld," since it must be! A pilgrim's blessing for the lore ye have taught him!

SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.

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CHAPTER XLII.

Palo.-The sea is breaking in long swells below the window, and a glorious planet shines in the place of the sunset that has died away. This is our first resting-place since leaving Rome. We have been walking all day over the bare and dreary Campagna, and it is a relief to look at last on the broad, blue expanse of the Tyrrhene Sea.

When we emerged from the cool alleys of Rome, and began to climb up and down the long, barren swells, the sun beat down on us with an almost summer heat. On crossing a ridge near Castel Guido, we took our last look of Rome, and saw from the other side the sunshine lying like a dazzling belt on the far Mediterranean. The country is one of the most wretched that can be imagined. Miles and miles of uncultivated land, with scarcely a single habitation, extend on either side of the road, and the few shepherds who watch their flocks in the marshy hollows, look wild and savage enough for any kind of crime. It made me shudder to see every face bearing such a villainous stamp.

Civita Vecchia, Jan. 11.-We left Palo just after sunrise, and walked in the cool of the morning beside the blue Mediterranean. On the right, the low outposts of the Appenines rose, bleak and brown, the narrow plain between them and the shore resembling a desert, so destitute was it of the signs of civilized life. A low, white cloud that hung over the sea, afar off, showed us the locality of Sardinia, though the land was not visible. The sun shone down warmly, and with the blue sky and bluer sea we could easily have imagined a milder season. The barren scenery took a new interest in my eyes, when I remembered that I was spending amidst it that birth-day which removes me, in the eyes of the world, from dependant youth to responsible manhood.

In the afternoon we found a beautiful cove in a curve of the shore, and went to bathe in the cold surf. It was very refresh