Chapter M: CLAUSSEN is here, and has kindly explained to me his processes and (4)

I spent the forenoon wandering through the endless halls of the Vatican, so far as they were accessible to the public, the more important galleries being only open on Monday, and two or three of the very finest not at all. I fear this restriction will deprive me of a sight of the Apollo Belvedere, the Sistine Chapel, and one or two others of the world's marvels. I know how ungracious it is to "look a gift horse in the mouth," and yet, since these works exist mainly to be seen, and as Rome derives so large a share of her income from the strangers whom these works attract to her, I must think it unwise to send any away regretting that they were denied a sight of the Apollo or of some of Raphael's master-pieces contained in the Vatican. I know at what vast expense these works have been produced or purchased, and, though all who visit Rome are made to pay a great deal indirectly for the privileges they enjoy here, yet I wish the Papal Government would frankly exact, as I for one should most cheerfully pay, a fair price for admission to the most admirable and unrivaled collections which are its property. If, for instance, it would abolish all Passport vexations, encourage the opening of Railroads, and stimulate the establishment of better lines of Diligences, &c., so that traveling in the Papal States would cease to be twice as dear and infinitely slower than elsewhere in Italy, in France or Germany, and would then charge each stranger visiting Rome on errands other than religious something like five dollars for all that is to be seen here, taking care to let him see it, and to cut off all private importunities for services rendered in showing them, the system would be a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some calumny and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have immense sums been already spent by this Government in excavating, preserving, and in some cases partially restoring such decayed but inimitable structures as the Coliseum, the Capitol, the various Triumphal Arches, the Baths of Titus, Caracalla, &c., all of which labors and expenditures we who visit Rome share the benefit, and it is but the simplest justice that we should contribute to defray the cost, especially when we know that every dollar so paid would be expended in continuing these excavations, &c., and in completing the galleries and other modern structures which are already so peerless. Rome is too commonly regarded as only a ruin, or, more strictly, as deriving all its eminence from the Past, while in fact it has more inestimable treasures, the product of our own century, our own day, than any other city, and I suspect nearly as many as all the rest of the world. Even the Vatican is still unfinished; workmen were busy in it to-day, laying additional floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge that three-fourths of the Frescoes which nearly cover the walls and ceiling of the fifteen or twenty large halls devoted to the Library are less than two centuries old. This part of the Vatican is approached through a magnificent corridor, probably five hundred feet long, with an arched ceiling entirely inlaid with beautiful Mosaic, and the same is continued through another gallery some two hundred feet long, which leads at right angles from this to another wing of the edifice; but the corridor leading down this wing, and facing that first named, has a naked, barren-looking ceiling, evidently waiting to be similarly inlaid when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from which are derived all this instruction and intellectual enjoyment.

Here let me say one word in justice to the princely families of Rome, whose palaces and immense collections of Paintings and Sculptures are almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. I looked for hours to-day through the ten spacious apartments of the Palace of the Orsini family devoted to the Fine Arts, as I had already done through that of the Doria family, and shall to-morrow do through others, and doubtless might do through hundreds of others--all hospitably open to every stranger on the simple condition that he shall deport himself civilly and refrain from doing any injury to the priceless treasures which are thus made his own without the trouble even of taking care of them. I know there are instances of like liberality elsewhere; but is it anywhere else the rule? and is it in our country even the exception? What American ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the collection of magnificent galleries of Pictures, Statues, &c., and then quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of compliment or acknowledgment in return?--without being even personally known to those whom he thus benefited? We have something to learn of Rome in this respect. Some of the English nobility whom the Press has shamed into following this munificent example have done it so grudgingly as to deprive the concession of all practical value. By requiring all who wish to visit their galleries to make a formal written application for the privilege, and await a written answer, they virtually restrict the favor to persons of leisure, position and education. But in Rome not even a card nor a name is required; and you walk into a strange private palace as if you belonged there, lay down your stick or umbrella, and are shown from hall to hall by an intelligent, courteous attendant, study at will some of the best productions of Claude, Raphael, Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Murillo, &c., pay two shillings if you see fit, to the attendant, and are thanked for it as if you were a patron; going thence to another such collection, and so for weeks, if you have time. If wealth were always thus employed, it were a pity that great fortunes are not more numerous.

But I purpose to speak of the COLISEUM. I will assume that most of my readers know that this was an immense amphitheater, constructed in the days of Rome's imperial greatness, used for gladiatorial combats of men with ferocious beasts and with each other, and calculated to afford a view of the spectacle to about one hundred thousand persons at once. The circuit of the building is over sixteen hundred feet; the arena in its center is about three hundred and eighty by two hundred and eighty feet. Most of the walls have fallen for perhaps half their height, though some part of them still retain very nearly their original altitude. In the darker ages, after this vast edifice had fallen into ruin, its materials were carried away by thousands and tens of thousands of tuns to build palaces and churches, and one side of the exterior wall was actually for ages drawn upon as if it were a quarry. But in later years the Papal Government has disbursed thousands upon thousands in the uncovering and preservation of this stupendous ruin, and with the amplest success. The fall of its roof and a great portion of its walls had filled and buried it with rubbish to a depth of some twenty to forty feet, all of which has been taken away, so that the floor of the interior is now the veritable sand whereon the combatants fought and bled and rendered up their lives, while the forty or fifty entrances for emperors, senators and people, and even the underground passage for the introduction of the wild beasts, with a part of their cages, are now palpable. In some places, restorations have been made where they were necessary to avert the danger of further dilapidation, but as sparingly as possible; and, though others think differently, the Coliseum seems to me as majestic and impressive in its utter desolation as it ever could have been in its grandeur and glory.

We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as gladiators as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable resistance to the "lower law" then in the ascendant, which the high priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Some twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a larger number of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent,--as the music decidedly was not; but the whole scene with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely picturesque and to me affecting. I came away before it concluded, to avoid the damp night-air; but many chequered years and scenes of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sunset and those strange prayers in the Coliseum.

XXV.

ST. PETER'S.

ROME, Saturday, June 29, 1851.

St. Peter's is the Niagara of edifices, having the same relation to other master-pieces of human effort that the great cataract bears to other terrestrial effects of Divine power. In either case, the first view disappoints, because the perfection of symmetry dims the consciousness of magnitude, and the total absence of exaggeration in the details forbids the conception of vastness in the aggregate. In viewing London's St. Paul's, you have a realization of bulk which St. Peter's does not give, yet St. Paul's is but a wart beside St. Peter's. I do not know that the resemblance has been noticed by others, but the semi-circle of gigantic yet admirably proportioned pillars which encloses the grand square in front of St. Peter's reminds me vividly of the general conformation of our great water-fall, while the column or obelisk in the center of the square (which column is a mistake, in my humble judgment, and should be removed) has its parallel in the unsightly tower overlooking the main cataract from the extreme point of Goat Island. Eternal endurance and repose may be fitly typified by the oceans and snow-crested mountains, but power and energy find their best expressions in the cataract and the dome. Time and Genius may produce other structures as admirable in their own way and regarded in connection with their uses; but, viewed as a temple, St. Peter's will ever stand unmatched and unapproachable.

I chose the early morning for my first visit. The sky was cloudless, as it mainly is here save in winter, but the day was not yet warm, for the summer nights are cooler here than in New-York, and the current English talk of the excessive heat which prevails in Rome at this season is calculated to deceive Americans. No one fails to realize from the first the great beauty and admirable accessories of this edifice, with the far-stretching but quite other than lofty pile of the Vatican on its right and its own magnificent colonnade in front, but you do not feel that it is lofty, nor spacious, nor anything but perfect. You ascend the steps, and thus gain some idea of the immense proportions prevailing throughout; for the church seems scarcely at all elevated above the square, and yet many are the steps leading up to the doors. Crossing a grand porch with an arched roof of glorious mosaic, you find yourself in the body of the edifice, which now seems large and lofty indeed, but by no means unparalleled. But you walk on and on, between opposing pillars the grandest the world ever saw, the space at either side between any two pillars constituting a separate chapel with its gorgeous altar, its grand pictures in mosaic, its sculptured saints and angels, each of these chapels having a larger area than any church I ever entered in America; and by the time you have walked slowly and observingly to the front of the main altar you realize profoundly that Earth has nothing else to match with St. Peter's. No matter though another church were twice as large, and erected at a cost of twice the Thirty Millions of dollars and fifty years expended upon this, St. Peter's would still stand unrivaled. For every detail is so marvellously symmetrical that no one is dwarfed, no one challenges special attention. Of one hundred distinct parts, any one by itself would command your profoundest admiration, but everything around and beyond it is no less excellent, and you soon cease to wonder and remain to appreciate and enjoy.

I devoted most of the day to St. Peter's, seeing it under many different aspects, but no other view of the interior is equal to that presented in the stillness and comparative solitude of the early morning. The presence of multitudes does not cloud your consciousness of its immensity, for ten thousand persons occupy no considerable portion of its area and might very easily be present yet wholly invisible to one who stood just inside the entrance and looked searchingly through the body of the edifice to find them; but there are usually very few seats, and those for the privileged, so that hundreds are constantly moving from place to place through the day, which distracts attention and mars the feeling of repose and delighted awe which the naked structure is calculated to inspire. Go very early some bright summer morning, if you would see St. Peter's in its calm and stately grandeur.

I ascended to the roof, and thence to the summit of the dome, but, apart from a profounder consciousness of the vastness and admirable proportions of the edifice, this is of little worth. True, the entire city and its suburbs lie clearly and fully beneath and around you; but so they do from the tower of the Capitol. Views from commanding heights are obtained in almost every city. The ascent, however, as far as the roof, is easier than any other I ever found within a building. Instead of stairs, here is a circular road, more like the ascent of a mountain than a Church. One single view is obtained, however, which richly compensates for the fatigue of the ascent. It is that from the interior of the dome down into the body of the Church below. The Alps may present grander, but I never expect to have another like this.

Here I had personal evidence of the mean, reckless selfishness wherewith public edifices are regarded by too many, and the absolute necessity of constant, omnipresent watchfulness to preserve them from wanton dilapidation. Five or six French soldiers had been permitted to ascend the dome just before I did, and came down nearly at the same time with me. As I stood gazing down from this point into the church below, two of these soldiers came in on their way down, and one of them, looking around to see that no one was present but a stranger, whipped the bayonet he wore out of its sheath, forced the point into the mosaic close behind as well as above us, pried out one of the square pieces of agate or some such stone of which that mosaic is composed, put it in his pocket and made off. I had no idea that he would deface the edifice until the moment he did it, and then hastily remonstrated, but of course without avail. I looked at the wall on which he operated, and found that two or three had preceded him in the same work of paltry but most outrageous robbery. Of course, each will boast of his exploit to his comrades of kindred spirit, and they will be tempted to imitate it, until the mischief done becomes sufficiently serious to attract attention, and then Nobody will have a serious reckoning to encounter. A few acts of unobserved rapine as trifling as these may easily occasion some signal disaster. In an edifice like this, there should be no point accessible to visiters unwatched by a faithful guardian even for one hour.

In the afternoon, I attended the Celebration of High Mass, this being observed by the Catholic world as St. Peter's Day, and the Pope himself officiating in the great Cathedral. Not understanding the service, I could not profit by it, and the spectacle impressed me unfavorably. Such a multiplicity of spears and bayonets seem to me strangely out of keeping in a place of worship; if they belong here, why not bring in a regiment of horse and a park of artillery as well? There is ample room for them in St. Peter's, and the cavalry might charge and the cannoniers fire a few volleys with little harm to the building, and with great increase both to the numbers and interest of the audience. I am not pretending to judge this for others, but simply to state how it naturally strikes one educated in the simple, sober observances of Puritan New-England. I have heard of Protestants being converted in Rome, but it seems to me the very last place where the great body of those educated in really Protestant ways would be likely to undergo conversion. I have seen very much here to admire, and there is doubtless many times more such that I have not seen, but the radical antagonism of Catholic and Protestant ideas, observances and tendencies never before stood out in a light so clear and strong as that shed upon it by a few days in Rome. I obtained admission yesterday to the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, and saw there, among the paintings in fresco, a representation of the death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; and if this were not intended to express approval of that horrible massacre, I would like to know what was meant by having it painted and placed there.

But to return to St. Peter's. The entrance of the grand procession from the Vatican was a very slow process. In its ranks were the Noble Guard, the Swiss Guard, the Cardinals, and many other divisions, each in its own imposing and picturesque costume. At length came the Pope, seated in a magnificent chair on a raised platform or palanquin, the whole borne on the shoulders of some ten or twelve servitors. This was a capital arrangement for us strangers, who wished a good view of His Holiness; but I am sure it was very disagreeable to him, and that he would much rather have walked like the rest. He passed into the church out of my sight, dismounted, and I (having also entered) next saw him approach one of the altars on the right, where he knelt and silently prayed for some minutes. He was then borne onward to his throne at the further end, and the service commenced.

The singing of the Mass was very good. The Pope's reading I did not hear, nor was I near enough even to see him, except fitfully. I think there were more than five thousand persons present, including a thousand priests and a thousand soldiers. There would doubtless have been many more, but for the fact that a smart shower occurred just before and at the hour (5 o'clock), while no public notice had been given that the Pope would officiate.

In the evening, St. Peter's and its accessories were illuminated--by far the most brilliant spectacle I ever saw. All was dark and silent till, at the first stroke of the bell, light flashed from a hundred thousand burners, and the entire front of the Church and Dome, up to the very summit of the spire, was one magnificent galaxy, while the double row of gigantic pillars or columns surrounding the square was in like manner radiant with jets of flame. I thought the architecture of St. Peter's Rome's greatest glory when I had only seen it by daylight, yet it now seemed more wondrous still. The bells rang sweetly and stirringly throughout the evening, and there was a like illumination on the summit of the Pincian Hill, while most of the shops and dwellings displayed at least one row of burning candles, and bonfires blazed brightly in the streets, which were alive with moving, animated groups, while the square of St. Peter's and the nearest bridges over the Tiber were black with excited thousands. To-night we have fire-works from the Pincian in honor of St. Peter, which would be thought in New England an odd way of honoring an Apostle, especially on Sunday evening; but whether Rome or Boston is right on this point is a question to be pondered.

_P. S. Monday._--I did not see the Fire-Works last evening, but almost every one else in Rome did, and the unanimous verdict pronounces them admirable--extraordinary. Great preparations had been made, and the success must have been perfect to win so general and hearty a commendation. The display was ushered in by a rousing salute of artillery; but this was not needed to assemble in and around the Piazza del Popolo all the population of Rome that could be spared from their homes. The Piazza is the great square of Rome, in front of the Pincian Hill, whence the rockets, wheels, stars, serpents, &c., were let off. The display was not concluded till after 10 o'clock.

This day I have devoted to famous private galleries of Paintings and Sculpture, having been again disappointed in attempting to gain a sight of the Apollo Belvedere and Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The time for opening these treasures to the public has lately been changed from 10 A. M. to noon, and they are only open regularly on Mondays; so that I was there a little before noon to be ready; but after waiting (with many others) a full hour, in front of an inexorable gate, without being able to learn why we were shut out or when the embargo would cease, I grew weary of the uncertainty and waste of time, and left. A little past 1 (I now understand), the gate was opened, but too late for me, as I did not return, and leave Rome for Florence to-morrow. Had the simplest notice been given that such a delay would take place, or had the officers at the gates been able to give any information, I should have had different luck. "They manage these things better in France."

XXVI.

THE ROMANS OF TO-DAY.

ROME, Monday, June 30, 1851.

The common people of Rome generally seem to me an intelligent, vivacious race, and I can readily credit the assurance of well-informed friends that they are mentally superior to most other Italians. It may be deemed strange that any other result should be thought possible, since the very earth around them, with all it bears, is so vivified with the spirit of Heroism, of Genius, and of whatever is most memorable in History. But the legitimate influences of Nature, of Art, and of Ancestry, are often overborne by those of Institutions and Laws, as is now witnessed on all the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, and I was rather disappointed in finding the present Romans a race of fully average capacities, intellectual and physical. A face indicating mental imbecility, or even low mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have been painted where the women were common-place and unideal.

But all with whom I can converse, and who are qualified to speak by residence in the country, give unfavorable accounts of the moral qualities of the Romans especially, and in these qualities I include Patriotism and all the civic virtues. That Italians, and those of Rome especially, are quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, dishonest, vicious, is the general report of the foreigners residing among them. Zealous Protestants will readily account for it by their Catholicism. My own prepossessions naturally lead me to the conclusion that much of the religious machinery in operation here is unfavorable to the development of high moral character. Whatever the enlightened and good may mean by these observances, it does seem to me that the ignorant and vulgar understand that the evil consequences of pleasant sins may be cheaply avoided by a liberal use of holy water, by bowings before the altar and reverent conformity to rituals and ceremonies.--This is certainly the great danger (in my sight) of the Catholic system, that it may lead its votaries to esteem conformity to outward and ceremonial requirements as essentially meritorious, and in some sense an offset for violations of the moral law. Not that this error is by any means confined to Catholics, for Christendom is full of Protestants who, though ready enough to proclaim that kissing the toe of St. Peter's statue is a poor atonement for violating the Commandments, and Adoration of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c. &c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering; but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded?

That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least ceremonially devout--where many of the best intellects in the Catholic communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand years--where Churches and Priests have long been more abundant than on any other spot of earth, and where Divine worship and Christian ordinances are scarcely intermitted for an hour, but are free and welcome to all, and are very generally attended--what is the reason that corruption and degeneracy should be so fearfully prevalent? If only the enemies of Rome's faith affirmed this degeneracy, we might fairly suppose it invented or exaggerated; but even the immediate Priesthood of this people, who may be presumed most unwilling and unlikely to deny their virtues or magnify their vices, declare them unfit to be trusted with power over their own political destinies, and indeed incapable of self-government. Such is the fundamental basis and essential justification of the rule now maintained in Rome, under the protection of foreign bayonets. This is a conquered city, virtually if not nominally in a state of siege, without assignable period. The Pope's guards are partly Swiss and partly native, that is, chosen from the families of the Nobility; but the "power behind the throne" is maintained by the thousands of French soldiers who garrison the city, and the tens of thousands of Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers who would be pushed here upon the first serious attempt of the Romans to assert their right of self-government. Thus, "Order reigns in Warsaw," while Democracy bites its lip and bides its time.

Has Human Nature degenerated under Christian ministrations? There surely _was_ a Roman people, some twenty-odd centuries ago, who were capable of self-government, and who maintained it long and creditably. Why should it be otherwise with the Romans of to-day? I do not believe it is. They have great vices I admit, for all testimony affirms it; that they might somewhat abuse Freedom I fear, for the blessed sunshine is painful and perilous to eyes long used to the gloom of the dungeon. But the experience of Freedom must tend to dispel the ignorance and correct the errors of its votaries, while Slavery only leads from bad to worse. If ten centuries of such rule as now prevails here have nowise qualified this people for Self-Government, what rational hope is there that ten more such would do it? If a reform is ever to be effected, it cannot be commenced too soon.

As to the actual government of Rome and her dependencies, it could not well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts being wholly devoted to the various and complicated cares of his vast Spiritual empire. Meantime, the Reaectionist influences so omnipotent with his predecessor, but which were repressed for a time after the present Pontiff's accession, have unchecked sway in the political administration. The way the present rulers of Rome read History is this--"Pius IX. came into power a Liberal and a Reformer, and did all he could for the promotion of Republican and Progressive ideas; for all which his recompense was the assassination of his Prime Minister, and his own personal expulsion from his throne and territories--which is quite enough of Liberalism for one generation; we, at least, will have no more of it." And they certainly live up to their resolution. It is currently reported that there are now _Seventeen Thousand_ political prisoners confined here, but nobody who would tell can know how many there are, and I presume this statement is a gross exaggeration, significant only as an index of the popular feeling. The essential fact is that there _might_ be Seventeen or Seventy Thousand thus imprisoned without publicity, known accusation or trial, save at the convenience of those ordering their arrest; and with no recognized right of the arrested to Habeas Corpus or any kindred process. Many of the best Romans of the age are in exile for Liberty's sake. I was reliably informed at Turin that there are at this time _Three Hundred Thousand_ Political Refugees in the Kingdom of Sardinia, nearly all, of course, from the despotism of Lower Italy. Thus Europe is kept tranquil by a system of terror, which is efficient while the spell holds; but let it break at any point, and all will go together.

The Cardinals are the actual directors of State affairs here, and are popularly held responsible for all that is disliked in the Government. They would be likely to fare roughly in case of another revolution. They are privately accused of flagrant immoralities, as men so powerful and so unpopular would naturally be, whether with or without cause. I know no facts that sustain the accusation.

A single newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. There are very few foreign journals taken or read in the Roman States. Lynn or Poughkeepsie probably, Newark or New-Haven certainly, buys and reads more newspapers than the entire Three Millions of People who inhabit the Papal States. I could not learn to relish such a state of things. I have just paid $3.70 (more than half of it to our American Consul) for the privilege of leaving the dominions of His Holiness, and shall speedily profit by the gracious permission.

XXVII.

CENTRAL ITALY--FLORENCE.

BOLOGNA, July 6, 1851.

"See Naples and die!" says the proverb: but I am in no hurry to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and rather weary of seeing. I think I should have found a few choice friends in Naples, but my time is limited, and the traveling through Southern Italy neither pleasant nor expeditious. Of Vesuvius in its milder moods I never had a high opinion; and, though I should have liked to tread the unburied streets of Pompeii, yet Rome has nearly surfeited me with ruins. So I shortened my tour in Italy by cutting off the farther end of it, and turned my face obliquely homeward from the Eternal City. What has the world to show of by-gone glory and grandeur which she cannot at least equal?

Let no one be sanguine as to his good resolutions. I as firmly resolved, when I first shook from my feet the dust of Civita Vecchia, that I never again would enter its gates, as I ever did to do or forbear any act whatever. But, after a tedious and ineffectual attempt to make up a party of Americans to come through from Rome to Florence direct, I was at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be found to express it. So some dozen or more who would gladly have gone through by land to Florence were driven back upon Civita Vecchia and Leghorn--I among the number.

Three of us left Rome in a private carriage at noon on Tuesday the 1st, and reached Civita Vecchia at 10 minutes past 9 P. M.--the inner gate having been closed at 9. One of my companions was known and responsibly connected at the port, and so was enabled to negotiate our admission, though the process was a tedious one, and our carriage had to be left in the outer court, or between the two walls. Here I left it at 10; it may have been got in afterward. We found all the rooms taken at the best Hotel (Orlandi), and were driven to accept such as there were left. The boat (Languedoc) was advertised to start for Leghorn at 7 next morning, by which time I succeeded in getting my Passport cleared (for no steamboat in these waters will give you a permit to embark until you have handed in your Passport, duly cleared, at its office, as well as paid for your passage); but the boat was coolly taking in water long after its advertised hour, and did not start until half past eight.

We had an unusually large number of passengers, about one hundred and fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should have been well and hearty. We made Leghorn (120 miles) in about eleven hours, which is very good time for the Mediterranean. But reaching the harbor of Leghorn was one thing, getting ashore quite another; an hour or more elapsed before any of us had permission to land. I was one of the two first who got off, through the preconcerted interposition of a powerful Leghorn friend who had procured a special permit from the Police, and at whose hospitable mansion we passed the night. I was unwell throughout; but an early bath in the Mediterranean was the medicine I required, and from the moment of taking it I began to recover. By seasonable effort, I recovered my Passport from the Police office, duly _vised_, at 10 A. M. and left by Railroad for Florence at 10 1/2, reaching the capital of Tuscany (60 miles) about 1 o'clock, P. M.

Florence (Italian _Firenze_) is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Arno, some forty miles in a direct line from its mouth. The river is here about the size of the Hudson at Sandy Hill or the Mohawk at Canajoharie, but subject to rapid swellings from rains in the Apennines above. One such occurred the night I was there, though very little rain fell at Florence. I was awakened in the night by the rushing and roaring of its waters, my window having only a street between it and the river, which subsided the next day, without having done any material damage.

That day was the 4th of July, and I spent most of it, under the guidance of friends resident at Florence, in looking through the galleries devoted to Paintings and Statuary in the two famous palaces of the reigning family and in the Academy. Although the collections embrace the Venus de Medicis and many admirable Paintings, I cannot say that my expectations were fully realized. Ill health may in part account for this; my recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treasures of Art at Rome may also help explain my obtuseness at Florence. And yet I saw nothing in Rome with greater pleasure or profit than I derived from the hour I spent in the studio of our countryman POWERS, whose fame is already world-wide, and who I trust is now rapidly acquiring that generous competence which will enable him to spend the evening of his days in ease and comfort in his native land. The abundance of orders constantly pouring in upon him at his own prices does not induce him to abandon nor postpone his efforts in the ideal and more exalted sphere of his art, but rather to redouble those efforts; and it will yet be felt that his "Greek Slave" and "Fisher Boy," so widely admired, are not his loftiest achievements. I defy Antiquity to surpass--I doubt its ability to rival--his "Proserpine" and his "Psyche" with any models of the female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfill his destiny. If for those who talk of America quitting her proper sphere and seeking to be Europe when she wanders into the domain of Art, we had no other answer than POWERS, that name would be conclusive.

GREENOUGH is now absent from Florence. I met him at Turin, on his way to America, on account (I casually heard) of sickness in his family. But I obtained admission to his studio in Florence, and saw there the unfinished group on which he is employed by order of Congress, to adorn one of the yet empty niches in the Capitol. His execution is not yet sufficiently advanced to be judged, but the design is happy and most expressive.

I saw something of three younger American Sculptors now studying and working at Florence--HART of Kentucky, GALT of Virginia, and ROGERS of New-York. (IVES is absent--at Rome, I believe, though I did not meet him there.) I believe all are preparing to do credit to their country. HART has been hindered by a loss of models at sea from proceeding with the Statue of HENRY CLAY which he is commissioned by the Ladies of Virginia to fashion and construct; but he is wisely devoting much of his time to careful study and to the modeling of the Ideal before proceeding to commit himself irrevocably by the great work which must fix his position among Sculptors and make or mar his destiny. I have great confidence that what he has already carefully and excellently done is but a foretaste of what he is yet to achieve, and that his seeming hesitation will prove the surest and truest efficiency.

I think there are but few American painters in Florence. I met none but PAGE, who is fully employed and expects to spend some time in Italy. His health is better than during his last year in New-York.

* * * * *

The strong necessity of moving on compelled me to tear myself away from a pleasant party of Americans assembled at dinner in Florence last evening to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of American Independence, and take the Diligence at 8 o'clock for this place on the road to Venice, though no other American nor even an Englishman came along. I have found by experience that I cannot await the motions of others, nor can I find a party ready to take post-horses and so travel at rational hours. The Diligence or stage-coach traveling in Italy appears to be organized on purpose to afford the least possible accommodation at the most exorbitant cost. This city, for example, is 63 miles from Florence on the way to Padua and Venice, and the Diligence leaves Florence for Bologna at no other hour than 8 P. M. arriving here at 1 1/2 o'clock next day; fare 40 to 45 Tuscan pauls or $4.45 to $5. But when you reach Bologna at midday, after an all-night ride, you find no conveyance for any point beyond this until ten o'clock next morning, so that you must wait here twenty-one hours; and the Diligence might far better, so far as the travelers' convenience and comfort is concerned, have remained in Florence till an early hour in the morning, making the passage over the Apennines by day and saving their nights' rest. Three or four travelers may break over this absurd tyranny by taking post-horses; a single one has no choice but to submit. And, having reached Bologna, I tried to gain time, or at least avoid another night-ride, by taking a private carriage (_vetturino_) this afternoon for Ferrara, thirty miles further on, sleep there to-night, and catch a Diligence or Mail-Coach to-morrow morning, so as to reach Padua in the evening: but no--there is no coach out of Padua Venice-ward till 4 to-morrow afternoon, and I should gain nothing but extra fatigue and expense by taking a carriage to Ferrara, so I give it up. I must make most of the journey from Ferrara to Padua by night, and yet take as much time as though I traveled only by day,--for I am in Italy.

The valley of the Arno, especially for some miles on either side of Florence, is among the most fertile portions of this prolific land, and is laboriously though not efficiently cultivated. All the Grains grow luxuriantly throughout Italy, though Indian Corn is so thickly planted and so viciously cultivated that it has no chance to ear or fill well. There is enough labor performed on the average to insure sixty bushels of shelled grain to the acre, but the actual yield will hardly exceed twenty-five. And I have not had the first morsel of food prepared from this grain offered me since I reached the shores of Europe. Wheat is the favorite grain here, and, requiring less depth of soil than Indian corn, and having been much longer cultivated here, yields very fairly. Barley and Oats are grown, but to a limited extent; of Rye, still less. The Potato is planted very sparingly south of Piedmont, and not so commonly there as in Savoy. The Vine is a universal favorite, and rarely out of view; while it often seems to cover half the ground in sight. But it is not grown here in close hills as in France and around Cincinnati, but usually in rows some twenty or thirty feet apart, and trained on trees kept down to a hight of eight to twelve feet. Around Rome, a species of Cane is grown wherewith to support the vines after the manner of bean-poles, which, after serving a year or two in this capacity, is used for fuel, and new stalks of cane replace those which have been enfeebled by exposure and decay. The plan of training the vines on dwarfed trees (which seems to me by far the most natural) prevails here as well as on the other side of the Apennines; so that the vine-stalks are large and may be hundreds of years old, instead of being (apparently) fresh from the ground every year or two. The space between the vine-rows is usually sown with Wheat, but sometimes planted with Corn or laid down to Grass, and a moderate crop realized.

Crossing the Apennines mainly in the night, they seemed a little higher than the Green Mountains of Vermont, but lacking the thrifty forests of which I apprehend the proximity of Railroads is about to despoil that noble range. But the Apennines, though cultivated wherever they can be, are far more precipitous and sterile than their American counterpart, and seem to be in good degree composed of a whitish clay or marl which every rain is washing away, rendering the Arno after a storm one of the muddiest streams I ever saw. I presume, therefore, that the Apennines are, as a whole, less lofty and difficult now than they were in the days of Romulus, of Hannibal, or even of Constantine.

We crossed the summit about daylight, and began rapidly to descend, following down the course of one of the streams which find the Adriatic together near the mouth of the Po. At 5 A. M. we passed the boundary of Tuscany and entered the Papal territory, so that our baggage had to be all taken down and searched, and our Passports re-scrutinized--two processes to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were few habitations in sight, there soon gathered around us a swarm of most importunate beggars--brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace and whine--"For the love of God, Signor"--with ditto old men, and children of various sizes, the youngest who could walk seeming as apt at beggary as their grandames who have followed it, "off and on," for seventy or eighty years. If the ancient Romans had equaled their living progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to achieve the mastery of the world--they might have begged it, and saved an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York shilling or eighteen pence per day, and themselves the virtual serfs of great landholders who live in Rome or Bologna and whom they rarely or never see--is it a wonder that they stoop to plead and whine for coppers around every carriage that traverses their country? That they fare miserably, their scanty rags and pinched faces sufficiently attest; that they are indolent and improvident I can very well believe: for when were uneducated, unskilled, hopeless vassals anything else? Italy, beautiful, bounteous land! is everywhere haggard with want and wretchedness, but these seem nowhere so general and chronic as in the Papal territories. Every political division of Italy but this has at least some section of Railroad in operation; Rome, though in the heart of all and the great focus of attraction for travelers, has not the first mile and no prospect of any, though it would seem a good speculation to build one if it were to be used only in transporting hither the Foreign troops absolutely essential here to keep the people quiet in their chains. "And this, too, shall pass away!"

XXVIII.

EASTERN ITALY--THE PO.

VENICE, Tuesday, July 8.