-the manner of the pulpit is generally too tame and cold, and some there are whose delivery is formal and frigid to the last degree of endurance. We should certainly speak more earnestly, if we felt as we ought the weight of our message and the responsibility of our vocation. The Papists preach falsehood as if they believed it to be truth, and were anxious to impress it as such upon their auditors; we too often proclaim the everlasting verities of Heaven as if we had no faith in them ourselves, and cared but little what effect they produced upon others. It is true, other Roman Catholic performances are generally sufficiently dull and monotonous; but the preaching, especially that of the monks and Jesuits, is in many instances fraught with a refreshing fervour and a most impressive energy.

Suspended over the altar in this church is the largest known piece of lapis-lazuli in the world. But as we departed, I saw without something far more interesting than this. Pasted upon the wall, and reaching to a considerable height on each side of the door, were great numbers of printed papers, each about a foot square, with the representation of a skeleton in the centre. I had often seen these before, and supposed them to relate to the burial of the dead; but upon examination, I now found that they were certificates of the release of souls from purgatory by masses said and paid for in this church. This helped to explain what I had just heard about the passports and thirty scudi.

In the piazza fronting this church there is generally a strong breeze, which the Romans account for in a manner most complimentary to the Jesuits. They say that the wind was one day walking with the devil: when they came to this place the latter said to his companion, 'I have something to do in here-wait for me a moment.' The devil entered, but never came out; and the wind still waits for him in the square.

At length we must bid adieu to Rome. We have remained already much longer than we intended. Four months have been well occupied, but I cannot say that I have yet seen Rome. Four years, indeed, were not suffi

cient for the purpose. Rome is inexhaustible. Hope of returning, I have none; yet many of the most interesting objects and localities must remain unvisited, and others but partially explored and imperfectly understood. As it is, however, I depart deeply impressed with what I have beheld of the Historic City-the remains of her ancient grandeur, the magnificence of her modern architecture, the wealth of her museums and galleries of art, the unrivalled beauty of her suburban villas and classical environs; but impressed still more with her weakness, her blindness, her imbecile policy, her sorceries and superstitions, her beggared populace and fast-declining power-constituting at once a manifest fulfilment of prophecy, and a tremendous prophecy yet to be fulfilled!

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She is still Majestic Rome,' but her crown is in the dust, and the prestige of her victory is gone. The once proud Mistress of the World' sits, a lone widow, in dotage and decrepitude, amid the ruins of her palace, asking alms of all who pass her gates. Her bishop is a recognized sovereign, but his prerogatives cannot be hereditary; and foreign bayonets guard his person, and prop his tottering throne. Claiming the right to rule the world, he can scarcely keep in subjection the few leagues of territory called the Papal States, and he sits trembling within the walls of the Vatican, and under the very shadow of Sant' Angelo. pretended head of the Church, and vicar of Jesus Christ, having the keys of the kingdom of heaven, he is not master of his own official acts, and is really less free than his own footman. The cardinals are princes, and generally they are men of learning and ability; but their talents are degraded to the most miserable time-serving devices, and all loftier aims are lost in the low craft of avarice and unworthy ambition. Rome claims to be 'the holiest of cities,' and the capital of the Christian world;' but there is no city of Europe that has less of vital godliness, or even of true morality. Her modern churches rival her ancient temples; they are dedicated chiefly to saints and martyrs; and painted canvas, and chiselled marble, and manufactured relics, are worshipped in them more than the living God; and the idolatry of which they are the daily

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scenes is not less gross than that which was practised in pagan Rome. Five thousand priests and friars walk her streets; but scarcely one in a hundred of her people has any respect for their profession, or any confidence in their virtue. The mansions of her nobles are fit residences for monarchs; but their spacious apartments are peopled only with statues and pictures, and their masters live retired upon the pitiful revenue which they receive from strangers who come to visit their galleries. She has but one railroad, and that is only fourteen miles in length; but one newspaper, and that is little more than a weekly announcement of the arrival and departure of foreigners.

'How is the mighty fallen! She that sat enthroned over the world, and regarded the earth as only a highway for her legions--she that trod upon the necks of kings, while nations fell prostrate in the dust before her—has become a beggar at the gates of foreign princes, and survives by swindling and plundering such as come to muse amid the wrecks of her former greatness. Her ecclesiastical thunders are unheeded, her political resources are exhausted, her exchequer is empty, and her prisons are full. Her streets swarm with mendicants, and murmur night and day with popular discontent; though there are three thousand spies, in the pay of the government, going constantly about the city, unknown to the people, and generally even to one another; and there is one or more of them at this hour in every coffee-house, and in every place of trade or of public resort.

Yet Rome is a city of strange and wondrous interest. It grows upon you in proportion as it is explored, and the longer you remain, the more reluctant you are to leave. I have groped among the mouldering substructions of her temples and theatres, and looked down from many a height upon the fading memorials of her ancient opulence and power. I have wandered at sunset along the banks of the Albula, and reclined at noonday in the bowers of suburban villas, communing with the spirit of the past, and imbibing full draughts of beauty through every sense. After all, the landscape scenery of Italy is to me its greatest charm;

and the sylvan environs of the Historic City never cloy, like the works of art* with which her churches and saloons are crowded; for nature is always fresh, and her aspects are ever varying, and even the same view often presents new beauties to the eye; and where every spot has a classical renown, and every object speaks of the greatest empire that ever rose and ruled and fell, there is a perpetual feast of solemn thought, with perennial springs of wisdom!

* One never wearies of looking at works of art of the highest order.-ED.

CHAPTER XXX.

FROM ROME TO FLORENCE.

Last View of St. Peter's-Monte Soracte-Civita CastellanaCamillus and the Schoolmaster-The Umbrian Hills-Ocricoli -Narni-Terni and its Falls-Short Method with BeggarsSpoletto The Clitumnus-Foligno - Spello - Santa Maria degli Angeli-Assisi-Saint Francis and his Order-Grotta Dei Volumni-The Etruscans-Perugia-Battle of Thrasymenus-The Papal Frontier-Brigands.

Now bind the sandals on the pilgrim's feet,

And bring his staff; for lo! the meek-eyed morn
Smiles o'er the Sabine Hills with sweetest grace!
To thee, old Rome, the tribute of a tear;

For never more the pilgrim shall behold
Thy venerable ruins, ivy-clad,

And eloquent of human impotence;
The yellow Tiber, and the Pantheon;

The Forum, and the Coliseum gray;

Temples, and towers, and that majestic dome !

FROM Rome to Florence, by way of Perugia-a journey of two hundred miles through the most charming region of Italy was a week of unmingled pleasure. Through the kindness of our friend, Mr. Bartholomew, it had been arranged for us to travel by vettura with one of the best American families it was our good fortune to meet with in Europe-Mr. John Olmsted, of Hartford, his pious, amiable, and accomplished wife and daughter, and their courier Dominico-an intelligent and good-natured Italian, who thought himself a Christian, the pope a humbug, and confession a bore. Accordingly, on a fine Monday morning, in the end of May, we bade adieu to many who had endeared themselves to us by their obliging offices, and drove forth through the Porto del Popolo, over the Ponte Molle, along the Via Flaminia, with the flowery Campagna on the one side and the classic Tiber on the other, towards the pyramidal Soracte and the Umbrian Hills. Whenever we gained some little eminence, and turned to look back upon objects we shall never behold again, the magnificent proportions of St. Peter's-the first and the last that the stranger sees of Rome-stood in bold relief against the beautiful sky. Again and again, as we passed over the