turn to the God who gave them, our bodies to the kindred dust. And here, too, English prayers were uttered, and tears fell from English eyes; no doubt, those who are laid here, 'sleep well God rest their souls! The Free Church has set up a tabernacle in Nice, which they call the Scotch Church. They are wise in their generation, and know that to style it the Scotch Free Church would not suit; so they sink the Free in their advertisements, and quietly call themselves by the name of that detested body, the Erastian Establishment. In their Home and Foreign Record, however, the brethren and handmaidens of the Free Seceding connexion have their spirits quickened and their hearts enlarged by seeing the conventicle at Nice emblazoned in stout capitals as the Free Church of Scotland at Nice. The assemblage who frequent this meeting is small. Members of the Church of Scotland don't care much for Presbyterian services, unless conducted by a clergyman of their own church; at least, most seem to prefer going to the sister church to joining in the services of a body which, like the Free Church, exhibits anything but a friendly spirit towards the Scottish Establishment. The present Free Church minister is, however, a most excellent and amiable man, and attracts many who, if he were less judicious and able, would not think of attending.

One day I went with a donkey party to Falicon, a wild spot perched amid bare rocks high on the mountainside behind Nice, and to the right of the Paglione. We mustered about two dozen; a few robust walkers were on foot, and marched stoutly on, sheltered by their white umbrellas. The rest, including all the ladies, were on assback. In attendance was a crowd of donkey-boys and girls, who whipped up refractory cuddies, guided the wandering, and restrained the headstrong. We were a picturesque cavalcade, worthy of the pencil of a Leech or Doyle.

The road was stony and rutty, more like a dry torrent-bed than a road. All along it was overshadowed with olive trees, through whose grey and glimmering foliage the sun glinted here and there glancingly on the

ambling troop, lighting with golden colour the shawls, plaids, and dresses of the ladies, and the graver costume of the men, and flickering daintily on round hats, truant tresses, and fluttering veils. Now and then through stem-encircled vistas, gleamed from the distance the deep azure of the rolling sea, or nearer from amid a cypress or orange grove shone the white walls of a sunlit villa; while ever and anon some muffled bell chimed from the distant city, or the convent on the hillside, or up the avenues of olive came the tinkle of the mule bells, as the slow mules tracked the winding road. The scenes, the sounds, the moving cavalcade were novel and striking. We were a merry party; loud rang many a time and oft our laughter, echoed by the shrill yoops and yells of the attendants, who seemed to think our mirth a signal for an immediate charge. And then when we charged, the race! First scattered all over and along the road, and then suddenly closed up in a dense and struggling mass of emulous or recalcitrant donkeys, of jumbled habits, of pedestrians, who fain would extricate themselves from the crush. Sometimes from the very heart of the ruck, one with bit in teeth would shoot far ahead, and then kick and caracole till its companions reached it. Sometimes in the very height and glory of the race, a perverse brute, with backward ears, would stop, and wheel and tussle, till its exhausted rider, giving in to its waywardness, was left far behind. Yes, the donkey parties at Nice were splendid fun; nor did they want the music of sweet voices, and the light of lovely eyes.

When I had to say good-bye, and leave that sunny haven of the weary and the worn, a donkey party was just starting for the hills. I went to the mount' and 'meet.' A small white gauntleted hand was held out across the saddle-bow with frank and kindly friendliness: Well, goodbye! and bon voyage.' More might have been said, but the strongminded and strong-mouthed donkey hew-hawed the idea, and set off, and I was left lamenting.' I liked the gauntlet so well, however, and I was so anxious to know how

the side apparently of a brown hill, were scattered some white buildings. In answer to our queries as to what they were, the men replied, 'Roma, Roma; deep-voiced men, poor and tattered, yet with a wild proud look on their worn faces. I did not throw up my hat or eyes, clasp my hands, or burst into irrepressible tears. I did not exclaim, There, then, is Rome; at last I behold the eternal city!'or, And can that be Romethe city of the Cæsars?' &c., &c. No. I felt no emotion; partly because I didn't believe the fellows; partly because a long drive in a post diligence, on that horrible ugly road from Civita Vecchia is quite enough to damp any amount of the usual touristic enthusiasm. The Romans were right, however, and I would have been less sceptical, as is always the case, had I been less ignorant. I did not know, or I forgot that Rome lay low by the Tiber, and that these white buildings were veritably parts of the city, or outskirts of it on the slopes of the hills. As we jogged on the sun set, reddening the landscape far and wide, we rattled down into a hollow, climbed a height; a dome rose before us; the courier jumped down to put on the drag ere we plunged into a second defile. What is the dome?' 'San Pietro: emotion now at the mention of that magic name; but, alas! a wrong one, infinite disappointment. The world-famous dome seemed to me scarcely larger than St. George's, Edinburgh. Sceptic again, I muttered, 'That can't be St. Peter's.' Oh, when will writers of books of travel learn to write truth, and describe faithfully? Overcharged descriptions wrought my woe,' and like every one who adds to the picture of another always a little imagination of his own, I was at the first view grievously disappointed. We drove through a shabby gate, and entered the streets of Rome. After a short passport delay we proceeded. We passed the superb Piazza of St. Peter's as the full moon began to silver the pillars. I rather relented and melted into respect; but still I could not admit any grandeur or nobility to that fat dome; no, not even when a low and heavy bell swinging somewhere in its precincts

boomed forth solemn, slow, majestic, as if muffling and restraining its tremendous power, and knelled into my soul some fit feelings wherewith to enter Rome-admiration, wonder, awe. But the streets were dirty and rough: the Tiber, as we crossed it, seemed a muddy canal; my first impression of Rome was a decided failure. The Hôtel d'Angleterre was full to the roof. My letter from Nice, taking by some egregious blunder, nine days in transmission, had only reached that morning; so no preparation could be made for us. A cell up endless flights of stairs was the sole chamber I could get. It felt cold, and had a most beggarly provision of washing apparatus: my temper was beginning to go; I rang for my portmanteau all the rest of my luggage had been brought up but it; it was not,' as Jacob said of Joseph; apparently it had been left at Civita Vecchia. My temper went. Rome indeed! a precious humbug; a dirty, beggarly, blundering hole; Cicero and Cæsar, Senator and Saint, Cardinal and Pope, be banished! bring me my portmanteau; I want my portmanteau; only give me my portmanteau, and Rome may go at once whither she has so long been going.

What an unromantic wretch, to care for such trifles the night of your arrival in Rome, dear Rome!' fair lady, and excellent as thou art fair, chide me not; on the little things of life, as upon pegs, we hang our comfort, and on our comfort depends our faculty of enjoying all that the world without can offer.

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To a man who had lost a portmanteau, which, besides containing articles of a value no money could ever be an equivalent for, held all his changes of raiment, sorely needed after a week's dusty and briny travel, Asgard, the city of the immortal gods' itself, would seem a heap of tiresome rubbish. Besides, there is no more romance in spending a first night in Rome than in passing it in any other old and flea-bitten city in the world. I defy you, after your journey and before dinner, to feel a spark of enthusiasm for anything save washing and refreshments; and after the tabled'hôte you are too sleepy, you want

to go to bed then; and in bed, if unmolested by the lower orders of animate nature, you sleep and snore-if you are a snorer-as doggedly as if you were under your old familiar' blankets in your northern home. The fact is, the change is so total, the sundering of feeling and association from their ancient haunts is so entire when you catch sight of Rome, that your common sense revolts from anything like excited or enthusiastic sentiment. If you could draw near the grand old mistress of the world, seated in a Roman chariot drawn by the steeds of Parthia; if you could mark, as you approached, standing in their richness and strength, palaces and baths, Capitol and Coliseum, triumphal arch and pillar and holy fane; if you could see as you entered the city and traversed the Forum, the form of Cicero, or hear the voice of Virgil talking with Mæcenas, or hearken to Horace's laugh as he and Heliodorous set out for Brundusium, haply meeting the merry companions making for the gates, then you might abandon your classic and romantic soul to all the tides of impulse; but as it is, sitting in a dusty bin on four wheels, seeing perpetually dunching up and down in his saddle the rear of the postilion right before you, first distinguishing the walls and edifices through a dingy window, or between the dangling legs of your courier, and past the aforesaid rear of the postilion, heaving up and down in the saddle; bothered at the gate about your passport; rattled to the very marrow on the stony streets; worried to extremity at your hotel; beset by a score of beggars; pestered for buono mano by every one who touches you or your baggage; forced to become Polyglot, and speak three languages at once, only one of which can adequately express your deep and bitter sense of worry, weariness, and general discontent, you must be a perfect fool if you can imagine you feel enthusiasm, or experience one romantic sentiment on first entering the Eternal City.'

In sober earnest, forms are changed, and the days of romance and expressed enthusiasm are over now.

The people who are always talking

about romance never know it. It is in these days not a name but a reality. It is worked out, not idly paraded as something only felt and found in the regions of the sentimental. The romance of our time consists in trials borne and labour perfected. The days of red-cross knights and captive damsels, of dragons and giants, are no more; but the spirit of romance eternal in the human heart still lives. We still can do battle for the fair and pure, and release the captive and destroy the rampant evil. We still can slay that dragon the World with its hydra-head and hundred tongues, and rescue from its grasp gentle lives, and from its calumny noble names, which the mean and low cover with obloquy and reproach, because the light which God has given to his great ones does not shine, or rather twinkle, with the precise and puny wink to which they have trimmed their farthing candles. But what has this to do with Rome? You may well ask that. I dined, and in due course went to bed, and that in a savage mood, thinking of my

lost Lenore,'-I mean my lost portmanteau. I dreamed-ah, come again, sweet dream! Amid the changeful scenes of sleep which my dark humour seemed to overcast, She dawned upon my sight. She saw my angry brow; she heard my hasty word. The angel of my life performed her gentle office. She called me laughingly by my familiar name. She took my hand in hers, and by her side I sat no longer moody and ill at ease, but calmed and brightened with the serenity of her love and the fairness of her beauty. The past rolled away with its separations-my spirit overleapt the barrier; and again her presence blest me. Thus passed my first night at Rome. I awoke and she was gone, and dull and barren seemed the world to me. She had enlightened my night with sweet but deceiving visions; even mighty Rome could promise me no equal spell to cheer and illume my day.

Feb. 2.-I am settled now in the Hôtel d'Allemagne, not entirely to my liking, but tolerably well upon the whole. The approaching Carnival places all board and lodging at a premium, so one should be thankful for any, and not grumble.

In the morning I went to the neighbouring church of Sant' Andrea delle Fratte, where service was going on.

The only thing that struck me in the decorations, which are neither very rich nor plentiful, was a lion's head and shoulders in a fresco close to the dome, in one of the triangular spaces at the base of it. The expression of moody strength and watchfulness was finely given. Between eleven and twelve I drove down to St. Peter's, where the grand ceremonial of blessing the candles (Candlemas), and the attendant service had begun about ten o'clock, and were still in progress. Full dress is requisite in a gentleman, and a black dress and veil in a lady, if desirous of admission to the positions commanding an immediate view of the performances. My lost portmanteau robbed me of the means of entering these precincts, so I went in forenoon costume and humbly mingled with the crowd, which was not very large. Still I am unimpressed with the dome and dimensions of the Great Basilica. My imagination, I fear, must be radically vitiated in regard to size; incapable of appreciating, or perhaps too facile in conceiving stupendous magnitude. The Renaissance architecture, too, fails to strike me with that reverence and delight which one cannot but feel in the presence of the more solemn and religious Gothic. The gilding appears to me too profuse, the marble statues and the pictures too plentiful, and too much merely artistic, and not sufficiently breathed upon, if we may so speak, with the spirit of resigned devotion and reverent adoration. They assert themselves too much and flaunt too broadly before the eye. There is no repose, no submissive quiet, no chastened strength here, save in the great sweeps and outlines of the building, and these are so encrusted with decoration that the eye is too soon satisfied with seeing,' and longs for something sterner, purer, more masculine and simple, than the gorgeous colours and cunning forms of these frescoes, altars, and

statues.

And where, perhaps, in a church, colour is most appropriate, there is none. There are no painted windows. Apart altogether from their symbol

ism, which might lead us to reflect how even the light of heaven shines with a different and more splendid glory on the adoring soul, than on those who stand without the holy place and know not its inner beauty; colour in windows is almost indispensable to chaste Gothic architecture, in order that roof, walls, floor, and ornament, may gain that mellow and softened richness and tenderness of aspect which they cannot have if viewed through the medium of the bright unmodified light of day. In the Renaissance, however, you do not find-at least hitherto I have not found-painted windows. The sunlight of the South streams in full, golden, and unbroken. Perhaps the rich interior colour needs this to bring out all its own gradations of beauty; and the wide-spread gilding no doubt gleams with freshened vividness in the entering rays; but I cannot but think that if the interior were less abundantly lackered, and the windows filled in with the reds, purples, and oranges of Gothic window-painting, the whole effect would be more grand and solemnizing. Indeed, the effect of St. Peter's is not solemnizing, nor is it designed to be. Gothic architecture solemnizes-the Renaissance cannot. In the North, we grave, sombre, cold-blooded Christians, feel religion a more serious business than it seems to be to an Italian. We love in our churches something that harmonizes with our feelings-grave, serious, sublime. The lively children of the South seek not this. They love the light and the sunshine, the vivid painting, the pure white marble, the brilliant roof above, the bright mosaic under foot, the frescoes shining on the walls -gold, silver, and jewels, gleaming round the altars. Their swift impulses take keen impressions from these things; their influence is to please, to excite, to quicken; and where we, with dazzled eyes and unsatisfied heart, would find only magnificent incongruity with religion, and penitence, and prayer, an Italian with grateful eye, and his emotional breast throbbing with brief but hearty devotion, kneels and worships, and is edified. But though I thus feel such a church even as St. Peter's to be to me, as a church, a failure, I lack words to ex