ped short and didn't _try_ to believe any more. But this soil is
thickly sown with marvels and very productive.

St. Peter's, or at least its Dome, was in sight through the greater part
of the last eleven or twelve miles of our journey to the city; from most
other directions it is doubtless visible at a much greater distance. I
have of course seen the immense structure afar off, as well as glanced
at it in passing by night; but I am not yet prepared to comprehend its
vast proportions. I mean to visit it last before leaving Rome, so as to
carry away as unclouded an impression of it as possible.

Of the three hundred and sixty-five Churches of Rome, I have as yet
visited but four, and may find time to see as many more of the most
noteworthy. They seem richer in Sculpture, Porphyry, Mosaic, Carving,
Tapestry, &c. than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in
Architecture to the finest Churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and
I think not externally to Notre Dame at Paris. Indeed, though large
portions of the present Rome are very far from ruinous, and some of them
quite modern and fresh-looking, yet the general Architecture of the city
is decidedly inferior to that of Genoa, and I should say even to that of
Leghorn. In making this comparison, I of course leave out of the account
St. Peter's and the Churches of both cities, and refer mainly to private
architecture, in which Rome is not transcendent--certainly not in Italy.
The streets here are rather wide for an Italian city but would be deemed
intolerably narrow in America.

As to _Sculpture_ and _Painting_, I am tempted to say that if mankind
were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or
that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the
expense of the latter. Adequate conception of the extent, the variety,
the excellence of the works of Art here heaped together is impossible.
If every house on Broadway were a gallery, the whole six miles of them
(counting both sides of the street) might be filled from Rome with
Pictures, Statues, &c. of decided merit.

What little I have seen does not impress me with the superiority of
Ancient over Modern Art. Of course, if you compare the dozen best things
produced in twenty centuries against a like number chosen from the
productions of the last single century, you will show a superiority on
the part of the former; but that decides nothing. The Capitoline Venus
is a paragon, but