but a fine day to-morrow!

13.--The day arose as beautiful, as brilliant, as cloudless, as I
could have desired for the first day in Rome. About seven o'clock, and
before any one was ready for breakfast, I walked out; and directing my
steps by mere chance to the left, found myself in the Piazza di Spagna
and opposite to a gigantic flight of marble stairs leading to the top
of a hill. I was at the summit in a moment; and breathless and
agitated by a thousand feelings, I leaned against the obelisk, and
looked over the whole city. I knew not where I was: nor among the
crowded mass of buildings, the innumerable domes and towers, and vanes
and pinnacles, brightened by the ascending sun, could I for a while
distinguish a single known object; for my eyes and my heart were both
too full: but in a few minutes my powers of perception returned; and
in the huge round bulk of the castle of St. Angelo, and the immense
facade and soaring cupola of St. Peter's, I knew I could not be
mistaken. I gazed and gazed as if I would have drunk it all in at my
eyes: and then descending the superb flight of steps rather more
leisurely than I had ascended, I was in a moment at the door of our
hotel.

The rest of the day I wish I could forget--I found letters from
England on the breakfast table--

* * * * *

Until dinner time were we driving through the narrow dirty streets at
the mercy of a stupid _laquais de place_, in search of better
accommodations, but without success: and, on the whole, I fear I shall
always remember too well the disagreeable and painful impressions of
my first day in Rome.

_Dec. 18._--A week has now elapsed, and I begin to know and feel Rome
a little better than I did. The sites of the various buildings, the
situations of the most interesting objects, and the bearings of the
principal hills, the Capitol, the Palatine, the Aventine, and the
AEsquiline, have become familiar to me, assisted in my perambulations
by an excellent plan. I have been disappointed in nothing, for I
expected that the general appearance of modern Rome would be mean; and
that the impression made by the ancient city would be melancholy; and
I had been, unfortunately, too well prepared, by previous reading, for
all I see, to be astonished by any thing except the Museum of the
Vatican.

I entered St. Peter's expecting to be struck dumb with admiration, and
accordingly it was so. A feeling of vastness filled my whole