lo. It is delightful when
the imagination rises in the scale of admiration, when we ascend from
excellence to perfection: but excellence after perfection is absolute
inferiority; it sinks below itself, and the descent is so disagreeable
and disappointing, that we can seldom estimate justly the object
before us. We make comparisons involuntarily in a case where
comparisons are odious.

* * * * *

The weather is cold here during the prevalence of the tramontana: but
I enjoy the brilliant skies and the delicious purity of the air, which
leaves the eye free to wander over a vast extent of space. Looking
from the gallery of the Belvedere at sunset this evening, I clearly
saw Tivoli, Albano, and Frascati, although all Rome and part of the
Campagna lay between me and those towns. The outlines of every
building, ruin, hill, and wood were so distinctly marked, and _stood
out_ so brightly to the eye! and the full round moon, magnified
through the purple vapour which floated over the Apennines, rose just
over Tivoli, adding to the beauty of the scene. O Italy! how I wish I
could transport hither all I love! how I wish I were well enough,
happy enough, to enjoy all the lovely things I see! but pain is
mingled with all I behold, all I feel: a cloud seems for ever before
my eyes, a weight for ever presses down my heart. I know it is wrong
to repine: and that I ought rather to be thankful for the pleasurable
sensations yet spared to me, than lament that they are so few. When I
take up my pen to record the impressions of the day, I sometimes turn
within myself, and wonder how it is possible that amid the strife of
feelings not all subdued, and the desponding of the heart, the mind
should still retain its faculties unobscured, and the imagination all
its vivacity and its susceptibility to pleasure,--like the beautiful
sunbow I saw at the Falls of Terni, bending so bright and so calm over
the verge of the abyss which toiled and raged below.

* * * * *

22.--This morning was devoted to the Capitol, where the objects of art
are ill arranged and too crowded: the lights are not well managed, and
on the whole I could not help wishing, in spite of my veneration for
the Capitol, that some at least among the divine master-pieces it
contains could be transferred to the glorious halls of the Vatican,
and shrined in temples worthy of them.

The objects which most struck me were the