g of this master
piece: its beauty was to me enhanced by surprise and all the charm of
novelty: and my gratification was complete.

We afterwards spent half an hour in the gardens of the Villa Lanti, on
the Monte Gianicolo. The view of Rome from these gardens is superb:
though the sky was clouded, the atmosphere was perfectly pure and
clear: the eye took in the whole extent of ancient and modern Rome;
beyond it the Campagna, the Alban Hills, and the Apennines, which
appeared of a deep purple, with pale clouds floating over their
summits. The city lay at our feet, silent, and clothed with the
daylight as with a garment--no smoke, no vapour, no sound, no motion,
no sign of life: it looked like a city whose inhabitants had been
suddenly petrified, or smitten by a destroying angel; and such was the
effect of its strange and solemn beauty, that, before I was aware, I
felt my eyes fill with tears as I looked upon it.

I saw Naples from the Castle of Saint Elmo--setting aside the sea and
Mount Vesuvius, those unequalled features in that radiant picture--the
view of the _city_ of Naples is not so fine as the view of Rome: it
is, comparatively, deficient in sentiment, in interest, and in
dignity. Naples wears on her brow the voluptuous beauty of a
syren--Rome sits desolate on her seven-hilled throne, "_the Niobe of
Nations_."

I wish I could have painted what I saw to-day _as_ I saw it. Yet
no--the reality was perhaps too much like a picture to please in a
picture: the exquisite harmony of the colouring, the softness of the
lights and shades, the solemn death-like stillness, the distinctness
of every form and outline, and the classic interest attached to every
noble object, combined to form a scene, which hereafter, in the
silence of my own thoughts, I shall often love to recall and to dwell
upon.

To-night I read with Incoronati, the Fourth book of Dante, and two of
Petrarch's Canzoni "I' vo pensando," and "Verdi panni," making notes
from his explanations and remarks as I went along. These two Canzoni I
had selected as being among the most _puzzling_ as well as the most
beautiful. Those are strangely mistaken, who from a superficial study
of a few of his amatory sonnets, regard Petrarch as a mere love-sick
poet, who spent his time in be-rhyming an obdurate mistress; and those
are equally mistaken who consider him as the poetical votarist of an
imaginary fair one. I know but little, even of the little that is
known of his