carriages, and people on foot, filled
every avenue: but all was still, except when a half-suppressed murmur
of impatience broke through the hushed silence of suspense and
expectation. At length, on a signal, which was given by the firing of
a cannon, the whole of the immense facade and dome, even up to the
cross on the summit, and the semicircular colonnades in front, burst
into a blaze, as if at the touch of an enchanter's wand; adding the
pleasure of surprise to that of delight and wonder. The carriages now
began to drive rapidly round the piazza, each with a train of running
footmen, flinging their torches round and dashing them against the
ground. The shouts and acclamations of the crowd, the stupendous
building with all its architectural outlines and projections, defined
in lines of living flame, the universal light, the sparkling of the
magnificent fountains--produced an effect far beyond any thing I could
have anticipated, and more like the gorgeous fictions of the Arabian
Nights, than any earthy reality.

After driving round the piazza, we adjourned to a balcony which had
been hired for us overlooking the Tiber, and exactly opposite to the
Castle of St. Angelo. Hence we commanded a view of the fireworks,
which were truly superb, but made me so nervous and giddy with noise
and light and wonder, that I was rejoiced when all was over. A flight
of a thousand sky-rockets sent up at once, blotting the stars and the
moonlight--dazzling our eyes, stunning our ears, and amazing all our
senses together, concluded the Holy Week at Rome.

To-morrow morning we start for Florence, and to-night I close this
second volume of my Diary. Thanks to my little ingenious Frenchmen in
the Via Santa Croce, I have procured a lock for a third volume,
almost equal to my patent _Bramah_ in point of security, though very
unlike it in every other respect.

* * * * *

_Viterbo_, _April 9._--"In every bosom Italy is the _second_ country
in the world, the surest proof that it is in reality the _first_."

This elegant and just observation occurs, I think, in Arthur Young's
travels; I am not sure I quote the words correctly, but the sense will
come home to every cultivated mind with the force of a proverbial
truism.

One leaves Naples as a man parts with an enchanting mistress, and Rome
as we would bid adieu to an old and dear-loved friend. I love it, and
grieve to leave it for its own sake; it is painful to