ced to retractions as impudently vile as their
attempts had been. The Viceroy proclaimed that "he hoped the people
would confide in him as he did in them"; and no doubt they will. At
Leghorn and Genoa, the wiles of the foe were baffled by the wisdom of
the popular leaders, as I trust they always will be; but it is needful
daily to expect these nets laid in the path of the unwary.

Sicily is in full insurrection; and it is reported Naples, but this
is not sure. There was a report, day before yesterday, that the poor,
stupid king was already here, and had taken cheap chambers at the
Hotel d'Allemagne, as, indeed, it is said he has always a turn for
economy, when he cannot live at the expense of his suffering people.
Day before yesterday, every carriage that the people saw with a
stupid-looking man in it they did not know, they looked to see if it
was not the royal runaway. But it was their wish was father to that
thought, and it has not as yet taken body as fact. In like manner they
report this week the death of Prince Metternich; but I believe it
is not sure he is dead yet, only dying. With him passes one great
embodiment of ill to Europe. As for Louis Philippe, he seems reserved
to give the world daily more signal proofs of his base apostasy to the
cause that placed him on the throne, and that heartless selfishness,
of which his face alone bears witness to any one that has a mind to
read it. How the French nation could look upon that face, while yet
flushed with the hopes of the Three Days, and put him on the throne
as representative of those hopes, I cannot conceive. There is a story
current in Italy, that he is really the child of a man first a barber,
afterwards a police-officer, and was substituted at nurse for the true
heir of Orleans; and the vulgarity of form in his body of limbs, power
of endurance, greed of gain, and hard, cunning intellect, so unlike
all traits of the weak, but more "genteel" Bourbon race, might well
lend plausibility to such a fable.

But to return to Rome, where I hear the Ave Maria just ringing. By the
way, nobody pauses, nobody thinks, nobody prays.

"Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer,
Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love," &c.,

is but a figment of the poet's fancy.

To return to Rome: what a Rome! the fortieth day of rain, and damp,
and abominable reeking odors, such as blessed cities swept by the
sea-breeze--bitter sometimes, yet indeed a friend--never know. It has
been dark al