. Of
all which, during the next four months, the Letters now before me give
abundant record,--far too abundant for our objects here. His grand
pursuit, as natural at Rome, was Art; into which metaphysical domain we
shall not follow him; preferring to pick out, here and there, something
of concrete and human. Of his interests, researches, speculations
and descriptions on this subject of Art, there is always rather a
superabundance, especially in the Italian Tour. Unfortunately, in
the hard weather, poor Calvert fell ill; and Sterling, along with his
Art-studies, distinguished himself as a sick-nurse till his poor comrade
got afoot again. His general impressions of the scene and what it held
for him may be read in the following excerpts. The Letters are all dated
_Rome_, and addressed to his Father or Mother:--

"_December 21st_, 1838.--Of Rome itself, as a whole, there are infinite
things to be said, well worth saying; but I shall confine myself to
two remarks: first, that while the Monuments and works of Art gain in
wondrousness and significance by familiarity with them, the actual life
of Rome, the Papacy and its pride, lose; and though one gets accustomed
to Cardinals and Friars and Swiss Guards, and ragged beggars and the
finery of London and Paris, all rolling on together, and sees how it is
that they subsist in a sort of spurious unity, one loses all tendency to
idealize the Metropolis and System of the Hierarchy into anything
higher than a piece of showy stage-declamation, at bottom, in our day,
thoroughly mean and prosaic. My other remark is, that Rome, seen from
the tower of the Capitol, from the Pincian or the Janiculum, is at this
day one of the most beautiful spectacles which eyes ever beheld. The
company of great domes rising from a mass of large and solid buildings,
with a few stone-pines and scattered edifices on the outskirts; the
broken bare Campagna all around; the Alban Hills not far, and the purple
range of Sabine Mountains in the distance with a cope of snow;--this
seen in the clear air, and the whole spiritualized by endless
recollections, and a sense of the grave and lofty reality of human
existence which has had this place for a main theatre, fills at once the
eyes and heart more forcibly, and to me delightfully, than I can find
words to say."

"_January 22d_, 1839.--The Modern Rome, Pope and all inclusive, are
a shabby attempt at something adequate to fill the place of the old
Commonwealth. It