crime; but if common work procures enough for
a day's food or idleness, ten times the sum will not induce them to toil
on, as an English workman would, for the sake of rising in the world.
Sixpence any day will put any of them at the top of the only tree they
care for,--that on which grows the fruit of idleness. It is striking to
see the way in which, in magnificent churches, the most ragged beggars
kneel on the pavement before some favorite altar in the midst of
well-dressed women and of gazing foreigners. Or sometimes you will see
one with a child come in from the street where she has been begging,
put herself in a corner, say a prayer (probably for the success of her
petitions), and then return to beg again. There is wonderfully little of
any moral strength connected with this devotion; but still it is better
than nothing, and more than is often found among the men of the upper
classes in Rome. I believe the Clergy to be generally profligate, and
the state of domestic morals as bad as it has ever been represented."--

Or, in sudden contrast, take this other glance homeward; a Letter to his
eldest child; in which kind of Letters, more than in any other, Sterling
seems to me to excel. Readers recollect the hurricane in St. Vincent;
the hasty removal to a neighbor's house, and the birth of a son there,
soon after. The boy has grown to some articulation, during these
seven years; and his Father, from the new foreign scene of Priests and
Dilettanti, thus addresses him:--

"_To Master Edward C. Sterling, Hastings_.
"ROME, 21st January, 1839.

"MY DEAR EDWARD,--I was very glad to receive your Letter, which showed
me that you have learned something since I left home. If you knew how
much pleasure it gave me to see your handwriting, I am sure you would
take pains to be able to write well, that you might often send me
letters, and tell me a great many things which I should like to know
about Mamma and your Sisters as well as yourself.

"If I go to Vesuvius, I will try to carry away a bit of the lava, which
you wish for. There has lately been a great eruption, as it is called,
of that Mountain; which means a great breaking-out of hot ashes and
fire, and of melted stones which is called lava.

"Miss Clark is very kind to take so much pains with you; and I trust you
will show that you are obliged to her, by paying attention to all she
tells you. When you see how much m