thinking, that, if their dreadful superstition were exchanged for the Gospel, their division of society would more tend to the general good, than ours. Their superstition is indeed most shocking, and yet with some points in which we should do well to imitate them. I like the simple crosses and oratories by the roadside, and the texts of Scripture which one often sees quoted upon them; but they are profaned by such a predominance of idolatry to the Virgin, and of falsehood and folly about the Saints, that no man can tell what portion of the water of life is still retained for those who drink it so corrupted. I want more than ever to see and talk with some of their priests, who are both honest and sensible, if, indeed, any man can be so, and yet belong to a system so abominable.

JULY 25, 1825.

On the cliff above the Lake of Como.- We are on a muletrack that goes from Camo along the eastern shore of the lake, and as the mountains go sheer down into the water, the muletrack is obliged to be cut out of their sides, like a terrace, halfway between their summits and their feet. They are covered with wood, all chestnut, from top to bottom, except where patches have been found level enough for houses to stand on, and vines to grow; but just where we are it is quite lonely; I look up to the blue sky, and down to the blue lake, the one just above me, and the other just below me, and see both through the thick branches of the chestnuts. Seventeen or eighteen vessels, with their white sails, are enlivening the lake; and about half a mile on my right the rock is too steep for anything to go on it, and goes down a bare cliff. A little beyond, I see some terraces and vines, and bright white houses; and further still, there is a little low point, running out into the lake, which just affords room for a village, close on the water's edge, and a white church tower rising in the midst of it. The opposite shore is just the same; villages and mountains, and trees and vines, all one perfect loveliness. I have found plenty of the red cyclamen, whose perfume is exquisite.

On the edge of the Lake of Como. - We have made our way down to the water's edge to bathe, and are now sitting on a stone to cool. No words can describe the beauty of all the scenery; we stopped at a walk at a spot where the stream descended in a deep green dell from the mountains, with a succession of falls; the dell so deep that the sun could not reach

the water, which lay every now and then resting in deep rocky pools, so beautifully clear, that nothing but strong prudence prevented us from bathing in them; the banks of the dell, all turf; and magnificent chestnuts varied with rocks, and the broad lake, bright in the sunshine, stretched out before us.

JOIGNY, April 6, 1827.

Sens has a fine cathedral, with two very beautiful painted rose-windows in the transepts, and a monument of the Dauphin, father to the present king, which is much spoken of. Here the cheating of the blacksmiths went on in full perfection, and is really a very great drawback to the pleasure of travelling in France. The moment we stop anywhere, out comes a fellow with his leathern apron, and goes poking and prying about the carriage in hopes of finding some job to do; and they all do their work so ill, that they generally never fail to find something left for them by their predecessor's clumsiness. Again I have been struck with the total absence of all gentlemen, and of all persons of the education and feelings of gentlemen. I am afraid that the bulk of the people are sadly ignorant and unprincipled, and then liberty and equality are but evils. A little less aristocracy in our country and a little more here, would seem a desirable improvement; there seem great elements of good amongst the people here, great courtesy and kindness, with all their cheating and unreasonableness. May He, who

only can, turn the hearts of this people, and of all other people, to the knowledge and love of Himself in His Son, in whom there is neither Englishman nor Frenchman, any more than Jew or Greek, but Christ is all and in all! And may He keep alive in me the spirit of charity, to judge favorably and feel kindly towards those amongst whom I am travelling; inasmuch as Christ died for them as well as for us, and they too call themselves after His name.

Approach to Rome, April, 1827.

When we turned the summit and opened on the view of the other side, it might be called the first approach to Rome. At the distance of more than forty miles, it was of course impossible to see the town, and besides the distance was hazy; but we were looking on the scene of the Roman History; we were standing on the outward edge of the frame of the great picture, and, though the features of it were not to be traced dis

tinctly, yet we had the consciousness that there they were before us. Here, too, we first saw the Mediterranean; the Alban hills, I think, in the remote distance, and just beneath us, on the left, Soracte, an outlier of the Apennines, which has got to the right bank of the Tiber, and stands out by itself most magnificently. Close under us, in front, was the Ciminian Lake, the crater of an extinct volcano, surrounded, as they all are, with their basin. of wooded hills, and lying like a beautiful mirror stretched out before us. Then there was the grand beauty of Italian scenery, the depth of the valleys, and the endless variety of the mountain outline, and the towns perched up on the mountain summits, and this now seen under a mottled sky which threw an ever varying shadow and light over the valley beneath, and all the freshness of the young spring. We descended along one of the rims of this lake to Ronciglione, and from thence still descending on the whole to Monterossi. Here the famous Campagna begins, and it certainly is one of the most striking tracts of country I ever beheld. It is by no means a perfect flat, except between Rome and the sea; but rather like the Bagshot Heath country ridges of hills with intermediate valleys, and the road often running between high steep banks, and sometimes crossing sluggish streams sunk in a deep bed. All these banks were overgrown with the broom, now in full flower; and the same plant was luxuriant everywhere. There seemed no apparent reason why the country should be so desolate; the grass was growing richly everywhere, there was no marsh anywhere visible, but all looked as fresh and healthy as any of our chalk. downs in England. But it is a wide wilderness, no villages, scarcely any houses, and here and there a lonely ruin of a single square tower, which I suppose used to serve as strongholds for men and cattle in the plundering warfare of the middle ages. It was after crowning the top of one of these lines of hills, a little on the Roman side of Baccano, at five minutes after six, according to my watch, that we had the first view of Rome. itself. I expected to see St. Peter's rising above the line of the horizon as York Minster does, but instead of that, it was within the horizon, and so was much less conspicuous, and, only a part of the dome being visible from the nature of the ground, it looked mean and stumpy. Nothing else marked the site of the city, but the trees of the gardens about it, sunk by the distance into one dark mass, and the number of white villas, specking the opposite bank of the Tiber for some little distance

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above the town, and then suddenly ceasing. But the whole scene that burst upon our view, when taken in all its parts, was most interesting. Full in front rose the Alban hills, the white villas on their sides distinctly visible even at that distance, which was more than thirty miles. On the left were the Apennines, and Tivoli was distinctly to be seen on the summit of its mountain, on one of the lowest and nearest points of the chain. On the right and all before us lay the Campagna, whose perfectly level outline was succeeded by that of the sea, which was scarcely more so. It began now to get dark, and, as there is hardly any twilight, it was dark soon after we left La Storta, the last post before you enter Rome. The air blew fresh and cool, and we had a pleasant drive over the remaining part of the Campagna till we descended into the valley of the Tiber, and crossed it by the Milvian bridge. About two miles farther on we reached the walls of Rome, and entered by the Porta del Popolo.

ROME, April, 1827.

After dinner Bunsen called for us in his carriage and took us to his house first on the Capitol, the different windows of which command the different views of ancient and modern Rome. Never shall I forget the view of the former; we looked down on the Forum, and just opposite were the Palatine and the Aventine, with the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars on the one, and houses intermixed with gardens on the other. The mass of the Colosseum rose beyond the Forum, and, beyond all, the wide plain of the Campagna to the sea. On the left rose the Alban hills bright in the setting sun, which played full upon Frascati and Albano, and the trees which edge the lake; and, farther away in the distance, it lit up the old town of Lavicum. Then we descended into the Forum, the light fast fading away and throwing a kindred soberness over the scene of ruin. The soil has risen from rubbish at least fifteen feet, so that no wonder that the hills look lower than they used to do, having been never very considerable at the first. There it was, one scene of desolation, from the massy foundation-stones of the Capitoline Temple, which were laid by Tarquinius the Proud, to a single pillar erected in honor of Phocas, the Eastern Emperor, in the fifth century. What the fragments of pillars belonged to, perhaps we never can know; but that I think matters little. I care not whether it was a Temple of Jupiter Stator, or the Basilica Julia, but one knows that one is on the