heaven!)

Will soon be down to sixty-seven.'

Go where we may, rest where we will,

Eternal London haunts us still.
The trash of Almack's or Fleet-Ditch-
And scarce a pin's head difference

which

Mixes, though even to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon !

And, if this rage for travelling lasts,
If Cockneys, of all sects and castes,
Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,
Will leave their puddings and coal fires,
To gape at things in foreign lands
No soul among them understands-
If Blues desert their coteries,
To show off 'mong the Wahabees-
If neither sex nor age controls,

Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids
Young ladies, with pink parasols,

To glide among the pyramids1Why, then, farewell all hope to find A spot that's free from London-kind! Who knows, if to the West we roam, But we may find some Blue at home' Among the Blacks of CarolinaOr, flying to the Eastward, see Some Mrs. Hopkins, taking tea And toast upon the Wall of China !

EXTRACT V.

Florence.

No-'tis not the region where love's to be found

They have bosoms that sigh, they

have glances that rove,

They have language a Sappho's own lip might resound,

When she warbled her best-but. they've nothing like Love.

Nor is it that sentiment only they want, Which Heaven for the pure and the tranquil hath madeCalm, wedded affection, that homerooted plant,

Which sweetens seclusion, and smiles in the shade;

are gone by,

Remains like a portrait we've sat for in youth,

Where, even though the flush of the colours may fly,

The features still live in their first smiling truth;

That union, where all that in Woman is kind,

With all that in man most ennoblingly towers,

Grow wreathed into one like the column, combined

Of the strength of the shaft and the capital's flowers.

Of this-bear ye witness, ye wives, everywhere,

By the Arno, the Po, by all Italy's streams

Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,

Not a husband hath even one glimpse

in his dreams.

But it is not this only-born, full of the light

Of a sun, from whose fount the luxuriant festoons

Of these beautiful valleys drink lustre so bright,

That, beside him, our suns of the north are but moons!

We might fancy, at least, like their climate they burned,

And that love, though unused, in this region of spring,

To be thus to a tame Household Deity turned,

Would yet be all soul, when abroad on the wing.

And there may be, there are those explosions of heart,

Which burst, when the senses have first caught the flame; Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,

Where Love is a sunstroke that maddens the frame.

Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the source

Of some mountainous rivulet, destined to roll

As a torrent, ere long, losing peace in its course

A course, to which Modesty's struggle

but lends

A more headlong descent, without chance of recall; But which Modesty even to the last edge attends,

And, at length, throws a halo of tears round its fall!

This exquisite Passion-ay, exquisite,

even

In the ruin its madness too often hath made,

can exist,

From the maiden's young heart, are the only ones taught―

Oh no-'tis not here, howsoever we're given,

Whether purely to Hymen's one planet we pray,

of the heaven,

Love's heaven,

last

passed.

'Twas then that thou, their Tribune (name which brought

Dreams of lost glory to each patriot's thought),

Didst, from a spirit Rome in vain shall

Romans! look round you-on this sacred place

There once stood shrines, and gods, and god-like men—

What see you now? what solitary trace Is left of all that made Rome's glory then?

The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft

Even its name-and nothing now remains

But the deep memory of that glory, left

To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!

But shall this be?-our sun and sky the same,

Treading the very soil our fathers trod,

What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,

What visitation hath there come from God,

To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,

Here, on our great forefathers' glorious

serpents hiss;

And thou, whose pillars are but silent homes

For the stork's brood, superb Persepolis !

Thrice happy both that your extinguished race

Have left no embers-no half-living trace

No slaves, to crawl around the once proud spot,

Till past renown in present shame's forgot;

While Rome, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks,

If lone and lifeless through a desert hurled,

Would wear more true magnificence than decks

The assembled thrones of all the existing world

Rome, Rome alone, is haunted, stained, and cursed,

Through every spot her princely Tiber laves,

By living human things—the deadliest, worst,

This earth engenders-tyrants and their slaves ! And we1-oh shame!-we, who have pondered o'er

The patriot's lesson and the poet's lay; Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,

Tracking our country's glories all the

way

Even we have tamely, basely kissed the ground

Before that Papal Power, that Ghost of Her,

The World's Imperial Mistress-sitting, crowned

And ghastly, on her mouldering sepulchre !

The fine Canzone of Petrarch, beginning 'Spirto gentil,' is supposed, by Voltaire and others, to have been addressed to Rienzi; but there is much more evidence of its having been written, as Ginguené asserts, to the young Stephen Colonna, on his being created a Senator of Rome. That Petrarch, however, was filled with

priests

And priestly lords led us, with all our pride

Withering about us, like devoted beasts, Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied.

'Tis o'er-the dawn of our deliverance breaks!

Up from his sleep of centuries awakes The Genius of the Old Republic, free As first he stood, in chainless majesty, And sends his voice through ages yet to come,

Proclaiming Rome, Rome, Rome, Eternal Rome!'

EXTRACT VII.

Rome.

Mary Magdalen.-Her Story.-Numerous Pictures of her.-Correggio.-Guido.Raphel, etc.-Canova's two exquisite Statues.-The Somariva Magdalen.Chantrey's Admiration of Canova's Works.

No wonder, Mary, that thy story

Touches all hearts; for there we see The soul's corruption and its glory,

Its death and life, combined in thee, From the first moment, when we find

Thy spirit, haunted by a swarm Of dark desires, which had enshrined Themselves, like demons, in thy form, Till when, by touch of Heaven set free, Thou cam'st, with those bright locks of gold

(So oft the gaze of Bethany),

And, covering in their precious fold Thy Saviour's feet, did shed such tears As paid, each drop, the sins of years! Thence on, through all thy course of love

To Him, thy Heavenly Master,-Him

high and patriotic hopes by the first measures of this extraordinary man, appears from one of his letters, quoted by Du Cerceau, where he says, Pour tout dire, en un mot, j'atteste, non comme lecteur, mais comme témoin oculaire, qu'il nous à

ramené la justice, la paix, la bonne foi, la sécurité, et toutes les autres vestiges de l'âge d'or."

Whose bitter death-cup from above, Had yet this sweetening round the brim,

That woman's faith and love stood fast
And fearless by Him to the last!
Till-blessed reward for truth like
thine!-

Thou wert, of all, the chosen one, Before whose eyes that Face Divine, When risen from the dead, first shone, That thou mightst see how, like a cloud, Had passed away its mortal shroud, And make that bright revealment known

To hearts less trusting than thy own-All is affecting, cheering, grand;

The kindliest record ever given, Even under God's own kindly hand, Of what Repentance wins from Heaven!

No wonder, Mary, that thy face,

In all its touching light of tears, Should meet us in each holy place, Where Man before his God appears, Hopeless-were he not taught to see All hope in Him who pardoned thee! No wonder that the painter's skill Should oft have triumphed in the

warm;

That all-from the ideal, grand,
Inimitable Roman hand,
Down to the small, enamelling touch
Of smooth Carlino-should delight
In picturing her who loved so much,'
And was, in spite of sin, so bright!
But, Mary, 'mong the best essays
Of Genius and of Art to raise
A semblance of those weeping eyes—
A vision, worthy of the sphere

1 This statue is one of the last works of Canova, and was not yet in marble when I left Rome. The other, which seems to prove, in contradiction to very high authority, that expression of the intensest kind is fully within the sphere of

Thy faith has given thee in the skies,

And in the hearts of all men hereNot one hath equalled, hath come nigh Canova's fancy; oh, not one Hath made thee feel, and live, and die In tears away, as he hath done, In those bright images, more bright With true expression's breathing light Than ever yet beneath the stroke Of chisel into life awoke ! The one, portraying what thou wert In thy first grief, while yet the flower Of those young beauties was unhurt By sorrow's slow consuming power, And mingling earth's luxurious grace With Heaven's subliming thoughts so well,

We gaze, and know not in which place Such beauty most was formed to dwell!

The other, as thou lookedst when years
Of fasting, penitence, and tears
Had worn thee down--and ne'er did Art
With half such mental power express
The ruin which a breaking heart

Spreads, by degrees, o'er loveliness! Those wasted arms, that keep the trace, Even now, of all their youthful graceThose tresses, of thy charms the last Whose pride forsook thee, wildly castThose features, even in fading worth

The freshest smiles to others given, And those sunk eyes, that see not earth, But whose last looks are full of Heaven!

Wonderful artist! praise like mineThough springing from a soul that feels

Deep worship of those works divine,

Where Genius all his light revealsIs little to the words that came From him, thy peer in art and fame, Whom I have known, by day, by night, Hang o'er thy marble with delight, And, while his lingering hand would steal

O'er every grace the taper's rays, 2

sculpture, was executed many years ago, and is in the possession of the Count Somariva, at Paris. 2 Canova always shows his fine statue, the Venere Vincitrice, by the light of a small candle.