MARCO AND GINDITTA.

179

to utter the name of Marco again. Ginditta said not a word, but got up, and went to her mother, who was sitting spinning at the door, and kissed her two or three times, and then walked away; but still without speaking a word. . . . It was rather latish in the evening that I was standing watching the flies just in the middle of the bridge there, when I suddenly heard a voice in the water, and, looking down the stream just to that place opposite, I saw Ginditta in the water, and in the very next minute she was out of sight. But I knew her, though I saw her but for an instant, and I ran, — oh! I ran very fast,—and got down to the very edge just as she came rising up again, and then I caught hold of her, and tried to pull her out; . . . . but I could not, because I was not so big and so strong then as I am now; but I did not let her go, keeping fast hold, and trying to hold her up. But the stream ran very strong, for the weather had been just like this year, very rainy, and all I could do was to follow as it pulled her away down the stream, and hold her fast; and so I did till I met two men, who pulled her out directly. . But it was too late.... she was quite quite dead." And here he stopped, sobbing in spite of his very best endeavours to go on. "And what became of her hard-hearted father?" said I. "He never seemed to mind it," returned the boy, "for no one ever heard him say a word about it. But Marco died within a month. . . . and her mother, they say,

180

DEPARTURE FOR ROME.

has never smiled since, even to her little boy, who is almost a baby.... Ginditta was the prettiest girl in the whole country. . . . and poor Marco was my cousin."

*

And now we are about to set off upon our last stage towards Rome. . . . It is impossible to write these words without a certain battement de cœur... Do you not envy me?.... I promise you I would not be any where else at this particular moment for a good deal; and yet at present it is rather the name of Rome than the reality that lies before us, for we intend after the interval of one single day to proceed to Naples, making our visit to the Eternal City the last of our abidings in Italy.— Farewell.

LETTER X.

Arrival at Rome. - St. Peter's.- Disappointment from the View of the Exterior.-The Portico.-The Church.-Absence of all Secondary Objects.-Westminster Abbey as seen after a Coronation. -Promenade.-The Sacra Confessione.-Doubts respecting it.— The Monument of Pius the Sixth.-View from the Leads.Coliseum.- Campagna. Visit to the Coliseum. Roman Catholic Station.-Value of the Cross on such a Spot.-Hôtel de l'Europe.

Rome, Nov. 7th, 1841.

... •

I HAVE entered Rome, and looked up its Corso from the Porta del Popolo. I have slept one night here, and have passed one day. yet tomorrow, by early dawn, I must leave it. . . . As this arrangement is wholly my own, I have no good reason to complain of it; yet I can hardly help fancying that I am greatly to be pitied... I have just seen enough to make me long so very much to see more. . . . But it may not be: every thing is now settled, and we set off for Naples

to-morrow.

The last few miles before entering Rome are as full of human interest as they are void of natural beauty.... It is a wild unprofitable desert that we pass through in drawing near to the papal throne; and though the heaven above is bright, and the

air, even in November, mild, I have seen many a remote district, unhonoured and unsung, that looked more favoured by God and more cared for by man. .... But the mind has but little leisure to dwell upon the melancholy want of cultivation, or to speculate upon its cause. . . . To the right, to the left, before you, as far as the eye can reach, are fragments of Roman work; which seen here, at the very threshold of the Imperial City, have a degree of local interest which more precious monuments might fail to create elsewhere. I felt as if I were drawing near to where whole legions of Roman ghosts must be hovering round, who might challenge the pigmy invasion; and every fragment that their hands had reared seemed sacred. . . . I had for miles past been feeling that had I time allowed, and a local antiquarian beside me, I might have got into familiar intercourse with a world of Roman relics, any one of which, if seen singly, would elsewhere have been looked at with reverence. but now we kept driving onwards with so barbarous an air of indifference that I felt perfectly ashamed of it. All I could do to testify my respect I did.... for when told by the driver that from the top of the next hill St. Peter's would be visible, I positively insisted upon leaving the carriage, and walked with my son to this hill of promise, that we might, when catching sight of Michael Angelo's dome for the first time, have power to pause for a moment, and say "There it is.”

ST. PETER'S, AND ST. ANGELO'S DOME. 183

After leaving

The vetturino was right. the carriage, we quitted the road a little, for the sake of attaining the summit of an accidental eminence that was somewhat higher than any part of it; and having reached this, there indeed stood St. Peter's before us; and there, too, stood St. Angelo; and there rolled the snake-like Tiber, at that moment bright in sunshine. Amidst all the wonders of creation, are there any the sight of which can influence the spirit so powerfully as one little word a NAME? Was it the dim outline of St. Peter's and St. Angelo's against the sky, or the sunny windings of the little stream between its level banks, that made this moment seem an epoch in our lives? Oh, no. .. “By any other name" they would have seemed at that distance but little worth; but as it was, I felt that thousands might envy me the power of looking

at them.

And how do you think we have spent this our first Roman morning? . . . . Did we go to the Coliseum? or to St. Peter's?

or to both?

To both, most certainly; but it was St.

Peter's which received the first visit.

Though previously assured that it was absolutely impossible for ladies to walk in Rome, I resolutely determined to approach St. Peter's for the first time on foot. I remembered, too, how much greater had been the effect of every building I approached