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and the wailing of Pharaoh's court very characteristic-it was really darkness to be felt." The whole wound up by the stage being converted into the Red Sea, represented by green calico. The Israelites, safely grouped on a rock above, surveyed the destruction of their enemies, who disappeared from mortal ken in an incredibly short time, upon which the curtain dropped.

I was much struck with the pensive, solitary beauty of the Villa Borghese, embosomed in its dark ilex woods, with the spreading pine here and there cutting the landscape, and giving a peculiar and classical character to the scene. The fountains breaking the long vistas through the woods have a charming effect, and are the only artificial feature in an essentially natural whole. Such views, too, towards Albano and Frascati, deepening with rich purple light, are never to be forgotten. The villa itself is a somewhat mean building for such extensive grounds, but, rich in treasures of art, is exclusively occupied as a museum of sculpture.

I was particularly delighted with the Apollo and Daphne of Bernini, one of the most lovely statues I ever beheld. The transformation of Daphne is given with marvellous truth. She is already enclosed within the trunk, mounting, as it seems, momentarily to her breast. Her hair has already thickened into leaves; the fingers are sprouting with wonderful truth; and her toes have turned earthwards in tiny delicate rooty fibres and strings. There is, too, a certain air of desperate satisfactionin her countenance as she feels her escape from Apollo ensured, and yet she is, as it were, still flying on the wings of the wind, though only half animate. Apollo is by no means to be compared with the nymph. There are many other fine sculptures, but nothing impressed me like this.

Pauline Borghese, as the Venus Vincitrix, is too Frenchified and artificial for my taste, and looks unpardonably unclassical. She is only the goddess in nudity. I thought of the story of the stove, and smiled!

There is a melancholy grass-grown square behind the house, with fountains surrounded by double rows of ilex, very redolent of malaria I thought.

To-day, Sunday, the 13th November, I saw the progress of making a saint in the nineteenth century, or, speaking more correctly, creating a fresh member into the ecclesiastical house of peers; an edifying sight, truly! At three o'clock we went to St. Peter's, the road from the bridge of San Angelo being beset with cavalry, whose numbers increased as we approached nearer the church. The central space in front was crowded with all classes hurrying onwards up the great steps into the vast sala before them, where his Holiness that day "received;" for St. Peter's looks no more like a church than "I to Hercules."

So immense, however, is the edifice, that inside there appeared but a sprinkling of people, great as was the crowd. A fine yellow-mellowed light prevailed at the hour of the setting sun. The windows, too, had been partly covered with draperies that cast a rich tinge around.

Extending from the Chapel of the Sacrament on the right, about the centre, towards the altar, was a double file of soldiers, mixed with the grotesque Swiss guard stationed at intervals. It was an odd thing to see the military introduced fully armed in the very house of God, and argued a strange state of government, under which the Pope could not

visit St. Peter's in safety without their protection; but so goes the world at Rome. After a due proportion of waiting, Pius IX. appeared, surrounded by his tonsured court, slowly advancing through the lines of military, who, presenting arms and falling on their knees, woke the deep echoes of the great building.

I stood close to the temporary altar of crimson velvet and gold where the Pope performed his devotions, and saw him admirably. He is a fat, good-natured, or rather a benevolent, soft-looking man; his expression decidedly prepossessing, but at the same time essentially priestly. His hair is almost white, and he altogether looks older than I had expected. He was dressed principally in white, with a slight mixture of red. A priest, or page, held up his rather short petticoat behind and displayed his legs, which looked absurd. The cardinals and monsignores in red, and the canonici in purple, also repeated their orisons. I thought them a singularly vulgar-looking set in the glance I got. Astute, sharp, peering eyes and long noses, thin, keen faces, desirous of reading into the inmost soul. After his Holiness had said his prayer, he rose and proceeded to the altar behind the central baldacchino. The apsis or choir had been elaborately decorated, and presented a gorgeous coup-d'œil. Hundreds of splendid glass_candelabra were suspended from the top to the bottom of the walls; drapery covered all the intermediate space, while at certain distances large pictures represented the notable actions of the hero of the day, San Giovanni Peccador. In the centre of the choir, immediately on St. Peter's chair, in a gigantic gold frame, was displayed his portrait, illuminated from behind. I have seen the Scala at Milan, and many other gorgeous opera-houses, but I never beheld one to compare to this, which resembled nothing else, however the choir being the stage, and the Pope and cardinals the actors, with ourselves, the mighty mass of spectators, the audience.

As a spectacle, it was beyond words splendid. Millions of candles light up the space now dimmed with the falling day. After the Pope has proclaimed from the altar the name, style, and title of the new beatificato, which was duly recorded on parchment borne by his attendants, he slowly withdrew, casting blessings around as he passed along, which were received, I thought, with tolerable indifference. A small book was thrust into my hand, purporting to be a life of the new saint, a curiosity of superstition, containing accounts of his supposed miracles, which I took the liberty not in the least to believe-nor would any one else in England, had I time to recount them seriatim.

I then went to look at the statue of St. Peter (alias Jupiter), and scarcely recognised my worthy friend in his holiday garb: he was arrayed in robes of crimson cloth of gold, draped regally about his sable person. The tiara, with its triple crown sparkling with jewels, adorned his head, and a ring of enormous size appeared on his finger. Whether in this guise the image looked most hideous or ludicrous would be hard to say; such an object I never beheld-anything more grossly grotesque. If it is not image-worship for the people to kneel down and kiss his toe, and pray before him, I know not what is! It was a grievous, shameful sight, that grim idol, decked out like a frightful black doll, to be kissed and adored! As I stood staring in wonder, who should I espy, close by, but Charles Dickens, whose sharp, all-seeing eyes were taking in every

thing wholesale. Wonderful Dickens! If the living representative of the old doll before us had possessed the power they ever crave after, such men as you would never be allowed to wander at large, but would be certain to find a living death in the Inquisition. Men essentially progressive, opening new centuries of thought and feeling, making time fly quicker than it would-men such as he are utterly opposed to the retrograde feelings of this worn-out Church, and are the firm and natural supporters of our Protestant creed, with its accompanying political independence and glorious free press. Long life to the sturdy Protestant daughter of the decrepid Catholic parent! and long life to progression and development, and Dickens, their chosen apostle! say I; and down with old black dolls, ignorance, and superstition!

The view from the Capitol is all that Murray says, and gives one in five minutes a clearer idea of ancient Rome than any description. As a view, it is marvellously varied and beautiful, more picturesque than any other city. The seven hills, to common, ignorant souls like I, are all bosh, for hills there are none, except the Quirinale, Celian, and Pincian, with the little mound on which the Capitol stands. But how many things one sees in Rome that are but a name made such a fuss about! The Tarpeian rock, for instance, is a very nasty place, in a garden, from which one looks down into a beastly little court on the backs of some low houses. I don't see why this spot is particularly to be fixed on more than any other portion of the rock on which the Capitol stands; the people of the garden of course are positive on the subject, as it brings the quattrini. Then the clamorous little beggars, and the dirty steps down into the piazza on the Capitol-how steep, dirty, and disagreeable! All the world knows the thing in the Museum is the Dying Gladiator; a most wonderful statue indeed; the very life seems ebbing out of the marble— actually dying, and grieving over approaching death. It has more expression than the Apollo, that being a spiritualised statue of a god-this a mortal man, full of the passions and sufferings of humanity. A bust, too, of Julian the Apostate struck me vastly, as bearing just the restless, cunning, unsympathetic countenance I should have fancied, yet with a look of dignity too strangely blended, for he, too, was a nephew of the great Flavian. There is a horrid statue of the Infant Hercules, a swollen, puffy abortion, like an Indian idol-in green bronze too!

An old beggar came limping in, although the custode would fain have excluded him; also a Roman grisette, who frankly confessed, "Ma guardo e guardo, mapoi non vedo niente." She and her companion soon settled down in deep contemplation of a much-mutilated bronze horse, excavated from some part of the city near where they lived, which pleased them far more, as they hung about the custode like bees around the honey, and he made himself great in their ignorance. There are some charming pictures, too, on the opposite side of the building. I like a mixed collection, it is more amusing. Guercino's Sybilla Persica is here; also a splendid picture by him-the Glorification of Santa Petronilla, warm, rich, and Venetian. Some wonderful works of Garofalo's, too, an artist one can only know at Ferrara and Rome, who unites the grander colouring of the Venetian to the conception and drawing of the Tuscan school. The more I see of his works the more I admire them. The Paul Veroneses are fine also, and placed so that they can be seen, which is an

advantage wanting in some of his best works at Venice, where, from the bad light in the churches, they are nearly invisible.

The whole drive to San Paolo fuori le Mura is deeply interesting. After threading dozens of labyrinth-like streets, the road all at once emerges on the broad, majestic Tiber. (N.B. I am fresh from Florence and the Arno.) To the right stands the graceful little temple of Vesta, chaste and refined even in aspect, as her temple should be. Below is another ancient temple, which the guide-books extol, but I thought heavy and clumsy. Then there is the Ponte Rotto, now a spruce iron bridge. Standing on this bridge, one sees right the island of the Tiber, with two ugly old Roman bridges, dear in the eyes of antiquarians, connecting it with the town on either side, which rises in domes and campaniles, and piles of quaint old buildings along the river-side. Beyond the temple of Vesta is the church of the Bocco della Verità, so called from an old masque of Pan with an open mouth, into which the fingers of any one suspected of falsehood were introduced, in the belief that the stone lips would close on them if the person lied. It was a temple dedicated to Ceres, and is surmounted by a fine Gothic campanile in galleries. Behind is a high hill backing all. A procession issued out of the church, with lighted tapers, and a priest under a dirty umbrella, going to administer extreme unction to a dying person. Down dropped all the people on their knees. Among the crowd were some gentlemen, who took especial care to cleanse their nether garments afterwards with handkerchiefs.

A long, flat drive brought us to the church, which outside makes no particular show, standing as it does so badly; but, on entering, what words can describe my astonishment at its stupendous size and splendour. The forty marble columns, in double rows, of the nave, placed like those in San Maria Maggiore, in the true Basilica style, are surpassing in beauty, size, and proportion, melting into the distance most sweetly. Over the apsis and tribune are the superb old mosaics, so fresh and gorgeous of that happy period of Roman style, before it stiffened into Byzantine deadness, only inferior in beauty to those of San Marco at Venice. The light, too, here falls on them so well. I say nothing of the marble, the Egyptian alabaster, and the malachite all round. One gets used to these material displays of magnificence. Under the altar has ever been the traditionary burial-place of Saint Paul; but how his body can be here and at St. Peter's, and his head at the Lateran, I leave for Catholics to determine. A miracle, I presume, will settle the question. The cloisters are very mediæval, resembling those of the Lateran, with a double row of twisted spiral columns, each different in design, all very graceful, with the pretty rose garden in the centre. This convent suffers so dreadfully from malaria the monks can only reside here for six months in the year. They had only just returned when I went there.

As we returned to Rome we entered it by the fine old gate of San Paolo, which has something, I think, to do with Belisarius. There is a splendid old bit of wall too, with high ruined turrets, like an enchanter's castle,— to what age belonging I have no idea. I never volunteer any description of the Roman walls, although, as antiquarians are so uncertain about them, I might as well venture my opinion where doctors so completely disagree. The Pyramid of Caius Cestius close by is as ugly as any other pyramid, they being architectural deformities, only tolerable in the desert, and then solely on account of their vast size.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

THE BLACK SEA PROVINCES.

THE passage of the Danube may be truly said, after the occupation of the Principalities, to constitute the most marked feature in the recent military operations of the Russians. One moment concentrating large bodies of troops in one direction, next marching them in another; one moment knocking at the iron gates of the Danube, the other evacuating Little Wallachia; one moment threatening a triumphant onslaught upon Rassova, Silistria, and Rustchuk; another unable to dislodge the Turks from the Karasu and Tchernavoda, still the positive advance made into the Dobrudscha, and the reduction of the Turkish fortresses on the right bank of the Lower Danube, are events full of political as well as of strategical import.

Not the least striking of these result from the position of Russia in the presence of Austria, which rendered any further advance as questionable and as dangerous as carrying on further operations on the extreme right; second to these in importance is the position of Russia with regard to the Christian populations of Turkey, ever looking forward to insurrectionary movements, which, with some slight exceptions, never take place -those very exceptions so remote as scarcely to influence the strategic principles adopted by the hostile armies on the Danube in the slightest degree; trying by march and countermarch to foment rebellions where the very elements of such anarchical auxiliaries of a nefarious warfare do not exist, or awaiting more important uprisings which were stifled in the bud by measures of expulsion in their practical operation much to be regretted, but rendered by circumstances unavoidable and of first necessity. Thirdly, the position of Russia with regard to the enemy, which demanded a feint on the extreme left, to divert his attention to that quarter, while a more serious advance should be made on the centre-a feint which was the more easily unmasked, as the Russians could not, so long as the allies held possession of the sea, advance by the coast of the Euxine. They could only do so under cover of the Dobrudscha, along the banks of the Danube, a movement which has been tried apparently with as yet but indifferent success.

Lastly, the position of Russia with regard to the allies, who, occupying the open waters of the Black Sea, might also materially affect the position of the Russians in the Principalities, cut off communications, interrupt supplies, impede progress in the centre, and threaten at any moment the extreme left of the whole army, by holding the mouths of the Danube, June-VOL. CI. NO. CCCCII.

K