Rome, Friday, June 27, 1851.

Rome is mighty even in her desolation. I knew the world had nothing like her, and yet the impression she has made on me, at the first view, is unexpectedly great. I do not yet feel able to go wandering from one church, museum, picture or sculpture gallery to another, from morning till night, as others do: I need to pause and think. Of course, I shall leave without seeing even a tenth part of the objects of decided interest; but if I should thus be enabled to carry away any clear and abiding impression of a small part, I shall prefer this to a confused and foggy perception of a greater multiplicity of details.

That single view of the Eternal City, from the tower of the Capitol, is one that I almost wish I had given up the first day to. The entire of Rome and its inhabited suburbs lies so fully and fairly before the eye, with the Seven Hills, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Obelisks, the Pillars, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the various Triumphal Arches, the Churches, &c., &c., around you, that it seems the best use that could be made of one day to simply move from look-out to look-out in that old tower, using the glass for a few moments and then pausing for reflection. I have half a mind thus to spend one of my three remaining days. True, the Coliseum will seem vaster close at hand, but from no point can it be seen so completely and clearly, in its immensity and its dilapidation combined, as from that. The Tarpeian Rock seems an absurd fable—its fatal leap the daily sport of infants—but in all ancient cities the same glaring discrepancy between ancient and modern altitudes is presented, and especially, we hear, at Jerusalem. The Seven Hills whereon Rome was built are all distinguishable, visible to-day; but they are undoubtedly much lower than at first, while all the intervening valleys have been filling up through centuries. Monkish traditions say that what is now the basement of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul (not the modern St. Peter's) was originally on the level of the street, and this is quite probable: though I did not so readily lubricate the stories I was told in that basement to-day of St. Peter, Paul and Luke having tenanted this basement, Paul having lived and preached here for the first two years of his residence in Rome; and when they showed me the altar at which St. Paul was wont to minister, I stopped short and didn't try to believe any more. But this soil is thickly sown with marvels and very productive.

St. Peter's, or at least its Dome, was in sight through the greater part of the last eleven or twelve miles of our journey to the city; from most other directions it is doubtless visible at a much greater distance. I have of course seen the immense structure afar off, as well as glanced at it in passing by night; but I am not yet prepared to comprehend its vast proportions. I mean to visit it last before leaving Rome, so as to carry away as unclouded an impression of it as possible.

Of the three hundred and sixty-five Churches of Rome, I have as yet visited but four, and may find time to see as many more of the most noteworthy. They seem richer in Sculpture, Porphyry, Mosaic, Carving, Tapestry, &c. than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in Architecture to the finest Churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and I think not externally to Notre Dame at Paris. Indeed, though large portions of the present Rome are very far from ruinous, and some of them quite modern and fresh-looking, yet the general Architecture of the city is decidedly inferior to that of Genoa, and I should say even to that of Leghorn. In making this comparison, I of course leave out of the account St. Peter's and the Churches of both cities, and refer mainly to private architecture, in which Rome is not transcendent—certainly not in Italy. The streets here are rather wide for an Italian city but would be deemed intolerably narrow in America.

As to Sculpture and Painting, I am tempted to say that if mankind were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the expense of the latter. Adequate conception of the extent, the variety, the excellence of the works of Art here heaped together is impossible. If every house on Broadway were a gallery, the whole six miles of them (counting both sides of the street) might be filled from Rome with Pictures, Statues, &c. of decided merit.

What little I have seen does not impress me with the superiority of Ancient over Modern Art. Of course, if you compare the dozen best things produced in twenty centuries against a like number chosen from the productions of the last single century, you will show a superiority on the part of the former; but that decides nothing. The Capitoline Venus is a paragon, but there is no collection of ancient sculpture which will compare with the extensive gallery of heads by Canova alone. When benignant Time shall have done his appointed work of covering with the pall of oblivion the worse nineteen twentieths of the productions of the modern chisel, the genuine successes of the Nineteenth Century will shine out clearer and brighter than they now do. So, I trust, with Painting, though I do not know what painter of our age to place on a perilous eminence with Canova as the champion or representative of Modern as compared with Ancient Art.

It is well that there should be somewhere an Emporium of the Fine Arts, yet not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the limbs destitute. I think Rome has been grasping with regard to works of Art, and in some instances unwisely so. For instance, in a single private gallery I visited to-day, there were not less than twenty decidedly good pictures by Anibal Caracci—probably twice as many as there are in all the world out of Italy. That gallery would scarcely miss half of these, which might be fully replaced by as many modern works of equal merit, whereby the gallery and Rome would lose nothing, while the world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her own permanent well-being. It is in her power to constitute herself the center of an International Art-Union really worthy of the name—to establish a World's Exhibition of Fine Arts unequaled in character and beneficence. Is it too much to hope that she will realize or surpass this conception?

These suggestions, impelled by what I have seen to-day, are at all events much shorter than I could have made any detailed account of my observations. I have no qualifications for a critic in Art, and make no pretensions to the character, even had my observations been less hurried than they necessarily were. I write only for the great multitude, as ill-instructed in this sphere as I cheerfully admit myself, and who yet are not unwilling to learn what impression is made by the treasures of Rome on one like themselves.

THE COLISEUM.

Evening.

I spent the forenoon wandering through the endless halls of the Vatican, so far as they were accessible to the public, the more important galleries being only open on Monday, and two or three of the very finest not at all. I fear this restriction will deprive me of a sight of the Apollo Belvedere, the Sistine Chapel, and one or two others of the world's marvels. I know how ungracious it is to "look a gift horse in the mouth," and yet, since these works exist mainly to be seen, and as Rome derives so large a share of her income from the strangers whom these works attract to her, I must think it unwise to send any away regretting that they were denied a sight of the Apollo or of some of Raphael's master-pieces contained in the Vatican. I know at what vast expense these works have been produced or purchased, and, though all who visit Rome are made to pay a great deal indirectly for the privileges they enjoy here, yet I wish the Papal Government would frankly exact, as I for one should most cheerfully pay, a fair price for admission to the most admirable and unrivaled collections which are its property. If, for instance, it would abolish all Passport vexations, encourage the opening of Railroads, and stimulate the establishment of better lines of Diligences, &c., so that traveling in the Papal States would cease to be twice as dear and infinitely slower than elsewhere in Italy, in France or Germany, and would then charge each stranger visiting Rome on errands other than religious something like five dollars for all that is to be seen here, taking care to let him see it, and to cut off all private importunities for services rendered in showing them, the system would be a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some calumny and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have immense sums been already spent by this Government in excavating, preserving, and in some cases partially restoring such decayed but inimitable structures as the Coliseum, the Capitol, the various Triumphal Arches, the Baths of Titus, Caracalla, &c., all of which labors and expenditures we who visit Rome share the benefit, and it is but the simplest justice that we should contribute to defray the cost, especially when we know that every dollar so paid would be expended in continuing these excavations, &c., and in completing the galleries and other modern structures which are already so peerless. Rome is too commonly regarded as only a ruin, or, more strictly, as deriving all its eminence from the Past, while in fact it has more inestimable treasures, the product of our own century, our own day, than any other city, and I suspect nearly as many as all the rest of the world. Even the Vatican is still unfinished; workmen were busy in it to-day, laying additional floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge that three-fourths of the Frescoes which nearly cover the walls and ceiling of the fifteen or twenty large halls devoted to the Library are less than two centuries old. This part of the Vatican is approached through a magnificent corridor, probably five hundred feet long, with an arched ceiling entirely inlaid with beautiful Mosaic, and the same is continued through another gallery some two hundred feet long, which leads at right angles from this to another wing of the edifice; but the corridor leading down this wing, and facing that first named, has a naked, barren-looking ceiling, evidently waiting to be similarly inlaid when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from which are derived all this instruction and intellectual enjoyment.

Here let me say one word in justice to the princely families of Rome, whose palaces and immense collections of Paintings and Sculptures are almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. I looked for hours to-day through the ten spacious apartments of the Palace of the Orsini family devoted to the Fine Arts, as I had already done through that of the Doria family, and shall to-morrow do through others, and doubtless might do through hundreds of others—all hospitably open to every stranger on the simple condition that he shall deport himself civilly and refrain from doing any injury to the priceless treasures which are thus made his own without the trouble even of taking care of them. I know there are instances of like liberality elsewhere; but is it anywhere else the rule? and is it in our country even the exception? What American ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the collection of magnificent galleries of Pictures, Statues, &c., and then quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of compliment or acknowledgment in return?—without being even personally known to those whom he thus benefited? We have something to learn of Rome in this respect. Some of the English nobility whom the Press has shamed into following this munificent example have done it so grudgingly as to deprive the concession of all practical value. By requiring all who wish to visit their galleries to make a formal written application for the privilege, and await a written answer, they virtually restrict the favor to persons of leisure, position and education. But in Rome not even a card nor a name is required; and you walk into a strange private palace as if you belonged there, lay down your stick or umbrella, and are shown from hall to hall by an intelligent, courteous attendant, study at will some of the best productions of Claude, Raphael, Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Murillo, &c., pay two shillings if you see fit, to the attendant, and are thanked for it as if you were a patron; going thence to another such collection, and so for weeks, if you have time. If wealth were always thus employed, it were a pity that great fortunes are not more numerous.

But I purpose to speak of the Coliseum. I will assume that most of my readers know that this was an immense amphitheater, constructed in the days of Rome's imperial greatness, used for gladiatorial combats of men with ferocious beasts and with each other, and calculated to afford a view of the spectacle to about one hundred thousand persons at once. The circuit of the building is over sixteen hundred feet; the arena in its center is about three hundred and eighty by two hundred and eighty feet. Most of the walls have fallen for perhaps half their height, though some part of them still retain very nearly their original altitude. In the darker ages, after this vast edifice had fallen into ruin, its materials were carried away by thousands and tens of thousands of tuns to build palaces and churches, and one side of the exterior wall was actually for ages drawn upon as if it were a quarry. But in later years the Papal Government has disbursed thousands upon thousands in the uncovering and preservation of this stupendous ruin, and with the amplest success. The fall of its roof and a great portion of its walls had filled and buried it with rubbish to a depth of some twenty to forty feet, all of which has been taken away, so that the floor of the interior is now the veritable sand whereon the combatants fought and bled and rendered up their lives, while the forty or fifty entrances for emperors, senators and people, and even the underground passage for the introduction of the wild beasts, with a part of their cages, are now palpable. In some places, restorations have been made where they were necessary to avert the danger of further dilapidation, but as sparingly as possible; and, though others think differently, the Coliseum seems to me as majestic and impressive in its utter desolation as it ever could have been in its grandeur and glory.

We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as gladiators as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable resistance to the "lower law" then in the ascendant, which the high priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Some twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a larger number of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent,—as the music decidedly was not; but the whole scene with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely picturesque and to me affecting. I came away before it concluded, to avoid the damp night-air; but many chequered years and scenes of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sunset and those strange prayers in the Coliseum.