Winston so far succeeded in his design, that by hastening from Genoa, and leaving Pisa unvisited, he was enabled to view the galleries of Florence without being disturbed by any other beauty than that which looked on him from the walls, or lived in the creations of the sculptor. From Florence he had proceeded to Rome, and had surveyed its antiquities and the marvels of art it contained, still undistracted by the too fascinating Mildred.

But although he had secured his solitude from interruption by a person likely to interest him too keenly, he was not equally resolute, or equally successful, in keeping himself aloof from certain fellow-travellers with whom he had scarce one thought or one taste in common. Our readers may remember a young lady whom we attempted to describe, figuring not very advantageously at the ball-room at Brussels. This damsel belonged to a mamma who, in her own way, was a still greater oddity, and who, indeed, ought to be made responsible for the grotesque appearance of her daughter on that occasion. She insisted upon it that, as all the world knew they were travellers, just looking in, as it were, as they were passing through the town, they might very well go to the ball in their travelling dresses; and as she was one of those who held rigidly to the prudent maxim that “any thing was good enough to travel in,” these dresses were not likely, be the occasion what it might, to be remarkable for their freshness.

Mrs. Jackson was the widow of a citizen of London who had lately died, leaving her and her daughter a very ample fortune. Now, although Mr. Jackson had, ever since his marriage, been adding hundred to hundred by the sale of wax and tallow candles in the city, yet had he continued to inhabit the same little house at Islington into which he had first packed himself with dear Mrs. Jackson immediately after the honeymoon; nor had he, in any one way, made an effort to enjoy his increasing income. An effort it would have been. What more did Mr. Jackson want? What more could he have enjoyed? The morning took him to his warehouse in the city, and the afternoon brought him back with an excellent appetite for an excellent dinner, and quite sufficiently fatigued to enjoy that comfortable digestive nap, in which Mrs. Jackson also joined him; and from which he woke up only the better prepared for the hearty slumbers of the night. His wealth, had he been obliged to spend it, would have added to his discomfort, instead of diffusing over him, as it did, a perpetual pleasant glow of self-importance. A larger and finer house, with the toil of receiving company in it, would have distressed him beyond measure. It was bad enough to be compelled, occasionally, to take his spouse to the theatre, or to a Christmas party: such enterprises were looked forward to with uneasy apprehension; and the gratification of having got over them was the only one they afforded him. His ledger—his newspaper—his dinner and a fireside, quiet but not solitary, this was the summary of his happiness. His little wine-glass, as Boswell would have expressed it, was quite full; you would only have made a mess of it, and spoilt all, by attempting to pour in a whole tumbler-full of happiness.

One daughter only had blessed the nuptials of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. She was still at boarding-school when her father died. But, after this event, her fond mamma could no longer bear the separation; and home she came, bringing with her that accurate and complete stock of human knowledge and female accomplishments which is usually derived from such establishments, namely, infinite scraps of every thing and every thing in scraps, with the beginning of all languages, of all arts, and all sciences. There was in her portfolio a map of China, faithfully delineated, and a group of roses not quite so faithful. She had strummed one sonata till she played it with all the certainty of animal instinct, and she had acquired the capability of saying, “How d’ye do?” in at least three several languages beside the English.

But the loss of “Jackson” even the society of the accomplished Louisa could not compensate. The widow was very dull. Her comfortable house at Islington ceased to bring comfort to her; and she was tormented by a most unusual restlessness. Her daughter, who had heard from her favourite companion at the boarding-school, of the charms of foreign travel,—of the romantic adventures, and the handsome counts and barons that are sure to be encountered on the road, took advantage of this restlessness to persuade her mamma to take a tour on the Continent. After much discussion, much hesitation, infinite talking, and reading of guide-books, and exploring of maps—they started.

Absurd!—impossible!—exclaims the intelligent reader—that good Mrs. Jackson should commit herself and her daughter to all the casualties of travel without a male companion. And for what purpose? What pleasure could rocks and mountains, or statues and pictures, give to her, that would be worth the trouble of getting to them? Very absurd and quite impossible! we ourselves should, perhaps, have exclaimed, had we been inventing incidents, and not recording a mere sober matter of fact. But so it was. And, indeed, let any one call to mind the strange groups he has encountered—scrambling about the Continent, the Lord knows why or wherefore—and whatever difficulty he may have in explaining Mrs. Jackson’s motives, he will have none in believing her conduct, were it twice as absurd. Of pleasure, indeed, she had little, and very much tribulation. To be sure she felt quite at home upon the steam-boat on the Rhine;—“it did so remind her” of a trip she once took to Greenwich with the dear departed. And then it was very amusing and instructive to both herself and her daughter to find out all the places as they passed on that “Panorama of the Rhine” which lay extended on their laps before them. Being on the spot, they could study the map with singular advantage. But it was not always they had a map of the country to look at, nor even anyone to tell them the names of the places. The idea of seeing a place and not knowing its name!—this always put Mrs. Jackson in a perfect fever: as well, she would say, shake hands with the Lord Mayor, and not know it was the Lord Mayor! And then what she suffered who can tell, from the strange outlandish viands put before, and alas! too often put within her? and that daily affliction—imposed on her with such unnecessary cruelty—of eating her meat without vegetables, or her vegetables without meat?

Still on she went—bustling, elbowing, sighing, scolding, complaining—but nevertheless travelling on. Being at Rome, in the same hotel with Winston, and finding that he had answered one or two of her questions very civilly and satisfactorily, both she and her daughter had frequently applied to him in their difficulties. And these difficulties generally resulted from a lack of knowledge so easily supplied, that it would have been mere churlishness to withhold the necessary information.

These difficulties, however, seemed to increase rather than diminish with their sojourn at Rome; and well they might. Louisa Jackson found them the most convenient things imaginable. She had been all the way on the look-out for adventures, counts, and barons, and had hitherto met with nothing of the sort. But Alfred Winston was as handsome as any count need be—why not fall in love with him? A gentleman she was convinced he was; of wealth she had sufficient, and to do her justice, had quite generosity enough to be indifferent as to his possessions; and for the rest, she would let her eye, let her heart, choose for her. The brave Louisa! And her eye and her heart—which mean here pretty much the same thing—had made no bad selection. As she had mentally resolved to bestow herself, and all her “stocks, funds, and securities,” upon our hero, and as she had wit enough to see that her only hold upon him at present, was through his compassion for their embarrassments, she was determined to keep an ample supply of them on hand.

They came sometimes without being called for, and without the least collusion on her part. It was from no principle of economy, but from a curiosity which could not be gratified so well in any other manner, that Mrs. Jackson and her daughter occasionally ventured to thread their way on foot through the streets of Rome. On one of these expeditions they found themselves in the neighbourhood of the Pantheon. Opposite this building there is a sort of ambulatory market, outrivalling all other markets, at least in the commodity of noise—a commodity in which the populace of Rome generally abound. On approaching it you think some desperate affray is going on; but the men are only parading and vaunting their disgusting fish, or most uninviting vegetables. The merits of these they proclaim with a perfect storm of vociferation. Mrs. Jackson, who had heard of revolutions on the Continent, did not doubt for a moment but that one of these frightful things was taking place before her. She and her daughter hurried back with precipitation, haunted by all the terrors of the guillotine and the lamp-post. Louisa remembered a certain beautiful princess she had read of, who had been compelled to drink a cup of blood to save her father. What if they should treat her as they did the beautiful princess, and offer her such another cup, and force her to drink it, as the only means of saving her mother? Her heroism did not desert her. She resolved she would drink half. But as they were hurrying away full of these imaginary dangers, they rushed upon one of a more real though less imposing description. It is no joke in the narrow streets of Rome, to meet with a string of carts drawn by huge oxen, wallowing along under their uneasy yokes. Just such a string of carts encountered them as they turned one of the many narrow streets that conduct to the Pantheon. The enormous brutes went poking their spreading horns this way and that, in a manner very quiet perhaps in the animals apprehensions, but very alarming to those of Mrs. Jackson; huge horns, that were large enough, she thought, to spit an alderman, and still have, room for her at the top. The two ladies, seeing the first of these carts approach, had drawn-up close against the wall, and placed themselves on a little heap of rubbish to be more completely out of the way. To their dismay the line of these vehicles seemed to be endless—there was no escape—in that position they had to stand, while each brute as he passed turned his horns round to them, not with any ferocious intention, but as if he had a great curiosity to feel them, and examine their texture—an attention which would have been highly indecorous, to say the least of it.

What could Winston do, who encountered them in this predicament, but offer his escort? He calmed their various terrors—both of mad bulls and of revolutions—reconducted them to the Pantheon, and secured an exceedingly happy day for one at least of the party.

Winston had now been some time in Rome, and with an inconsistency so natural that it hardly merits the name of inconsistency, he found himself looking about in the galleries and churches for Mr. Bloomfield and his party, and with a curiosity which did not bespeak a very violent determination to avoid them. He began to think that they had lingered a long while at Florence. He had forgot the danger—he remembered the charm.

One morning—having stolen out early and alone from his hotel—as he was engaged in viewing, for perhaps the last time, the sculpture of the Vatican, he observed standing before the statue of the Amazon, a female figure, as beautiful as it, and in an attitude which had been unconsciously moulded into some resemblance of the pensive, queen-like posture which the artist has given to the marble. It was Mildred. He hesitated—he approached. She, on her part, met him with the utmost frankness. His half-uttered apologies were immediately dropped. He hardly knew whether to be pleased or mortified, as she made him feel that the peculiar footing on which they stood tasked him to no apologies, no ceremonial, that he was free to go—and withal very welcome to return.

“You are before the Amazon,” said he: “it is the statue of all others which has most fascinated me. I cannot understand why it should bear the name it does. I suppose the learned in these matters have their reasons: I have never inquired, nor feel disposed to inquire into them; but I am sure the character of the statue is not Amazonian. That attitude—the right arm raised to draw aside her veil, the left hand at its elbow, steadying it—that beautiful countenance, so full of sadness and of dignity—no, these cannot belong to an Amazon.”

“To a woman,” said Mildred, “it is allowed to be indifferent on certain points of learning; and, in such cases as this, I certainly take advantage to the full of the privilege of my sex. I care not what they call the statue. It may have been called an Amazon by Greek and Roman—it may have been so named by the artist himself when he sent it home to his patron: I look at it as a creation standing between me and the mind of the artist; and sure I am that, bear what name it may, the sculptor has embodied here all that his soul had felt of the sweetness, and power, and dignity of woman. It is a grander creation than any goddess I have seen; it has more of thought——”

“And, as a consequence, more of sadness, of unhappiness. How the mystery of life seems to hang upon that pensive brow! I used to share an impression, which I believe is very general, that the deep sorrow which comes of thought, the reflective melancholy which results from pondering on the bitter problem of life, was peculiar to the moderns. This statue, and others which I have lately seen, have convinced me that the sculptor of antiquity has occasionally felt and expressed whatever could be extracted from the mingled poetry of a Byron or a Goethe.”

“It seems that the necessity of representing the gods in the clear light of happiness and knowledge, in some measure deprived the Greek artist of one great source of sublimity. But it is evident,” continued Mildred, “that the mysterious, with its attendant sorrow, was known also to him. How could it be otherwise? Oh, what a beautiful creation is this we stand before! And what an art it is which permits us to stand thus before a being of this high order, and note all its noble passions! From the real life we should turn our eyes away, or drop them, abashed, upon the ground. Here is more than life; and we may look on it by the hour, and mark its graceful sorrow, its queen-like beauty, and this over-mastered grief which we may wonder at, but dare not pity.”

They passed on to other statues. They paused before the Menander, sitting in his chair. “The attitude,” said she, “is so noble, that the simple chair becomes a throne. But still how plainly it is intellectual power that sits enthroned there! The posture is imperial; and yet how evident, that it is the empire of thought only that he governs in!”

“And this little statue of Esculapius,” she added, “kept me a long while before it. The healing sage—how faithfully is he represented! What a sad benevolence! acquainted with pain—compelled to inflict even in order to restore.”

They passed through the Hall of the Muses.

“How serene are all the Muses!” said Winston. “This is as it should be. Even Tragedy, the most moved of all, how evidently her emotion is one of thought, not of passion! Though she holds the dagger in her down-dropt hand, how plainly we see that she has not used it! She has picked it up from the floor after the fatal deed was perpetrated, and is musing on the terrible catastrophe, and the still more terrible passions that led to it.”

They passed through the Hall of the Animals; but this had comparatively little attraction for Mildred. Her companion pointed out the bronze centaur for her admiration.

“You must break a centaur in half,” said she, “before I can admire it. And, if I am to look at a satyr, pray let the goat’s legs be hid in the bushes. I cannot embrace in one conception these fragments of man and brute. Come with me to the neighbouring gallery; I wish to show you a Jupiter, seated at the further end of it, which made half a Pagan of me this morning as I stood venerating it.”

“The head of your Jupiter,” said Winston, as they approached it, “is surpassed, I think, by more than one bust of the same god that we have already seen; and I find something of stiffness or rigidity in the figure; but the impression it makes, as a whole, is very grand.”

“It will grow wonderfully on you as you look at it,” said Mildred. “How well it typifies all that a Pagan would conceive of the supreme ruler of the skies, the controller of the powers of nature, the great administrator of the world who has the Fates for his council! His power irresistible, but no pride in it, no joy, no triumph. He is without passion. In his right hand lies the thunder, but it reposes on his thigh; and his left hand rests calmly upon his tall sceptre surmounted by an eagle. In his countenance there is the tranquillity of unquestioned supremacy; but there is no repose. There is care; a constant, wakefulness. It is the governor of a nature whose elements have never known one moment’s pause.”

“I see it as you speak,” said Winston. Winston then proposed that they should go together and look at the Apollo; but Mildred excused herself.

“I have paid my devotions to the god,” she said, “this morning, when the eyes and the mind were fresh. I would not willingly displace the impression that I now carry away for one which would be made on a fatigued and jaded attention.”

“Is it not godlike?”

“Indeed it is. I was presumptuous enough to think I knew the Apollo. A cast of the head—esteemed to be a very good one—my uncle had given me. I placed it in my own room; for a long time it was the first thing that the light fell upon, or my eyes opened to, in the morning; and in my attempts at crayons I copied it, I believe, in every aspect. It seemed to me therefore that on visiting the Apollo I should recognise an old acquaintance. No such thing. The cast had given me hardly any idea of the statue itself. There was certainly no feeling of old acquaintanceship. The brow, as I stood in front of the god, quite overawed me; involuntarily I retreated for an instant; you will smile, but I had to muster my courage before I could gaze steadily at it.”

“I am not surprised; the divinity there is in no gentle mood. How majestic! and yet how lightly it touches the earth! It is buoyant with godhead.”

“What strikes me,” continued Mildred, “as the great triumph of the artist, is this very anger of the god. It is an anger, which, like the arrow he has shot from his bow, spends itself entirely upon his victim; there is no recoil, as in human passion, upon the mind of him who feels it. There is no jar there. The lightning strikes down—it tarries not a moment in the sky above.”

We are giving, we are afraid, in these reports of Mildred’s conversation, an erroneous impression of the speaker. We collect together what often was uttered with some pauses between, and, owing to a partiality to our heroine, we are more anxious to report her sentiments than those of her companion. She is thus made to speak in a somewhat elaborate style, very different from her real manner, and represented as rather the greater talker of the two; whereas she was more disposed to listen than to speak, and spoke always with the greatest simplicity—with enthusiasm, it is true, but never with effort, or display of diction.

The delight which Winston experienced, (having already surveyed them for and by himself,) in retracing his steps through the marvels of Rome with such a companion, is indescribable. The pictures in the Borghese, and other palaces, broke upon him with a second novelty, and often with a deeper sentiment. But was there no danger in wandering through galleries with one by his side to whose living beauty the beauty on the canvass served only to draw renewed attention and heightened admiration? If he fled at Genoa, why does he tarry at Rome? There are some dangers, alas! that are seen the less the greater they become. He was standing with her before that exquisite picture in the Borghese palace representing the Three Ages; a youth is reclining in the centre, and a nymph is playing to him upon two flutes. He had seen it before, but he seemed now to understand it for the first time. “How plainly,” he murmured to himself, “is youth the all of life! How plainly is love the all of youth!”

As he was now somewhat familiar with Rome, he could be serviceable to the Bloomfield party in the capacity of cicerone. They were pleased with his services, and he found every day some incontrovertible reason why he should bestow them. The embarrassments of Louisa Jackson and her mamma were quite forgotten; nor could their difficulties excite a moment’s compassion or attention. In vain did Louisa sigh; no inquiry was made into the cause of her distress. In vain did she even, with plaintive voice, ask whether, “being a Protestant, she could take the veil, and be a nun?” the question was unheeded, and its deep significance unperceived.