“WHAT are the chief features of Rome?” was the second question asked me by a friend whom I met yesterday. “Art and Architecture,” was the unhesitating reply. Indeed hesitation was unnecessary; my mind was already made up on that point, and there can be no question as to the correctness of the answer. Nature seems to have implanted a love for Art in the sons of Italy, and whispered its secrets to them as to no other people. She teaches them by object lessons. At night she embosoms the moon in her soft blue sky like a silver crescent in a velvet cushion, and the stars with their new polished lustre seem to bestud God’s diamond throne. In the morning the same azure sky is “flecked with blushes and gattled with fire.” As the Italian at the evening hour stands under the sunny vine, on the green hillside, looking at the glowing, lighted west through the molten bars of twilight; as he sees the purple clouds, lying along the horizon, fade from rich purple to pale blue—from blue to lavender—to pink—to scarlet—then to banks of molten gold; as he beholds the imperial splendors of the setting sun “vast mirrored on the sea,”—he gathers inspiration—his soul catches the fire—the whole scene is photographed on the landscape of his memory. He there learns how best to blend his colors, and next day as he stands before his canvas beauty hangs upon his brush like sparks of livid light. Angelo, Raphael, and Di Vinci were pupils of Nature. Once upon a time Socrates, after listening to his pupils discourse on philosophy, arose and, pointing to them, said: “What greater honor could a teacher ask than to have such pupils as Plato and Xenophon?” And methinks after seeing the Final Judgment of the first, The Transfiguration of the second, and The Last Supper of the third, Nature herself would rise and, pointing to them with pride, say: “What greater honor could I, even I, ask than to have such pupils as Angelo, Raphael, and Di Vinci!”