fire, and drew his cloak over his shoulders, and added yet another and another chapter to his “Voice from the Grave.” As for Colin, if he had been a _littèrateur_ by profession, it is likely that, by this time, he would have began to compile “Letters from Italy,” like others of the trade; but, being only a Scotch scholar, the happy holder of a Glasgow bursary, he felt himself superior to such temptations; though, indeed, after a week’s residence at Frascati, Colin secretly felt himself in a condition to let loose his opinion about Italian affairs in general. In the meantime, however, he occupied himself in another fashion. Together, he and his watchful guardian made pilgrimages into Rome. They went to see everything that it was right to go to see; but, over and above that, they went into the churches--into all manner of churches out of the way, where there were no grand functions going on, but only every-day worship. Colin was not a watchful English divine spying upon the superstition of Rome, nor a rampant Protestant finding out her errors and idolatries. He was the destined priest of a nation in a state of transition and renaissance, which had come to feel itself wanting in the balance after a long period of self-complacency. With the instinct of a budding legislator and the eagerness of youth, he watched the wonderful scene before him--not the Pope, with his peacock feathers, and purple and scarlet followers, and wonderful audience of heretics--not high masses in great basilicas, nor fine processions, nor sweet music. The two Scotsmen made part of very different assemblies in those Lenten days, and even in the joyful time of Easter, when carriagefulls of English visitors, rushing to the ceremonies of the week, made the narrow Roman streets almost impassable. Perhaps it was a feeling of a different kind which drew the two strangers for the first time to the awful and solemn temple, where once the heathen gods were worshipped, and where Raphael rests; but let artists pardon Colin, whose own profession has associations still more lofty than theirs, if, on his second visit, he forgot Raphael, and even the austere nobility of the place. A humble congregation of the commonest people about--people not even picturesque--women with shawls over their heads, and a few of the dreamy poor old men who seem to spend their lives about Italian churches, were dotted over the vast floor, kneeling on those broken marbles which are as old as Christianity; some dropped at random in the middle, beneath the wonderful blue breadth of sky which looked in upon their devotions; some about the steps of the little altars round, and a little group at the special shrine where vespers were being sung. A lover of music would not have found a voice worth listening to in the place, and perhaps neither time nor tune was much attended to; but there was not a soul there, from the faint old men to the little children, who did not, according to his capabilities, take