As for the _bourgeoisie_ of Rome in general, they _have been_ for some centuries back and _are_ a very mixed race, composed of all the nations of Europe. Most of the foreign artists who come here to study the fine arts, viz., Belgians, Dutch, German, French, English, Swedes, Danes, Poles and Russians, as well as those from other parts of Italy, struck with the beauty of the women, and pleased with the tranquility and agreeable society that prevails in this metropolis, and the total freedom from all _gêne_ and etiquette, marry Roman women and fix here for life: so that among this class you meet with more foreign names than Roman; and it is this sort of colonisation which keeps up the population of Rome, which would otherwise greatly decrease as well from the celibacy of the number that become priests, as from the malaria that prevails in and about the city in July and August. ROME, 19th Sept. I have been employed for the last two days in visiting some of the churches, _palazzi_ and villas of modern Rome; but the number is so prodigious and there are such a variety of things to be seen in each that I shall only make mention of a few; indeed there are many that I have not seen and probably shall not have time to see. As sacred things should precede profane, let us begin with the churches. The first that claims the attention of the traveller after St Peter's, is the church of St John Lateran which is the oldest church in Christendom, and was the metropolitan of Rome and of the Christian world before the building of St Peter's. It lies very nearly in a right line with the _Piazza di Spagna_, and on a prolonged line, forming an obtuse angle with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which, as I first visited, I shall first describe and afterwards resume what I have to remark on the subject of St John Lateran.