Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it. Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork. Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo, Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots. Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed, Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture! No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea? Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant: 'Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!' their Emperor vaunted; 'Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!' the Tourist may answer. III. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ----. At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you. Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes, Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan: Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St. Peter's, And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna. Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it; Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples; There are the A.'s, we hear, and most of the W. party. George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios? Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting; Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia. Adieu, dearest Louise,--evermore your faithful Georgina. Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with? Very stupid, I think, but George says so VERY clever. IV. Claude to Eustace.