“This, then, is the country and place in which my life is to be passed! It is but a poor amends that I can get from libraries, and yet my only hope is from the Vatican. That we may be crossed in every way, this is closed till the 5th of November, and to have it opened sooner is out of the question; in other respects, all possible facilities have been promised me by the Pope himself, Cardinal Gonsalvi, Monsignor Testi, and the Prefect of the library, Monsignor Baldi. This last is now engaged in printing, at his own cost, a work on which he has expended six hundred scudi, without hope of receiving any compensation for it. It is on seventeen passages in the Old Testament, in which he has found the cross mentioned by name.... At Terni, I found the old art of land-surveying still extant: I rode along what was probably an ancient ‘limes,’ found the ‘rigor,’ and the ‘V. Pedes.’ I shall go there again, if I live till next autumn. It is a charming place. There are at least fifty houses in the town, among them one very large, which date from the Roman times, and which have never yet been observed or described by any traveller. Several of the churches are Roman private houses. If one could but discover in Rome anything like this! I long inexpressibly to have it for my burial-place. Everything is ancient in Terni and its neighbourhood—even the mode of preparing the wine. Oh to have been in Italy five hundred years ago!” One of the most agreeable topics mentioned in the period of his biography, is the interest Niebuhr took in the new school of German art then springing up at Rome. Every one, from prints and engravings, if from no other source, is now acquainted with the works of Cornelius, Overbeck, Veit, Schadow, and others. They were then struggling with all the usual difficulties of unemployed and unrecognised genius. Niebuhr neither possessed, nor affected to possess, any special knowledge of art, but he was delighted with the genuine enthusiasm of his fellow-countrymen; he kindled in their society; he was persuaded of their great talent, and exerted whatever influence he possessed in obtaining for them some high employment. He wished that the interior of some church or other public building should be placed at their disposal, to decorate it with suitable paintings. The scattered notices that we find here of these artists we pass over very unwillingly, but we must necessarily confine ourselves to the course of our narrative.