You know my passion for the poetry of the Roman worship. The odour of the incense, the vaulted roofs, attenuated aisles and naves, the painted windows, and the grand harmonies of the chants, are untiring sources of delight to me. It is true, at Rome one sees no Gothic architecture; but its place is nobly supplied. The riches as well as the number of the churches are incredible, and one can only become reconciled to the apparent waste by remembering that the pretence is to honour God. A temple in the human heart is certainly better than one of stone; but I see no incompatibility between the two. These are distinctions into which I do not enter; or, if sometimes tempted to make them, I feel persuaded that it is quite as possible to strip the altar of its dignity and decencies, as it is to overload it with useless ceremonies and pageants. No one who has not visited Rome can have a just appreciation of the powers of Dominichino and Guido, or perhaps of Raphael,—though the latter is to be seen to advantage elsewhere,—of any idea of the pass to which men have carried the magnificence of church architecture. I do not now allude solely to the unrivalled grandeur of St. Peter’s, but to the splendour of the churches in general, and especially to that of the private chapels. These private chapels have been ornamented by different families for ages, and the result is, that they have literally become architectural gems, though less in the sense of a pure taste, perhaps, than in that of an elaborated magnificence. That of the Corsini, in St. John of the Lateran, the richest I have seen; and I feel persuaded that I speak within bounds when I say, the money that would be necessary to build such a thing in America would cause ten or a dozen of our largest churches to be constructed. The great resources of Rome in antiques, columns, precious stones, and marbles, render these expenses less onerous than elsewhere; but their value even here is immense. The Prince of —— showed me a mosaic ornament in his vestibule, that had now been there some ages; and he told me that the precious stones it contained would sell for a very large sum. Vasi has a list of one hundred and thirty-three churches; and as he describes them all, I presume the little chapels that have been made out of the ancient temples, of which there may be a dozen or two, are not included. The smallest of these churches, if the little temples are excluded, are as large as the largest of our own; and each of the basilicæ, of which there are now six, is nearly, if not quite as large, in cubic contents, as all the churches of New York united. St. Peter’s, of course, is much larger; and, if the colonnade be included, I feel persuaded all the public buildings of New York might stand on its area,—to say nothing of the height.