The celebrated Illumination greatly surpassed my expectations. The vast dome is ribbed with lights, so disposed as to delineate all the grand outlines of the architecture, as are also the façade of the church itself and the colonnades. Knowing the magnitude of these edifices, you may fancy, in a degree, the effect. The lights are rich and full, suited to the scale of the buildings; and the rapidity with which they are set in a blaze, as it were in an instant, is truly astonishing. It is not literally true that _all_ the lights appear at the same moment, for a great number of small lamps which equally trace the lines of the architecture, are lighted while there is still day, and they appear gradually as the darkness advances, forming a very pretty spectacle of themselves. But a second set of lamps, or torches, of a different kind, blaze out at once at an appointed hour, when these fainter lamps form secondary lines to the tracery of the exhibition. No illumination that I have ever witnessed at all approaches this in magnificence: nor does any other show the same dramatic effect in lighting up. The word _instantly_ is not to be taken literally either, for I dare say two or three minutes pass before the whole structure is illuminated; but this time is really so short, and the effect is so very great, that one does not stop to count moments amid the blaze of magnificence. The effect is like that of furling sails in a man-of-war. Time is taken, certainly; but so much is done in a minute, that it seems to the uninstructed as if all were done in a moment. The fireworks of St. Angelo were also the richest I have ever seen. There was a volcano that surpassed all my previous notions of the powers of this branch of art. But the climate of Italy greatly favours this species of exhibition. LETTER XXVII. Departure from Rome.—A scolding traveller put off by a roguish innkeeper at Cività Castellana.—Pilgrims returning from Rome.—Narni.—Falls of Terni.—Spoleto.—Hermitages.—Temple of Clitumnus.—Foligno. After five delightful months passed at Rome, the moment for departure arrived. Every one waited to the end of the Holy Week, and then every one seemed impatient to fly. We delayed a few days, in order to visit Tivoli, and a few other places that had been neglected; and then we reluctantly drove through the Porta del Popolo, with the rest of them. Our own carriage, drawn by four active white horses, and a carriage of the vetturino, drawn by four sturdy brown ones, made the cortège. I took the vetturino carriage on account of its conveniences; for it was roomy, and rendered a _fourgon_ unnecessary.