The voyage by steamer to Civita Vecchia was a very rough one, occupying five days instead of the eleven hours in which it sometimes was made. A letter from Dr. Howe was received a few days after the Lowells reached Rome, which gave more exact account of Dr. Lowell’s illness and left little hope of anything like permanent restoration. “Had it been possible,” Lowell replied to his brother-in-law, “I should have come home at once. But I could neither leave Maria here, nor safely expose her to the inclemencies of a winter passage across the Atlantic. There is nothing for it, but to hope and pray. But the thought that I have no right to be here casts a deeper shadow over everything in the dreary city of ruin and of an activity that is more sad than ruin itself. The dear Elmwood that has always looked so sunny in my memory comes now between me and the sun, and the long shadow of its eclipse follows and falls upon me everywhere. It is a wonderful satisfaction to me now to feel that dear Father and I have been so much at one and have been sources of so much happiness to each other for so many years.” The entrance into Rome is thus described in a letter to Miss Maria Fay:-- “It has been raining fast, but as we approach Rome, winding up and down among the hills and hollows of the Campagna between high stone walls, the clouds break and the moon shines out with supreme clearness. The tall reeds which lean over the road here and there glisten like steel, wet as they still are with the rain. The orange-trees have all silver leaves, and even the dark laurels and cypresses glitter. It is like an enchanted garden of the Arabian Nights. Presently we overtake other lumbering diligences (we are _posting_ and have done the thirty-five miles from Civita Vecchia in ten hours), and rattling through the gate are stopped by cocked-hatted officials, who demand passports. Opposite are the high walls of the Inquisition. We are in Rome. One ought to have a sensation, and one has. It is that of chill. One climbs stiffly down from the coupé, and stamps about with short-skirted and long-booted postilions whose huge spurs are clanking in every direction. Very soon we, being armed with a _lascia passare_,--there are three coach loads of us,--drive off, leaving four other loads behind still wrangling and jangling with the cocked hats. As we rattle away, the light from the window of the _uffizio di polizia_ gleams upon the musket of a blue overcoated French soldier marching to and fro on guard. Five minutes more rattle and the Dome glistens silverly in the moonlight, and the Titanic colonnade marches solemnly by us in ranks without end. Then a glimpse of feathery fountains, a turn to the right, a strip of gloomy street, a sudden turn to the left, and we are on the bridge of St. Angelo. Bernini’s angels polk gayly on their pedestals with the emblems of the Passion in their arms, and by wringing your neck you may see