And I am indeed in Rome. This is enough to repay one for long and tedious journeys and even for transient separation from friends, and when I leave this place I feel as though my face was set homeward. I feel it is something to be in Rome.... I distinctly recollect the time when, a very small boy, in the course of a long ride with a relative, the story of Romulus and Remus was first related to me, and how it struck my wondering fancy. And I recollect most perfectly my first lesson in Virgil, and how, commencing with “Arma virumque cano,” I slowly worked my way into the mysteries of Latin prosody and the story of the Æneid. Little did I think in those days that I should ever stand within the “walls of lofty Rome;” “Should tread the Appian Or climb the Palatine, and stand within those very walls Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine.” My enthusiasm has risen by degrees, for I arrived here this morning, after a delay at that most wretched of all places, Civita Vecchia, where an Austrian soldier, stationed there, told us he was sent as to a kind of earthly purgatory to do penance for his sins; after being subjected to those numberless petty exactions by which the purse of the pope is replenished from the pockets of us poor Protestants, after tedious delays on the road, and a most uncomfortable ride for the whole night, which altogether is enough to put one in a bad humor with everything,--after all this you may be sure I found myself in such a prosaic care-for-nothing mood that it was a long time before I could feel the interest which the Eternal City is calculated to inspire. A fog in the morning prevented us from a good view on our approach; the streets of the modern town through which we passed were mostly devoid of interest, and we saw nothing but the dome of St. Peter’s and the Castle of St. Angelo. However, we got established at the Hôtel d’Allemagne, and took breakfast. Mr. Hartley, being worn out by the journey, took to his room for the day, and I was left to myself. Though perfectly ignorant of localities here, I was determined not to be deprived of the satisfaction of discovering the most interesting places for myself. My guide-book (Madame Starke) describes objects somewhat particularly, but gives no information as to where they are to be found. I hate the chatter of a cicerone, and felt confident that I should stumble upon something worth seeing. So I climbed the hill just before me by a magnificent flight of marble steps, where the Egyptian obelisk stands which the inscription says was found in the Circus of Sallust. I saw an imposing building at the end of a long avenue, on the summit of a rise which I afterwards learned was the Esquiline Hill. On reaching it and examining the interior I found by the guide-book that it was the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. These basilicas, retaining the name of ancient structures, are a larger kind of churches, which were mostly