them, I should often consider myself mad.” On the 29th of March, 1787, accompanied by Kniep, a German artist settled at Naples, Goethe embarked for Sicily. Sixteen days he remained at Palermo, where art and nature combined to give him a happiness that seems to have been absolutely unalloyed. He then made for Alcamo and Segesta, visited Girgenti and Catania, climbed a part of Mount Etna, and finally arrived at Messina, whence he returned by sea to Naples. His letters, written for Frau von Stein, in the form of a diary, reproduce with astonishing power, yet with perfect simplicity, the impressions produced upon him during his visit to Sicily. He studied closely the remains of Greek architecture, and at the same time carried on his scientific investigations, which had occupied him at every favourable opportunity from the day of his arrival in Italy. These investigations had become more attractive to him than ever, for he had now a clear conception of the main outlines of his great discovery of the metamorphosis of plants. On the 6th of June he was once more in Rome. It was his intention to return to Weimar soon, but Rome exercised so irresistible a power over him that nearly a year passed before he could bring himself to leave it. All that he had seen before his departure for Naples he studied again and again, and almost daily he found objects of interest that had been overlooked. During this time his idea of Rome and of its greatest possessions became so full, accurate, and vivid that it was never in the faintest degree blurred by the events of his later life. He looked forward with the deepest interest to the great ceremonies of the Roman Church during Passion Week, and they seem to have given him a wholly new conception of the service art may be made to render to religion. Writing of a Mass in the Sixtine Chapel, attended by the Pope and the Cardinals, he says he does not wonder that strangers are often unable to contain themselves in the presence of a spectacle at once so great and so simple. The ceremonies in the Sixtine Chapel on the morning of Easter Day filled him with admiration, and appeared to him a striking proof of the fact that at Rome the Church had penetrated deeply into the spirit of “the Christian traditions.” In his literary work his progress was less rapid than he had expected. He was able, however, to achieve some important results. Among his papers was an unfinished prose drama, “Egmont,” which dated from about the time when he had written “Stella.” He had often thought of completing it at Weimar, but had never accomplished his purpose. Now he gave the play its final form, partly re-casting it; but re-writing it, as originally planned, in prose. He also improved the less important works, “Erwin and Elmire” and “Claudine von Villa Bella.”