Tuesday was also a rainy day, and I did not attend the ceremonies of the Roman church. To-day a select party of friends dined at Francis’s hotel, and amongst the rest a young American physician, Dr. G⸺, who had been a companion of my friend Mr. C⸺ and his son, in a felucca voyage from Naples, and for the last three weeks had been laid up in the house with a fever, taken from exposure on their journey to the Malaria, or exhalations arising from the marshy grounds about the mouth of the Tiber, where they were detained two days, by the necessity of obtaining permission from Cardinal Gonsalvi to land. The vessel they had engaged, had previously been employed in the charcoal trade, and the gentlemen having ordered a quantity of clean straw to be placed in the hold as a more commodious birth, the consequence was, that the coal dust, from the motion of the vessel, worked up into the straw from the chinks between the boards, so that in the morning, when they turned out, they were astonished to find they were become as dirty and swarthy as Neapolitan sailors themselves. There are three _misereres_ performed in Passion week: the first was sung on Wednesday; the second on Thursday, and the last on Good Friday; all of which I attended. To describe as they merit, these exquisite pieces of vocal music, requires a power which I do not possess; they must be heard to be comprehended; it appears to me beyond the reach of art, to bring an assemblage of human voices to the perfection which was here attained; and to produce such modulations of heavenly harmony: had I not been assured to the contrary, I could not have believed but they must have been assisted by the finest-toned instruments:— “Can any mortal mixture of earth’s mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?” Much as I had heard of the rapturous effect; it far exceeded any expectation I had formed; notwithstanding, it is unusual to find the objects of extravagant eulogy, afford a real, or proportionate, gratification. “⸺such a sacred and home-felt delight Such sober certainty of waking bliss, I never heard till now⸺” On Good Friday, after the last miserere, we went to St. Peter’s, where a most brilliantly illuminated cross was suspended; we did not however, continue there long, being almost satiated with these raree-shows. I then had the pleasure of spending a quiet evening with my friends Mr. and Mrs. H⸺, to whose interest I had been indebted for securing my places at each of the misereres, as well as for many other kind attentions during my stay in Rome.