My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek"

Among all of Rome's monuments of antiquity, there are few that impress me so strangely as those old Egyptian obelisks, the trophies of the victorious emperors, which the pontiffs have made to contribute so greatly to the adornment of their capital. It is almost impossible to turn a corner of one of the principal streets of the city without seeing one of these peculiar shafts that give a fine finish to the perspective. If their cold granite forms could speak, what a strange history they would reveal! They were witnesses of the achievements of a power which reached its noonday splendour centuries before the shepherd Faustulus took the foundling brothers into his cottage on the banks of the Tiber. The civilization of which they are the relics had declined before the Roman kings inaugurated that which afterwards reclaimed all Europe from the barbarians. Yet there they stand as grim and silent as if they had but yesterday been rescued from the captivity of the native quarry, and had never seen a nobler form than those of the dusty artisans who wrought them – as dull and unimpressible as some of the stupid tourists whom I see daily gazing upon these glorious monuments, and seeing only so much brick and stone.

MODERN ROME

Acknowledging as I do the charms which the Rome of antiquity possesses for me, it must still be confessed that the Rome of the present time enchants me with attractions scarcely less potent. Religion has consecrated many of the spots which history had made venerable, and thus added a new lustre to their associations. I turn from the broken columns and gray mouldering walls of old Rome to those fanes, "so ancient, yet so new," in which the piety of centuries has found its enduring expression. Beneath their sounding arches, by the mild light of the lamps that burn unceasingly around their shrines, who would vex his brain with antiquarian lore? We may notice that the pavement is worn away by the multitudes which have been drawn thither by curiosity or devotion; but we feel that Heaven's chronology is not an affair of months and years, and that Peter and Paul, Gregory and Leo, are not mere personages in a drama upon the first acts of which the curtain long since descended. Who thinks of antiquity while he inhabits that world of art which Rome encloses within her walls? Those are not the triumphs of a past age alone; they are the triumphs of to-day. The Apollo's bearing is not less manly, its step not less elastic, than it was in that remote age when its unknown sculptor threw aside his chisel and gazed upon his finished work. To-day's sunshine is not more clear and golden than that which glows in the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, though he who thus made the sunbeams his servants has been sleeping for nearly two centuries in the dusty vaults of Trinita de' Monti. Were Raphael's deathless faces more real while he was living than they are now? Were Guido's and Domenichino's triumphs more worthy of admiration while the paint was wet upon them? or were the achievements of that giant of art, Michel Angelo, ever more wonderful than now? No; these great works take no note of time, and confer upon the city which contains them something of their own immortality.

I have heard people regret that so many of our artists should expatriate themselves, and spend their lives in Rome or Florence. To me, however, nothing seems more natural; and if I were a painter, or a sculptor, I feel certain that I should share the common weakness of the profession for a place of residence in harmony with my art. What sympathy can a true artist feel with a state of society in which he is regarded by nine people out of ten as a useless member, because he does not directly aid in the production of a given quantity of grain or of cloth? Every stroke of his brush, every movement of his hands in moulding the obedient clay, is a protest against the low, mean, materialistic views of life which prevail among us; and it is too much to ask of any man that he shall spend his days in trying to live peaceably in an enemy's camp. When figs and dates become common articles of food in Lapland, and the bleak sides of the hills of New Hampshire are adorned with the graceful palm tree and the luxuriant foliage of the tropics, you may expect art to flourish in a community whose god is commerce, and whose chief religious duty is money-getting.

Truly the life of an artist in Rome is about as near the perfection of earthly happiness as is commonly vouchsafed to mortal man. The tone of society, and all the surroundings of the artist, are so congenial that no poverty nor privation can seriously interfere with them. The streets, with their architectural marvels, the trim gardens and picturesque cloisters of the old religious establishments, the magnificent villas of the neighbourhood of the city, and the vast, mysterious Campagna, with its gigantic aqueducts and its purple atmosphere, and those glorious galleries which at the same time gratify the taste of the artist and feed his ambition, – these are things which are as free to him as the blessed sunlight or the water that sparkles in the countless fountains of the Holy City. I do not wonder that artists who have lived any considerable time in Rome are discontented with the feverish restlessness of our American way of life, and that, after "stifling the mighty hunger of the heart" through two or three wearisome years in our western world, they turn to Rome as to a fond mother, upon whose breast they may find that peace which they had elsewhere sought in vain.

The churches of Rome impress me in a way which I have never heard described by any other person. I do not speak of St. Peter's, (that "noblest temple that human skill ever raised to the honour of the Creator,") nor do I refer to those other magnificent basilicas in which the Christian glories of eighteen centuries sit enthroned. These have a dignity and majesty peculiarly their own, and the most thoughtless cannot tread their ancient pavement without being for the time subdued into awe and veneration. But the parish churches of Rome, the churches of the various religious orders and congregations, and those numerous little temples which are so thickly scattered through the city, attract me in manner especially fascinating. There is an air of cosiness and at-home-ativeness about them which cannot be found in the grander fanes. Some of them seem by their architectural finish to have been built in some fine street or square, and to have wandered off in search of quiet to their present secluded positions. It is beneath their arches that the Roman people may be seen. Before those altars you may see men, women, and children kneeling, their lips scarcely moving with the petitions which are heard only in another world. No intruding tourists, eye-glassed and Murrayed, interfere with their devotions, and the silence of the sacred place is unbroken, save by the rattling of a rosary, or at stated times by the swell of voices from the choir chapel. These are the places where the real power of the Catholic religion makes itself felt more unmistakably than in the grandest cathedrals, where every form and sound is eloquent of worship. I remember with pleasure that once in London, as I was passing through that miserable quarter which lies between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, I was attracted by the appearance of a number of people who were entering a narrow doorway. One or two stylish carriages, with crests upon their panels, and drivers in livery, stood before the dingy building which seemed to wear a mysterious air of semi-cleanliness in the midst of the general squalour. I followed the strange collection of the representatives of opulence and the extremest poverty through a long passage-way, and found myself in a large room which was tastefully fitted up for a Catholic chapel. The simplicity of the place, joined with its strictly ecclesiastical look, the excellent music, the crowded and devout congregation, and the almost breathless attention which was paid to the simple and persuasive eloquence of the preacher, who was formerly one of the chief ornaments of the established church, whose highest honours he had cast aside that he might minister more effectually to the poor and despised, – all these things astonished and delighted me. To see that church preserving, even in its hiddenness and poverty, its regard for the comeliness of God's worship, and adorning that humble chapel in a manner which showed that the spirit which erected the shrines of Westminster, Salisbury and York, had not died out, carried me back in spirit to the catacombs of Rome, where the early Christians left the abiding evidences of their zeal for the beauty of the house of God. I was at that time fresh from the continent, and my mind was occupied with the remembrance of the gorgeous churches of Italy. Yet, despite my recollection of those "forests of porphyry and marble," those altars of lapis lazuli, those tabernacles glittering with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and those mosaics and frescoes whose beauty and variety almost fatigue the sense of the beholder, – I must say that it gave me a new sense of the dignity and grandeur of the ancient Church, to see her in the midst of the poverty and obscurity to which she is now condemned in the land which once professed her faith, and was once thickly planted with those institutions of learning and charity which are the proudest monuments of her progress. A large ship, under full sail, running off before a pleasant breeze, is a beautiful sight; but it is by no means so grandly impressive as that of the same ship, under close canvas, gallantly riding out the merciless gale that carried destruction to every unseaworthy craft which came within its reach.

I am not one of those who lament over the millions which have been expended upon the churches of Rome. I am not inclined to follow the sordid principle of that apostle who is generally held up rather as a warning than an example, and say that it had been better if the sums which have been devoted to architectural ornament had been withheld and given to the poor. Religion has no need, it is true, of these visible splendours, any more than of set forms and modes of speech. For it is the heart that believes, and loves, and prays. But we, poor mortals, so enslaved by our senses, so susceptible to external appearances, need every thing that can inspire in us a respect for something higher than ourselves, or remind us of the glories of the invisible, eternal world. And can we doubt that He who praised the action of that pious woman who poured the precious ointment upon His sacred head, looks with complacency upon the sacrifices which are made for the adornment of the temples devoted to His worship? Is it a right principle that people who are clad in expensive garments, who are not content unless they are surrounded by carved or enamelled furniture, and whose feet tread daily on costly tapestries, should find fault with the generous piety which has made the churches of Italy what they are, and should talk so impressively about the beauty of spiritual worship? I have no patience with these advocates for simplicity in every thing that does not relate to themselves and their own comforts.

"Shall we serve Heaven with less respect
Than we do minister to our gross selves?"

I care not how simple our private houses may be, but I advocate liberality and splendour in our public buildings of all kinds, for the sake of preserving a due respect for the institutions they enshrine. I remember, in reading one of the old classical writers, – Sallust, I think, – in my young days, being greatly impressed by his declaration that private luxury is a sure forerunner of a nation's downfall, and that it is a fatal sign for the dwellings of the citizens to be spacious and magnificent, while the public edifices are mean and unworthy. Purely intellectual as we may think ourselves, we are, nevertheless, somewhat deferential to the external proprieties of life, and I very much doubt whether the most reverential of us could long maintain his respect for the Supreme Court if its sessions were held in a tap-room, or for religion, if its ministers prayed and preached in pea-jackets and top-boots.

Displeasing as is the presence of most of the English-speaking tourists one meets in Rome, there are two places where they delight to congregate, which yet have charms for me that not even Cockney vulgarity or Yankee irreverence can destroy. The church of the convent of Trinità de' Monti wins me, in spite of the throng that fills its nave at the hour of evening every Sunday and festival day. Some years since, when I first visited Rome, the music which was heard there was of the highest order of merit. At present the nuns of the Sacred Heart have no such great artistes in their community as they had then, but the music of their choir is still one of those things which he who has once heard can never forget. It is the only church in Rome in which I have heard female voices; and, though I much prefer the great male choirs of the basilicas, there is a soothing simplicity in the music at Trinità de' Monti which goes home to almost every heart. I have seen giddy and unthinking girls, who laughed at the ceremonial they did not understand, subdued to reverence by those strains, and supercilious Englishmen reduced to the humiliating necessity of wiping their eyes. Indeed, the whole scene is so harmoniously impressive that its enchantment cannot be resisted. The solemn church, lighted only by the twilight rays, and the tapers upon the high altar, – the veiled forms of the pious sisterhood and their young pupils in the grated sanctuary, – the clouding of the fragrant incense, – the tinkling of that silvery bell and of the chains of the swinging censer, – those ancient and dignified rites, – and over all, those clear, angelic voices praying and praising, in litany and hymn – all combine to make up a worship, one moment of which would seem enough to wipe away the memory of a lifetime of folly, and disappointment, and sorrow.

The Sistine Chapel is another place to which I am bound by an almost supernatural fascination. My imperfect eyesight will not permit me to enjoy fully the frescoes that adorn its lofty walls; but I feel that I am in the presence of the great master and some of his mightiest conceptions. I do not know whether the chapel is most impressive in its empty state, or when thronged for some great religious function. In the former condition, its fine proportions and its simplicity satisfy me so completely, that I hardly wish for the pomp and splendour which belong to it on great occasions. I know of nothing more grand than the sight of that simple throne of the Sovereign Pontiff, when it is occupied by that benignant old man, to whom more than two hundred millions of people look with veneration as to a father and a teacher, – and surrounded by those illustrious prelates and princes who compose a senate of moral and intellectual worth, such as all the world beside cannot parallel. Those venerable figures – those gray hairs – those massive foreheads, and those resplendent robes of office, seem to be a part of some great historical picture, rather than a reality before my eyes. There is nothing more severe in actual experience, or more satisfactory in the recollection, than Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. The crowd, the fatigue, and the presence of so many sight-seers, who have come with the same feeling that they would attend an opera or a play, are not calculated to increase one's bodily comfort, or to awaken the sentiments proper to so sacred a season as that which is then commemorated. But after these have passed away, there remains the recollection, which time does not diminish, but makes more precious, of that darkening chapel and the bowed-down heads of the Pope and cardinals, of the music, "yearning like a god in pain," of the melodious woe of the Miserere, the plaintive majesty of the Lamentations and the Reproaches, and the shrill dissonance of the shouts of the populace in the gospel narrative of the crucifixion. These are things which would outweigh a year of fatigue and pain. I know of no greater or more sincere tribute to the perfections of the Sistine choir, and the genius of Allegri and Palestrina, than the patience with which so many people submit to be packed, like herring in a box, into that small chapel. But old and gouty as I am, I would gladly undergo all the discomforts of that time to hear those sounds once more.

I hear some people complain of the beggars, and wonder why Rome, with her splendid system of charities for the relief of every form of suffering, permits mendicancy. For myself, I am not inclined to complain either of the beggars or of the merciful government, which refuses to look upon them as offenders against its laws. On the contrary, it appears to me rather creditable than otherwise to Rome, that she is so far behind the age, as not to class poverty with crime among social evils. I have a sincere respect for this feature of the Catholic Church; this regard for the poor as her most precious inheritance, and this unwillingness that her children should think that, because she has organized a vast system of benevolence, they are absolved of the duty of private charity. In this wisdom, which thus provides for the exercise of kindly feelings in alms-giving, may be found one of the most attractive characteristics of the Roman Church. This, no less than the austere religious orders which she has founded, shows in what sense she receives the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." And the same kind spirit of equality may be seen in her churches and cathedrals, where rich and poor kneel upon the same pavement, before their common God and Saviour, and in her cloisters, and universities, and schools, where social distinctions cannot enter.

When I walk through the cloisters of these venerable institutions of learning, or gaze upon the ancient city from Monte Mario, or the Janiculum, it seems to me that never until now did I appreciate the world's indebtedness to Rome. Dislike it as we may, we cannot disguise the fact, that to her every Christian nation owes, in a great measure, its civilization, its literature, and its religion. The endless empire which Virgil's muse foretold, is still hers; and, as one of her ancient Christian poets said, those lands which were not conquered by her victorious arms are held in willing obedience by her religion. When I think how all our modern civilization, our art, letters, and jurisprudence, sprang originally from Rome, it appears to me that a narrow religious prejudice has prevented our forming a due estimate of her services to humanity. To some, the glories of the ancient empire, the memory of the days when her sovereignty extended from Britain to the Ganges, and her capital counted its inhabitants by millions, seem to render all her later history insignificant and dull; but to my mind the moral dignity and power of Christian Rome is as superior to her old military omnipotence as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive. The ancient emperors, with all their power, could not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For me, Rome's most enduring glories are the memories of the times when her great missionary orders civilized and evangelized the countries which her arms had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined the world with their virtues; when her pontiffs, single-handed, turned back barbarian invasions, or mitigated the severities of the feudal age, or protected the people by laying their ban upon the tyrants who oppressed them, or defended the sanctity of marriage, and the rights of helpless women against divorce-seeking monarchs and conquerors. These things are the true fulfilment of the glowing prophecy of Rome's greatness, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchises, when Æneas visits the Elysian Fields, and hears from his old father that the mission of the government he is about to found is to rule the world by moral power, to make peace between opposing nations, to spare the subject, and to subdue the proud:

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

ROME TO MARSEILLES

The weather was fearfully hot the day of my departure from Rome. The sun was staring down, without winking, upon that wonderful old city, as if he loved the sight. The yellow current of old Father Tiber seemed yellower than ever in the glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in the morning had seemed like airs from heaven, before noon had become most uncomfortably like a blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di Spagna was like Tadmor in the wilderness. Not a single English tourist, with his well-read Murray under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage driver broke the stillness of the place with his polyglot solicitations to ride. The great staircase of Trinità de' Monti seemed an impossibility; to have climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun would have been poor entertainment for man or beast. The squares of the city were like furnaces, and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless the narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at the gates and in the public places looked as if they couldn't help it. Now and then a Capuchin monk, in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted cord, toiled along on some errand of benevolence, and made one marvel at his endurance. Occasionally a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking as if he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his dignity and power for a single day of virtuous liberty in linen pantaloons.

Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there were no buyers, and the shopkeepers slumbered at their counters. The cafés were shrouded in their long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company by their well-wet pavement. A few old Romans found energy enough to call for an occasional ice or lemonade, and talked in the intervals about Pammerstone, and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed down into the Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred the foliage that clothes that mighty ruin. Even the birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena would have perilled life as surely as in those old days when the first Roman Christians there confessed their faith. On such a day, one's parting visits must necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre, and walked along the dusty Via Sacra, pausing a moment to ponder on the scene of Cicero's triumphs, and of so many centuries of thrilling history, and coming to the conclusion that, if it were such a day as that when Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter, the blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in front of the Pantheon, usually so thronged and lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright vegetables had either all been sold, or had refused to grow in such a heat. But the Pantheon itself was unchanged. There it stood, in all its severe grandeur, majestic as in the days of the Cæsars, the embodiment of heathenism, the exponent of the worship of the old, inexorable gods, – of justice without mercy, and power without love. Its interior seemed cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that stupendous pile of masonry, – and I gathered new strength from my short visit. It was a fine thought in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested to our minds by this practice are very striking. When we see that the images of the old revengeful and impure divinities have given place to those of the humble and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that the Saviour of the world stretches out His arms upon the cross, in the place from which the haughty Jupiter once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at once to a conclusion more irresistible than any that the mere force of language could produce. One of our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed this same idea in graceful verse: —

"The goddess of the woods and fields,
The healthful huntress undefiled,
Now with her fabled brother yields
To sinless Mary and her Child."

But I must hurry on towards St. Peter's. There are three places in Rome which every one visits as soon as possible after he arrives, and as short a time as may be before his departure – the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and St. Peter's. The narrow streets between the Pantheon and the Bridge of St. Angelo were endurable, because they were shady. It was necessary to be careful, however, and not trip over any of the numerous Roman legs whose proprietors were stretched out upon the pavement in various picturesque postures, sleeping away the long hours of that scorching day. At last the bridge is reached Bernini's frightful statues, which deform its balustrades, seem to be writhing under the influence of the sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronica's napkin was curling with the heat. The bronze archangel stood as usual upon the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo. I stopped a few moments, thinking that he might see the expediency of sheathing his sword and retreating, before he should be compelled, in the confusion of such a blaze as that, to run away; but it was useless. I moved on towards St. Peter's, and he still kept guard there as brazen-faced as ever. The great square in front of the basilica seemed to have scooped up its fill of heat, and every body knows that it is capable of containing a great deal. The few persons whom devotion or love of art had tempted out in such a day, approached it under the shade of its beautiful colonnades. I was obliged to content myself with the music of one of those superb fountains only, for the workmen were making a new basin for the other. St. Peter's never seemed to me so wonderful, never filled me up so completely, as it did then. The contrast of the heat I had been in with that atmosphere of unchangeable coolness, the quiet of the vast area, the fewness of people moving about, all conspired to impress me with a new sense of the majesty and holiness of the place. The quiet, unflickering blaze of the numerous lamps that burn unceasingly around the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles seemed a beacon of immortality. To one who could at that hour recall the bustle and turmoil of the Boulevards of Paris, or of the Strand, or of Broadway, the vast basilica itself seemed to be an island of peace in the tempestuous ocean of the world. I am not so blind a lover of Gothic architecture that I can find no beauty nor religious feeling in the Italian churches. I prefer, it is true, the "long-drawn aisle and fretted vault," and the "storied windows richly dight"; but I cannot for that reason sneer at the gracefully turned arches, the mosaic walls and domes rich in frescoes and precious marbles, that delight one's eyes in Italy. Both styles are good in their proper places. The Gothic and Norman, with their high-pitched roofs, are the natural growth of the snowy north, and to attempt to transplant them to a land where heat is to be guarded against, were as absurd as to expect the pine and fir to take the place of the fig tree and the palm. Talk as eloquently as we may about being superior to external impressions, I defy any man to breathe the quiet atmosphere of any of these old continental churches for a few moments, without feeling that he has gathered new strength therefrom to tread the thorns of life. Lamartine has spoken eloquently on this theme: "Ye columns who veil the sacred asylums where my eyes dare not penetrate, at the foot of your immovable trunks I come to sigh! Cast over me your deep shades, render the darkness more obscure, and the silence more profound! Forests of porphyry and marble! the air which the soul breathes under your arches is full of mystery and of peace! Let love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude under the green shelter of groves, to soothe their secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary! the eye of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs! Nothing changes thy foliage; thy still shade is the image of motionless eternity!"

There was not time to linger long. The pressure of worldly engagements was felt even at the shrine of the apostles. I walked about, and tried to recall the many splendid religious pageants I had there witnessed, and wondered sorrowfully whether I should ever again listen to that matchless choir, or have my heart stirred to its depths by the silver trumpets that reëcho under that sonorous vault in the most solemn moment of religion's holiest rite. Once more out in the clear hot atmosphere which seemed hotter than before. The Supreme Pontiff was absent from his capital, and the Vatican was comparatively empty. The Swiss guards, in their fantastic but picturesque uniform, were loitering about the foot of the grand staircase, and sighing for a breath of the cool air of their Alpine home. I took a last long gaze at that grand old pile of buildings, – the home of all that is most wonderful in art, the abode of that power which overthrew the old Roman empire, inaugurated the civilization of Europe, and planted Christianity in every quarter of the globe, – and then turned my unwilling feet homewards. In my course I passed the foot of the Janiculum Hill: it was too hot, however, to think of climbing up to the convent of Sant' Onofrio – though I would gladly have paid a final visit to that lovely spot where the munificence of Pius IX. has just completed a superb sepulchre for the repose of Tasso. So I crossed the Tiber in one of those little ferry boats which are attached to a cable stretched over the river, and thus are swung across by the movement of the current, – a labour-saving arrangement preëminently Roman in its character, – and soon found myself in my lodgings However warm the weather may be in Rome, one can keep tolerably comfortable so long as he does not move about, – thanks to the thick walls and heavy wooden window shutters of the houses, – so I found my room a cool asylum after my morning of laborious pleasure.

At last, the good byes having all been said, behold me, with my old portmanteau, (covered with its many-coloured coat of baggage labels, those trophies of many a hard campaign of travel,) at the office of the diligence for Civita Vecchia. The luggage and the passengers having been successfully stowed away, the lumbering vehicle rolled down the narrow streets, and we were soon outside the gate that opens upon the old Aurelian Way. Here the passports were examined, the postilions cracked their whips, and I felt indeed that I was "banished from Rome." It is a sad thing to leave Rome. I have seen people who have made but a brief stay there shed more tears on going away than they ever did on a departure from home; but for one who has lived there long enough to feel like a Roman citizen – to feel that the broken columns of the Forum have become a part of his being – to feel as familiar with St. Peter's and the Vatican as with the King's Chapel and the Tremont House – it is doubly hard to go away. The old city, so "rich with the spoils of time," seems invested with a personality that appeals most powerfully to every man, and would fain hold him back from returning to the world. The lover of art there finds its choicest treasures ever open to him; the artist there finds an abundance of employment for his chisel or his brush; the man of business there finds an asylum from the vexing cares of a commercial career; the student of antiquity or of history can there take his fill amid the "wrecks of a world whose ashes still are warm," and listen to the centuries receding into the unalterable past with their burdens of glory or of crime; the lover of practical benevolence will there be delighted by the inspection of establishments for the relief of every possible form of want and suffering; the enthusiast for education finds there two universities and hundreds of public schools of every grade, and all as free as the bright water that sparkles in Rome's countless fountains; the devout can there rekindle their devotion at the shrines of apostles and martyrs, and breathe the holy air of cloisters in which saints have lived and died, or join their voices with those that resound in old churches, whose pavements are furrowed by the knees of pious generations; the admirer of pomp, and power, and historic associations can there witness the more than regal magnificence of a power, compared to which the houses of Bourbon or of Hapsburg are but of yesterday; the lover of republican simplicity can there find subject for admiration in the facility of access to the highest authorities, and in the perfection of his favourite elective system by which the supreme power is perpetuated. There is, in short, no class of men to whom Rome does not attach itself. People may complain during their first week that it is dull, or melancholy, or dirty; but you generally find them sorry enough to go away, and looking back to their residence there as the happiest period of their existence. Somebody has said, – and I wish that I could recall the exact words, they are so true, – that when we leave Paris, or Naples, or Florence, we feel a natural sorrow, as if we were parting from a cherished friend; but on our departure from Rome we feel a pang like that of separation from a woman whom we love!

At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk of evening, and the discomforts of the journey began to make themselves obtrusive. The night air in Italy is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the windows of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb after the oyster pie, we were "all full inside," and a pretty time we had of it. As to respiration, you might as well have expected the performance of that function from a mackerel occupying the centre of a well-packed barrel of his finny comrades, as of any person inside that diligence. Of course there was a baby in the company, and of course the baby cried. I could not blame it, for even a fat old gentleman who sat opposite to me would have cried if he had not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall the anguish of that night: suffice it to say that for several hours the only air we got was an occasional vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant. At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast, where I heard "the wild water lapping on the crag," and felt more keenly than before that I had indeed left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey being along the coast, we had the window open, though it was not much better on that account, as we were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see the cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is destined soon to destroy those beastly diligences, and place Rome within two or three hours of its seaport.

At five o'clock in the morning, after ten toilsome hours, I found myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in Civita Vecchia, a city which has probably been the cause of more profanity than any other part of the world, including Flanders. I was determined not to be fleeced by any of the hotel keepers; so I staggered about the streets until I found a barber's shop open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding night, I hove to in a neighbouring café long enough to take in a little ballast in the way of breakfast. Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of considerable literary reputation, whom I had several times met in Rome. He was one of those men who seem to possess all sorts of sense except common sense. He was full of details, and could tell exactly the height of the dome of St. Peter's, or of the great pyramid, – could explain the process of the manufacture of the Minié rifle or the boring of an artesian well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or Secchi, – but he could not pack a carpet-bag to save his life. That he should have been able to travel so far from home alone is a fine commentary on the honesty and good nature of the people of the continent. I could not help thinking what a time he would have were he to attempt to travel in America. He would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe in the cabmen of New York. He had come down to Civita Vecchia in a most promiscuous style, and when I discovered him he was trying to bring about a union between some six or eight irreconcilable pieces of luggage. I aided him successfully in the work, and his look of perplexity and despair gave way to one of gratitude and admiration for his deliverer. Delighted at this escape from the realities of his situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation on the philosophy of language and the formation of provincial dialects, and it was some time before I could bring him down to the common and practical business of securing his passage in the steamer for Marseilles. Ten o'clock, however, found us on board one of the steamers of the Messageries Imperiales, and we were very shortly after under way. We were so unfortunate as to run aground on a little spit of land in getting out of port, as we ran a little too near an English steamer that was lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to us, and thus established an alliance between their flag and the French, which drew the latter out of the difficulty in which it had got by too close a proximity to its English neighbour.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and reminded me of many halcyon days I had spent on that blue Mediterranean in other times. It reminded me of some of my childhood's days in the country in New England, – days described by Emerson where he says that we "bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba," – when "the day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm, wide fields," – when "the cattle, as they lie on the ground, seem to have great and tranquil thoughts." It was on such a day that I used to delight to pore over my Shakspeare, undisturbed by any sound save the hum of the insect world, or the impatient switch of the tail, or movement of the feet, of a horse who had sought the same shade I was enjoying. To a man who has been rudely used by fortune, or who has drunk deep of sorrow or disappointment, I can conceive of nothing more grateful or consoling than a summer cruise in the Mediterranean. "The sick heart often needs a warm climate as much as the sick body."

My English friend, immediately on leaving port, took some five or six prescriptions for the prevention of seasickness, and then went to bed, so that I had some opportunity to look about among our ship's company. There were two men, apparently companions, though they hardly spoke to each other, who amused me very much One was a person of about four feet and a half in height, who walked about on deck with that manner which so many diminutive persons have, of wishing to be thought as tall as Mr. George Barrett. He boasted a deportment that would have made the elder Turveydrop envious, while it was evident that under that serene and dignified exterior lay hidden all the warm-heartedness and geniality of that eminent philanthropist who was obliged to play a concerto on the violin to calm his grief at seeing the conflagration of his native city. The other looked as if "he had not loved the world, nor the world him"; he was a thin, bilious-looking person, and seemed like a whole serious family rolled into one individuality. I felt a great deal of curiosity to know whether he was reduced to that pitiable condition by piety or indigestion. I felt sure that he was meditating suicide as he gazed upon the sea, and I stood by him for some time to prevent his accomplishing any such purpose, until I became convinced that to let him take the jump, if he pleased, would be far the more philanthropic course of action. There was a French bishop, and a colonel of the French staff at Rome, among the passengers, and by their genial urbanity they fairly divided between them the affections of the whole company. Either of them would have made a fog in the English Channel seem like the sunshine of the Gulf of Egina. I picked up a pleasant companion in an Englishman who had travelled much and read more, and spent the greater part of the day with him. When he found that I was an American, he at once asked me if I had ever been to Niagara, and had ever seen Longfellow and Emerson. I am astonished to find so many cultivated English people who know little or nothing about Tennyson; I am inclined to think he has ten readers in America to one in England, while the English can repeat Longfellow by pages.

After thirty hours of pleasant sailing along by Corsica and Elba, and along the coast of France, until it seemed as if our cruise (like that of the widow of whom we have all read) would never have an end, we came to anchor in the midst of a vast fleet of steamers in the new port of Marseilles. The bustle of commercial activity seemed any thing but pleasant after the classical repose of Rome; but the landlady of the hotel was most gracious, and when I opened the window of my room looking out on the Place Royale, one of those peripatetic dispensers of melody, whose life (like the late M. Mantalini's after he was reduced in circumstances) must be "one demnition horrid grind," executed "Sweet Home" in a manner that went entirely home to the heart of at least one of his accidental audience.

MARSEILLES, LYONS, AND AIX IN SAVOY

If the people of Marseilles do not love the Emperor of the French, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. He has so completely changed the aspect of that city by his improvements, that the man who knows it as it existed in the reign of Louis Philippe, would be lost if he were to revisit it now. The completion of the railway from Paris to Marseilles is an inestimable advantage to the latter city, while the new port, in magnitude and style of execution, is worthy of comparison with the splendid docks of London and Liverpool. The flags of every civilized nation may be seen there; and the variety of costumes and languages, which bewilder one's eyes and ears, assure him that he is in the commercial metropolis of the Mediterranean. The frequency of steam communication between Marseilles and the various ports of Spain, Italy, Africa, and the Levant, draws to it a large proportion of the travellers in those directions. I believe that Marseilles is only celebrated for having been colonized by the Phocæans, or some such people, for having several times been devastated by the plague, and for having been very perfectly described by Dickens in his Little Dorrit. The day on which I arrived there was very like the one described by Dickens; so if any one would like further particulars, he had better overhaul his Little Dorrit, and, "when found, make note of it."

The day after my arrival I saw a grand religious procession in the streets of the city. The landlady of my hotel had told me of it, but my expectations were not raised very high, for I thought that after the grandeur of Rome, all other things in that way would be comparatively tame. But I was mistaken; the procession fairly rivalled those of Rome. There were the same gorgeous vestments, the same picturesque groupings of black robes and snowy surplices, of mitres and crosiers and shaven crowns, of scarlet and purple and cloth of gold, the same swinging censers and clouds of fragrant incense, the same swelling flood of almost supernatural music. The municipal authorities of the city, with the staff of the garrison, joined in the procession, and the military display was such as can hardly be seen out of France. I have often been struck with the facility with which the Catholic religion adapts itself to the character of every nation. I have had some opportunity of observation; I have seen the Catholic Church on three out of the four continents, and have every where noticed the same phenomenon. Mahometanism could never be transplanted to the snowy regions of Russia or Norway; it needs the soft, enervating atmosphere of Asia to keep it alive; the veranda, the bubbling fountain, the noontide repose, are all parts of it. Puritanism is the natural growth of a country where the sun seldom shines, and which is shut out by a barrier of water and fog from kindly intercourse with its neighbours. It could never thrive in the bright south. The merry vine-dressers of Italy could never draw down their faces to the proper length, and would be very unwilling to exchange their blithesome canzonetti for Sternhold and Hopkins's version. But the Catholic Church, while it unites its professors in the belief of the same inflexible creed, leaves them entirely free in all mere externals and national peculiarities. When I see the light-hearted Frenchman, the fiery Italian, the serious Spaniard, the cunning Greek, the dignified Armenian, the energetic Russian, the hard-headed Dutchman, the philosophical German, the formal and "respectable" Englishman, the thrifty Scotchman, the careless and warm-hearted Irishman, and the calculating, go-ahead American, all bound together by the profession of the same faith, and yet retaining their national characteristics, – I can compare it to nothing but to a similar phenomenon that we may notice in the prism, which, while it is a pure and perfect crystal, is found on examination to contain, in their perfection, all the various colours of the rainbow.

The terminus of the Lyons and Mediterranean Railway is one of the best things of its kind in the world. I wish that some of our American railway directors could take a few lessons from the French. The attention paid to securing the comfort and safety of the passengers and the regularity of the trains would quite bewilder him. Instead of finding the station a long, unfinished kind of shed, with two small, beastly waiting rooms at one side, and a stand for a vender of apples, root beer, and newspapers, he would see a fine stone structure, several hundred feet in length, with a roof of iron and glass. He would enter a hall which would remind him of the Doric hall of the State House in Boston, only that it is several times larger, and is paved with marble. He would choose out of the three ticket offices of the three classes, where he would ride, and he would be served with a promptness and politeness that would remind him of Mr. Child in the palmy days of the old Tremont Theatre, while he would notice that an officer stood by each ticket office to see that every purchaser got his ticket and the proper change, and to give all necessary information. Having booked his luggage, he would be ushered into one of the three waiting rooms, all of them furnished in a style of neatness and elegance that would greatly astonish him. He might employ the interval in the study of geography, assisted by a map painted on one side of the room, giving the entire south of France and Piedmont, with the railways, &c., and executed in such a style that the names of the towns are legible at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. Two or three minutes before the hour fixed for the starting of the train, the door would be opened, and he would take his seat in the train with the other passengers. The whole affair would go on so systematically, with such an absence of noise and excitement, that he would doubt whether he had been in a railway station at all, until he found himself spinning along at a rapid rate, through long tunnels, and past the beautiful panorama of Provençal landscape.

The sun was as bright as it always is in fair Provence, the sky as blue. The white dusty roads wound around over the green landscape, like great serpents seeking to hide their folds amid those hills. The almond, the lemon, and the fig attracted the attention of the traveller from the north, before all other trees, – not to forget however, the pale foliage of that tree which used to furnish wreaths for Minerva's brow, but now supplies us with oil for our salads. Arles, with its old amphitheatre (a broken shadow of the Coliseum) looming up above it, lay stifled with dust and broiling in the sun, as we hurried on towards Avignon. It does not take much time to see that old city, which, from being so long the abode of the exiled popes, seems to have caught and retained something of the quiet dignity and repose of Rome itself. That gloomy old palace of the popes, with its lofty turrets, seems to brood over the town, and weigh it down as with sorrow for its departed greatness. Centuries have passed, America has been discovered, the whole face of Europe has changed, since a pontiff occupied those halls; and yet there it stands, a monument commemorating a mere episode in the history of the see of St. Peter.

Arriving at Lyons, I found another palatial station, on even a grander scale than that of Marseilles. The architect has worked the coats of arms of the different cities of France into the stone work of the exterior in a very effective manner. Lyons bears witness, no less than Marseilles, to the genius of the wonderful man who now governs France. It is a popular notion in England and America, that the enterprise of Napoleon III. has been confined to the improvement of Paris. If persons who labour under this error would extend their journeyings a little beyond the ordinary track of a summer excursion, they would find that there is scarcely a town in the empire that has not felt the influence of his skill as a statesman and political economist. The Rue Imperiale of Lyons is a monument of which any sovereign might be justly proud. The activity of Lyons, the new buildings rising on every side, and its look of prosperity, would lead one to suppose that it was some place that had just been settled, instead of a city with twenty centuries of history. The Sunday, I was glad to see, was well observed; perhaps not exactly in the style which Aminadab Sleek would commend, but in a very rational, Christian, un-Jewish manner. The shops were, for the most part, closed, the churches were crowded with people, and in the afternoon and evening the entire population was abroad enjoying itself – and a cleaner, better-behaved, happier-looking set of people I never saw. The excessive heat still continues. It is now more than two months since I opened my umbrella; the prospects of the harvest are good, but they are praying hard in the churches for a little rain. During my stay at Lyons, I lived almost entirely on fresh figs, and plums and ices. How full the cafés were those sultry evenings! How busy must the freezers have been in the cellars below! I read through all the newspapers I could lay my hands on, and then amused myself with watching the gay, chattering throng around me. How my mind flew across the ocean that evening to a quiet back parlour at the South End! I could see the venerable Baron receiving a guest on such a night as that, and making the weather seem cool by contrast with the warmth of his hospitality. I could see him offering to his perspiring visitor a release from the slavery of broadcloth, in the loan of a nankeen jacket, and then busying himself in the preparation of a compound of old Cochituate, (I had almost said old Jamaica,) of ice, of sugar, yea, of lemons, and commending the grateful chalice to the parched lips of his guest. Such an evening in the Baron's back parlour is the very ecstasy of hospitality. It is many months since that old nankeen jacket folded me in its all-embracing arms, but the very thought of it awakes a thrill of pleasure in my heart. When I last saw it, "decay's effacing fingers" had meddled with the buttons thereof, and it was growing a trifle consumptive in the vicinity of the elbows; but I hope that it is good for many a year of usefulness yet, before the epitaph writer shall commence the recital of its merits with those melancholy words, Hic jacet! Pardon me, dear reader, for this digression from the recital of my wanderings; but this jacket, the remembrance of which is so dear to me, is not the trifle it may seem to you. It is, I believe, the only institution in the world of the same age and importance, which has not been apostrophized in verse by that gifted bard, Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper. If this be not celebrity, what is it?

In one of the narrow streets of Lyons I found a barber named Melnotte. He was a man somewhat advanced in life, and I feel sure that he addressed a good-looking woman in a snowy white cap, who looked in from a back room while I was having my hair cut, as Pauline. Be that as it may, when he had finished his work, and I walked up to the mirror to inspect it, he addressed to me the language of Bulwer's hero, "Do you like the picture?" or words to that effect. I cannot help mistrusting that Sir Edward may have misled us concerning the ultimate history of the Lady of Lyons and her husband. But the heat was too intolerable for human endurance; so I packed up, and leaving that fair city, with its numerous graceful bridges, and busy looms whose fabrics brighten the eyes of the beauties of Europe and America, and lighten the purses of their chivalry, – leaving Our Lady of Fourvières looking down with outstretched hands from the dome of her lofty shrine, and watching over her faithful Lyonnese, – I turned my face towards the Alpine regions.

The Alps have always been to me what Australia was to the late Mr. Micawber – "the bright dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I remember when I was young, long before the days of railways and steamers, in the times when a man who had travelled in Europe was invested with a sort of awful dignity – I remember hearing a travelled uncle of mine tell about the Alps, and I resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, thenceforward to "save up" all my Fourth of July and Artillery Election money, until I should be able to go and see one. When the Rev. James Sheridan Knowles (he was a wicked playactor in those days) produced his drama of William Tell, how it fed the flame of my ambition! How I longed to stand with the hero once again among his native hills! How I loved the glaciers! How I doted on the avalanches! But age has cooled the longings of my heart for mountain excursions, and robbed my legs of all their climbing powers, so that if it depends upon my own bodily exertions, the Vale of Chamouni will be entirely unavailable for me, and every mount will be to me a blank. The scenery along the line of railway from Ambérieu to Culoz on the Rhone is very grand. The ride reminded me of the ride over the Atlantic and St. Lawrence road through the White Mountains, only it is finer. The boldness of the cliffs and precipices was something to make one's heart beat quick, and cause him to wonder how the peasants could work so industriously, and the cattle feed so constantly, without stopping to look up at the magnificence that hemmed them in.

At Culoz I went on board one of those peculiar steamers of the Rhone – about one hundred and fifty feet in length by ten or twelve in width. Our way lay through a narrow and circuitous branch of the river for several miles. The windings of the river were such that men were obliged to turn the boat about by means of cables, which they made fast to posts fixed in the banks on either side for that purpose. The scenery along the banks was like a dream of Paradise. To say that the country was smiling with flowers and verdure does not express it – it was bursting into a broad grin of fertility. Such vineyards! Not like the grape vine in your back yard, dear reader, nailed up against a brick wall, but large, luxuriant vines, seeming at a loss what to do with themselves, and festooned from tree to tree, just as you see them in the scenery of Fra Diavolo. And then there were groups of people in costumes of picturesque negligence, and women in large straw hats, and dresses of brilliant colours, just like the chorus of an opera. The deep, rich hue of the foliage particularly attracted my notice. It was as different from the foliage of New England as Winship's Gardens are from an invoice of palm-leaf hats. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the river rose up beautiful hills and cliffs like the Palisades of the Hudson. Let those who will, prefer the wild grandeur of our American mountain scenery; there is a great charm for me in the union of nature and art. The careful cultivation of the fields seems to set off and render more grand and austere the gray, jagged cliffs that overlook them. As the elder Pliny most justly remarks, (lib. iv. cap. xi. 24,) "It requires the lemon as well as the sugar to make the punch."

After about an hour's sail upon the river, we came out upon the beautiful Lake of Bourget. It was stirred by a gentle breeze, but it seemed as if its bright blue surface had never reflected a cloud. All around its borders the trees and vines seemed bending down to drink of its pure waters. Far off in the distance rose up the mighty peaks of the Alps – their snow-white tops contrasting with the verdure of their sides. They seemed to be watching with pleasure over the glad scenes beneath them, like old men whose gray hairs have been powerless to disturb the youthful freshness and geniality of their hearts.

At St. Innocent I landed, and underwent the custom house formalities attendant upon entrance into a new territory. The officials were very expeditious, and equally polite. I at first supposed that the letters V. E., which each of them bore conspicuously on his cap, meant "very empty," – but it afterwards occurred to me that they were the initials of his majesty, the King of Sardinia. A few minutes' ride over the "Victor Emmanuel Railway" brought me to the beautiful village of Aix. It is situated, as my friend the Lyonnese barber would say, in "a deep vale shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world." It possesses about 2500 inhabitants; but that number is considerably augmented at present, for the mineral springs of Aix are very celebrated, and this is the height of "the season." There is a great deal of what is called "society" here, and during the morning the baths are crowded. It is as dull as all watering places necessarily are, and twice as hot. I think that the French manage these things better than we do in America. There is less humbug, less display of jewelry and dress, and a vast deal more of common sense and solid comfort than with us. The cafés are like similar establishments in all such places – an abundance of ices and ordinary coffee, and a plentiful lack of newspapers. I have found a companion, however, who more than makes good the latter deficiency. He is an Englishman of some seventy years, who is here bathing for his gout. His light hair and fresh complexion disguise his age so completely that most people, when they see us together, judge me, from my gray locks, to be the elder. He is one of the most entertaining persons I have ever met – he knows the classics by heart, – is familiar with English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature, – speaks nine languages, – and has travelled all over the world. He is as familiar with the Steppes of Tartary as with Wapping Old Stairs, – has imbibed sherbet in Damascus and sherry cobblers in New York, and seen a lion hunt in South Africa. But his heart is the heart of a boy – "age cannot wither nor custom stale" its infinite geniality. He cannot pass by a beggar without making an investment for eternity, and all the babies look over the shoulders of their nurses to smile at him as he walks the streets. I mention him here for the sake of recording one of his opinions, which struck me by its truth and originality. We were sitting in a café last evening, and, after a long conversation, I asked him what he should give as the result of all his reading and observation of men and things, and all his experience, if he were to sum it up in one sentence. "Sir," said he, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and turning towards me as if to give additional force to his reply, "it may all be comprised in this: the world is composed of two classes of men – natural fools and d – d fools; the first class are those who have never made any pretensions, or have reached a just appreciation of the nothingness of all human acquirements and hopes; the second are those whose belief in their own infallibility has never been disturbed; and this class includes a vast number of every rank, from the profound German philosopher, who thinks that he has fathomed infinity, down to that young fop twirling his moustache at the opposite table, and flattering himself that he is making a great impression."

Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics. I have not heard ten words of Italian since I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to become a part of France again. The Savoyards are a religious, steady-going people, and they have little love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister who governs their monarch. The high-pitched roofs of the houses here are suggestive of the snows of winter; but the heat reminds me of the coast of Africa during a sirocco. How true is Sydney Smith's remark, "Man only lives to shiver or perspire"! The thermometer ranges any where from 80° to 90°. Can this be the legitimate temperature of these mountainous regions? I am "ill at these numbers," and nothing would be so invigorating to my infirm and shaky frame as a sniff of the salt breezes of Long Branch or Nantasket.

AIX TO PARIS

There is no need of telling how disgusted I became with Aix-les-Bains and all that in it is, after a short residence there. How I hated those straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the earliest flush of the aurora! How I detested those fellows who were constantly pestering me with offers (highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys whereon to ride, when they knew that I didn't want one! How I abominated the sight of a man (who seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat and a bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking head of hair and bushy whiskers – who looked, for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir Harcourt Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the newspapers in the café! How constantly he sat there and devoured all the news out of them through the medium of a double tortoise-shell eye-glass, which always seemed to be just falling off his nose! How I abhorred the sight of those waiters, who looked as if the season were a short one, and time (as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was the atmosphere of that "seven-by-nine" room for which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how dusty, how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling; suffice it to say, that I never packed my trunk more willingly than when I left that village. I am very glad to have been there, however, for the satisfaction I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any effort to obtain. The joy of departure made even the exorbitant bills seem reasonable; and when I thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was escaping from, I felt as if, come what might, my future could only be one of sunshine and content. Aix-les-Bains is one of the pleasantest places to leave that I have ever seen. I can never forget the measureless happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris, and then taking my seat with the consciousness that I was leaving Aix (not aches, alas!) behind me.

The Lake of Bourget was as beautiful and smiling as before – only it did seem as if the sun might have held in a little. He scorched and blistered the passengers on that steamboat in the most absurd manner. He seemed never to have heard of Horace, and was consequently entirely ignorant of the propriety of maintaining a modus in his rebuses. The scenery along the banks of the Rhone had not changed in the least, but was as romantic and theatrical as ever. At Culoz I was glad to get on shore, for like Hamlet, I had been "too much i' the sun"; so I left the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone," (which the late Lord Byron, with his usual disregard of truth, talks about, and which is as muddy as a Medford brick-yard,) and took refuge in the hospitality of a custom house. Here I fell into a meditation upon custom house officers. I wonder whether the custom house officers of France are in their leisure hours given to any of the vanities which delight their American brethren. There was one lean, thoughtful-looking man among those at Culoz who attracted my attention. I tried ineffectually to make out his bent from his physiognomy. I could not imagine him occupying his leisure by putting any twice-told tales on paper – or cultivating Shanghai poultry – or riding on to the tented field amid the roar of artillery at the head of a brigade of militia, – and I was obliged, in the hurry of the examination of luggage, to give him up.

I had several times, during the journey from Aix, noticed a tall, eagle-eyed man, in a suit of gray, and wearing a moustache of the same colour, and while we were waiting for the train at Culoz, I observed that he attracted a great deal of attention: his bearing was so commanding, that I had set him down as being connected with the military interest, before I noticed that he did not bear arms, for the left sleeve of his coat hung empty and useless by his side; so I ventured to inquire concerning him, and learned that I was a fellow-traveller of Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. I must do him the justice to say that he did not look like a man who would leave his arms on the field.

We were soon whirling, and puffing, and whistling along through the tame but pleasing landscape of France. Those carefully-tilled fields, those vineyards almost overflowing with the raw material of conviviality, those interminable rows of tall trees which seem to give no shade, those farm-houses, whose walls we should in America consider strong enough for fortifications, those contented-looking cattle, those towns that seem to consist of a single street and an old gray tower, with a dark-coloured conical top, like a candle extinguisher, – all had a good, familiar look to me; and the numerous fields of Indian corn almost made me think that I was on my way to Worcester or Fitchburg. I stopped for a while at Macon, (a town which I respect for its contributions to the good cheer of the world,) and hugely enjoyed a walk through its clean, quiet streets. While I was waiting at the station, the express train from Paris came along; and many of the passengers left their places (like Mr. Squeers) to stretch their legs. Among them was a man whose acquisitive eye, black satin waistcoat, fashionable hat, (such as no man but an American would think of travelling in,) and coat with the waist around his hips, and six or eight inches of skirt, immediately fixed my attention. Before I thought, he had asked me if I could speak English. I set him at his ease by answering that I took lessons in it once when I was young, and he immediately launched out as follows: "Well, this is the cussedest language I ever did hear. I don't see how in the devil these blasted fools can have lived so long right alongside of England without trying to learn the English language." The whistle of the engine cut short the declaration of his sentiments, and he was whizzing on towards Lyons a moment after. Whoever that man may have been, he owes it to himself and his country to write a book. His work would be as worthy of consideration as the writings of two thirds of our English and American travellers, who think they are qualified to write about the government and social condition of a country because they have travelled through it. Fancy a Frenchman, entirely ignorant of the English tongue, landing at Boston, and stopping at the Tremont House or Parker's; he visits the State House, the Athenæum, Bunker Hill, the wharves, &c. Then on Sunday he wishes to know something about the religion of these strange people; so he goes across the street to the King's Chapel, and finds that it is closed; so he walks down the street in the burning sun to Brattle Street, where he hears a comfortable, drony kind of sermon, which seems to have as composing an effect upon the fifty or a hundred persons who are present as upon himself. In the afternoon he finds his way to Trinity Church, (somebody having charitably told him that that is the most genteel place,) and there he hears "our admirable liturgy" sonorously read out to twenty or thirty people, all of whom are so engrossed in their devotions that the responses are entirely neglected. Having had enough of what the Irishman called the English lethargy, he returns to his lodgings, and writes in his note-book that the Americans seldom go to church, and when they do, go there to sleep in comfortable pews. Then he makes a little tour of a fortnight to New Haven, Providence, Springfield, &c., and returns to France to write a book of travels in New England. And what are all his observations worth? I'll tell you. They are worth just as much, and give exactly as faithful a representation of the state of society in New England, as four fifths of the books written by English and American travellers in France, Spain, and Italy, do of the condition of those countries.

I have encountered many interesting studies of humanity here on the continent in my day. I have met many people who have come abroad with a vague conviction that travel improves one, and who do not see that to visit Europe without some preparation is like going a-fishing without line or bait. They appear to think that some great benefit is to be obtained by passing over a certain space of land and water, and being imposed upon to an unlimited extent by a horde of commissionnaires, ciceroni, couriers, and others, who find in their ignorance and lack of common sense a source of wealth. I met, the other day, a gentleman from one of the Western States, who said that he was "putting up" at Meurice's Hotel, but didn't think much of it; if it had not been for some English people whom he fell in with on the way from Calais, he should have gone to the Hôtel de Ville, which he supposed, from the pictures he had seen, must be a "fust class house"! I have within a few hours seen an American, who could not ask the simplest question in French, but thinks that he shall stop three or four weeks, and learn the language! I have repeatedly met people who told me that they had come out to Europe "jest to see the place." But it is not alone such ignoramuses as these who merit the pity or contempt of the judicious and sensible. Their folly injures no one but themselves. The same cannot be said, however, of the authors of the numerous duodecimos of foreign travel which burden the booksellers' counters. They have supposed that they can sketch a nation's character by looking at its towns from the windows of an express train. They presume to write about the social life of France or Italy, while they are ignorant of any language but their own, and do not know a single French or Italian family. Victims of a bitter prejudice against those countries and their institutions, they are prepared beforehand to be shocked and disgusted at all they see. Like Sterne's Smelfungus, they "set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object they pass by is discoloured or distorted." Kenelm Digby wisely remarks that one of the great advantages of journeying beyond sea, to a man of sense and feeling, is the spectacle of general travellers: "it will prevent his being ever again imposed upon by these birds of passage, when they record their adventures and experience on returning to the north."

Dijon is a fine old city. Every body knows that it used to be the capital of Burgundy, but to the general reader it is more particularly interesting as being the place to which Mrs. Dombey and Mr. Carker fled after the elopement. There is a fine cathedral and public library, and the whole place has an eminently Burgundian flavour which makes one regret that he got tired so soon when he tried to read Froissart's Chronicles. There is a church there which was desecrated during the old revolution, and is now used as a market-house. It bears an inscription which presents a satirical commentary on its recent history: "Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuæ!" The Dijon gingerbread (which the people, in their ignorance and lack of our common school advantages, call pain d'épice) would really merit a diploma from that academy of connoisseurs, the Massachusetts House of Representatives. But Dombey and Dijon are all forgotten in our first glimpse of the "gay capital of bewildering France." There lay Paris, sparkling under the noonday sun. The sight of its domes and monuments awoke all my fellow-travellers: shabby caps and handkerchiefs were exchanged for hats and bonnets, which gave their wearers an air of respectability perfectly uncalled for. We were soon inside the fortifications, which have been so outgrown by the city that one hardly notices them; and, after the usual luggage examination, I found myself in an omnibus, and once more on the Boulevards.

And what a good, comfortable home-feeling it was! There were the old, familiar streets, the well-known advertisements, painted conspicuously, in blue, and green, and gold, on what would else have been a blank, unsightly wall, and inviting me to purchase cloths and cashmeres; there were the same ceaseless tides of life ebbing and flowing through those vast thoroughfares, the same glossy beavers, the same snowy caps and aprons, the same blouses, the same polite, s'il vous-plaît, pardon, m'sieur, take-it-easy air, that Paris, as seen from an omnibus window, always presents. We rolled through the Rue St. Antoine, and it was hard to realize that it had ever been the theatre of so much appalling history. I tried to imagine the barricades, the street ploughed up by artillery, and that heroic martyr, Archbishop Affre, falling there, and praying that his blood might be the last shed in that fratricidal strife; but it was useless; the lively present made the past seem but the mere invention of the historian. All traces of the frightful scenes of 1848 have been effaced, and the facilities for barricades have been disposed of in a way that must make red republicanism very disrespectful to the memory of MacAdam. As we passed a church in that bloody locality, a wedding party came out; the bridegroom looked as if he had taken chloroform to enable him to get through his difficulties, and the effect of it had not entirely passed off. The bride (for women, you know, have greater power of endurance than men) seemed to take it more easily, and, beaming in the midst of a sort of wilderness of lace, and gauze, and muslin, like a lighthouse in a fog, she tripped briskly into the carriage, with a bouquet in her hand, and happiness in her heart. Before the bridal party got fairly out of sight, a funeral came along. The white pall showed that it was a child who slept upon the bier; for the Catholic church does not mourn over those who are removed from the temptations of life before they have known them. The vehicles all gave way to let the little procession pass, the hum seemed to cease for a moment, every head was uncovered, even the porter held his burden on his shoulder with one hand that he might pay his respects to that sovereign to whom even republicans are obliged to bow, and the many-coloured hats of the omnibus drivers were doffed. I had often before noticed those striking contrasts that one sees in a capital like Paris; but to meet such a one at my very entrance impressed me deeply. Such is Paris. You think it the liveliest place in the world, (and so it is;) but suddenly you come upon something that makes you thoughtful, if it does not sadden you. Life and death elbow and jostle each other along these gay streets, until it seems as if they were rivals striving to drive each other out. I entered a church a day or two since. There was a funeral at the high altar. The black vestments and hangings, the lighted tapers, the solemn chant of the De profundis were eloquent of death and what must follow it. I was startled by hearing a child's cry, and looking round into the chapel which served as a baptistery, there stood two young mothers who had just received their infants from that purifying laver which made them members of the great Christian family. I never before had that beautiful thought of Chateaubriand's so forced upon me – "Religion has rocked us in the cradle of life, and her maternal hand shall close our eyes, while her holiest melodies soothe us to rest in the cradle of death."

There are, without doubt, many persons, who can say that in their pilgrimage of life they have truly "found their warmest welcome at an inn." My experience outstrips that, for I have received one of my most cordial greetings in a café. The establishment in question is so eminently American, that I should feel as if I had neglected a sacred duty, if I did not describe it, for the benefit of future sojourners in the French capital, who are hereby requested to overhaul their memorandum books and make a note of it. It does not boast the magnificence and luxury of the Café de Paris, Véry's, the Trois Frères Provençaux, nor of Taylor's; nor does it thrust itself forward into the publicity of the gay Boulevards, or of the thronged arcades of the Palais Royal. It does not appeal to those who love the noise and dust of fashion's highway; for them it has no welcome. But to those who love "the cool, sequestered path of life," it offers a degree of quiet comfort, to which the "slaves of passion, avarice, and pride," who view themselves in the mirrors of the Maison Dorée, are strangers. You turn from the Boulevard des Italiens into the Rue de la Michodière, which you perambulate until you come to number six, where you will stop and take an observation. Perhaps wonder will predominate over admiration. The front of the establishment does not exceed twelve feet in width, and the sign over the door shows that it is a Crêmerie. The fact is also adumbrated symbolically by a large brass can, which is set over the portal. In one of the windows may be observed a neatly-executed placard, to this effect: —