We stopped on the fourth night of our journey, seventeen miles from Rome, at a place called Baccano. A ridge of hills rose just before us, from the top of which we were told, we could see St. Peter's. The sun was just dipping under the horizon, and the ascent was three miles. We threw off our cloaks, determining to see Rome before we slept, ran unbreathed to the top of the hill, an effort which so nearly exhausted us, that we could scarce stand long enough upon our feet to search over the broad campagna for the dome.
The sunset had lingered a great while--as it does in Italy. Four or five light feathery streaks of cloud glowed with intense crimson in the west, and on the brow of Mount Soracte, (which I recognised instantly from the graphic simile[2] of Childe Harold), and along on all the ridges of mountain in the east, still played a kind of vanishing reflection, half purple, half gray. With a moment's glance around to catch the outline of the landscape, I felt instinctively where Rome _should_ stand, and my eye fell at once upon "the mighty dome." Jupiter had by this time appeared, and hung right over it, trembling in the sky with its peculiar glory, like a lump of molten spar, and as the color faded from the clouds, and the dark mass of "the eternal city" itself mingled and was lost in the shadows of the campagna, the dome still seemed to catch light, and tower visibly, as if the radiance of the glowing star above fell more directly upon it. We could see it till we could scarcely distinguish each other's features. The dead level of the campagna extended between and beyond for twenty miles, and it looked like a far-off beacon in a dim sea. We sat an hour on the summit of the hill, gazing into the increasing darkness, till our eyes ached. The stars brightened one by one, the mountains grew indistinct, and we rose unwillingly to retrace our steps to Baccano.
[1] I remember hearing a friend receive a severe reproof from one of the most enlightened men in our country, for offering his daughter an annual, upon the cover of which was an engraving of these same "Graces."
[2] ----"A long swept wave about to break, And on the curl hangs pausing."
FIRST DAY IN ROME--SAINT PETER'S--A SOLITARY MONK--STRANGE MUSIC--MICHAEL ANGELO'S MASTERPIECE--THE MUSEUM--LIKENESS OF YOUNG AUGUSTUS--APOLLO BELVIDERE--THE MEDICEAN VENUS--RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION--THE PANTHEON--THE BURIAL-PLACE OF CARRACCI AND RAPHAEL--ROMAN FORUM--TEMPLE OF FORTUNE--THE ROSTRUM--PALACE OF THE CESARS--THE RUINS--THE COLISEUM, ETC.