foreigners. Or sometimes you will see one with a child come in from

the street where she has been begging, put herself in a corner, say a
prayer (probably for the success of her petitions), and then return to

beg again. There is wonderfully little of any moral strength
connected with this devotion; but still it is better than nothing, and

more than is often found among the men of the upper classes in Rome.
I believe the Clergy to be generally profligate, and the state of

domestic morals as bad as it has ever been represented."--
Or, in sudden contrast, take this other glance homeward; a Letter to

his eldest child; in which kind of Letters, more than in any other,
Sterling seems to me to excel. Readers recollect the hurricane in St.

Vincent; the hasty removal to a neighbor's house, and the birth of a
son there, soon after. The boy has grown to some articulation, during

these seven years; and his Father, from the new foreign scene of
Priests and Dilettanti, thus addresses him:--

"_To Master Edward C. Sterling, Hastings_.
"ROME, 21st January, 1839.

"MY DEAR EDWARD,--I was very glad to receive your Letter, which showed
me that you have learned something since I left home. If you knew how

much pleasure it gave me to see your writing" target="_blank" title="n.笔迹；书法">handwriting, I am sure you would
take pains to be able to write well, that you might often send me

letters, and tell me a great many things which I should like to know
about Mamma and your Sisters as well as yourself.

"If I go to Vesuvius, I will try to carry away a bit of the lava,
which you wish for. There has lately been a great eruption, as it is

called, of that Mountain; which means a great breaking-out of hot
ashes and fire, and of melted stones which is called lava.

"Miss Clark is very kind to take so much pains with you; and I trust
you will show that you are obliged to her, by paying attention to all

she tells you. When you see how much more grown people know than you,
you ought to be anxious to learn all you can from those who teach you;

and as there are so many wise and good things written in Books, you
ought to try to read early and carefully; that you may learn something

of what God has made you able to know. There are Libraries containing
very many thousands of Volumes; and all that is written in these

is,--accounts of some part or other of the World which God has made,
or of the Thoughts which he has enabled men to have in their minds.

Some Books are descriptions of the earth itself, with its rocks and
ground and water, and of the air and clouds, and the stars and moon

and sun, which shine so beautifully in the sky. Some tell you about
the things that grow upon the ground; the many millions of plants,

from little mosses and threads of grass up to great trees and forests.
Some also contain accounts of living things: flies, worms, fishes,

birds and four-legged beasts. And some, which are the most, are about
men and their thoughts and doings. These are the most important of

all; for men are the best and most wonderful creatures of God in the
world; being the only ones able to know him and love him, and to try

of their own accord to do his will.
"These Books about men are also the most important to us, because we

ourselves are human beings, and may learn from such Books what we
ought to think and to do and to try to be. Some of them describe what

sort of people have lived in old times and in other countries. By
reading them, we know what is the difference between ourselves in

England now, and the famous nations which lived in former days. Such
were the Egyptians who built the Pyramids, which are the greatest

heaps of stone upon the face of the earth: and the Babylonians, who
had a city with huge walls, built of bricks, having writing on them

that no one in our time has been able to make out. There were also
the Jews, who were the only ancient people that knew how wonderful and

how good God is: and the Greeks, who were the wisest of all in
thinking about men's lives and hearts, and who knew best how to make

fine statues and buildings, and to write wise books. By Books also we
may learn what sort of people the old Romans were, whose chief city

was Rome, where I am now; and how brave and skilful they were in war;
and how well they could govern and teach many nations which they had

conquered. It is from Books, too, that you must learn what kind of
men were our Ancestors in the Northern part of Europe, who belonged to

the tribes that did the most towards pulling down the power of the
Romans: and you will see in the same way how Christianity was sent

among them by God, to make them wiser and more peaceful, and more
noble in their minds; and how all the nations that now are in Europe,

and especially the Italians and the Germans, and the French and the
English, came to be what they now are.--It is well worth knowing (and

it can be known only by reading) how the Germans found out the
Printing of Books, and what great changes this has made in the world.

And everybody in England ought to try to understand how the English
came to have their Parliaments and Laws; and to have fleets that sail

over all seas of the world.
"Besides learning all these things, and a great many more about

different times and countries, you may learn from Books, what is the
truth of God's will, and what are the best and wisest thoughts, and

the most beautiful words; and how men are able to lead very right
lives, and to do a great deal to better the world. I have spent a

great part of my life in reading; and I hope you will come to like it
as much as I do, and to learn in this way all that I know.

"But it is a still more serious matter that you should try to be
obedient and gentle; and to command your temper; and to think of other

people's pleasure rather than your own, and of what you _ought_ to do
rather than what you _like_. If you try to be better for all you

read, as well as wiser, you will find Books a great help towards
goodness as well as knowledge, and above all other Books, the Bible;

which tells us of the will of God, and of the love of Jesus Christ
towards God and men.

"I had a Letter from Mamma to-day, which left Hastings on the 10th of
this month. I was very glad to find in it that you were all well and

happy; but I know Mamma is not well, and is likely to be more
uncomfortable every day for some time. So I hope you will all take

care to give her as little trouble as possible. After sending you so
much advice, I shall write a little Story to divert you.--I am, my

dear Boy,
"Your affectionate Father,

"JOHN STERLING."
The "Story" is lost, destroyed, as are many such which Sterling wrote,

with great felicity, I am told, and much to the satisfaction of the
young folk, when the humor took him.

Besides these plentiful communications still left, I remember long
Letters, not now extant, principally addressed to his Wife, of which

we and the circle at Knightsbridge had due perusal, treating with
animated copiousness about all manner of picture-galleries, pictures,

statues and objects of Art at Rome, and on the road to Rome and from
it, wheresoever his course led him into neighborhood of such objects.

That was Sterling's habit. It is expected in this Nineteenth Century
that a man of culture shall understand and worship Art: among the

windy gospels addressed to our poor Century there are few louder than
this of Art;--and if the Century expects that every man shall do his

duty, surely Sterling was not the man to balk it! Various extracts
from these picture-surveys are given in Hare; the others, I suppose,

Sterling himself subsequently destroyed, not valuing them much.
Certainly no stranger could address himself more eagerly to reap what

artisticharvest Rome offers, which is reckoned the peculiar produce
of Rome among cities under the sun; to all galleries, churches,

sistine chapels, ruins, coliseums, and artistic or dilettante shrines
he zealously pilgrimed; and had much to say then and afterwards, and

with real technical and historical knowledge I believe, about the
objects of devotion there. But it often struck me as a question,

Whether all this even to himself was not, more or less, a nebulous
kind of element; prescribed not by Nature and her verities, but by the