difference, there is no scene where Death seems so little dreadful and
miserable as in the lonelier neighborhoods of this old place. All

one's impressions, however, as to that and everything else, appear to
me, on reflection, more affected than I had for a long time any notion

of, by one's own isolation. All the feelings and activities which
family, friends and occupationcommonly engage, are turned, here in

one's solitude, with strange force into the channels of mere
observation and contemplation; and the objects one is conversant with

seem to gain a tenfold significance from the abundance of spare
interest one now has to bestow on them. This explains to me a good

deal of the peculiar effect that Italy has always had on me: and
something of that artisticenthusiasm which I remember you used to

think so singular in Goethe's _Travels_. Darley, who is as much a
brooding hermit in England as here, felt nothing but disappointment

from a country which fills me with childish wonder and delight.
"Of you I have received some slight notice from Mrs. Strachey; who is

on her way hither; and will (she writes) be at Florence on the 15th,
and here before the end of the month. She notices having received a

Letter of yours which had pleased her much. She now proposes spending
the summer at Sorrento, or thereabouts; and if mere delight of

landscape and climate were enough, Adam and Eve, had their courier
taken them to that region, might have done well enough without

Paradise,--and not been tempted, either, by any Tree of Knowledge; a
kind that does not flourish in the Two Sicilies.

"The ignorance of the Neapolitans, from the highest to the lowest, is
very eminent; and excites the admiration of all the rest of Italy. In

the great building containing all the Works of Art, and a Library of
150,000 volumes, I asked for the best existing Book (a German one

published ten years ago) on the Statues in that very Collection; and,
after a rabble of clerks and custodes, got up to a dirty priest, who

bowing to the ground regretted 'they did not possess it,' but at last
remembered that 'they _had_ entered into negotiations on the subject,

which as yet had been unsuccessful.'--The favorite device on the walls
at Naples is a vermilion Picture of a Male and Female Soul

respectively up to the waist (the waist of a _soul_) in fire, and an
Angel above each, watering the sufferers from a watering-pot. This is

intended to gain alms for Masses. The same populace sit for hours on
the Mole, listening to rhapsodists who recite Ariosto. I have seen I

think five of them all within a hundred yards of each other, and some
sets of fiddlers to boot. Yet there are few parts of the world where

I have seen less laughter than there. The Miracle of Januarius's
Blood is, on the whole, my most curious experience. The furious

entreaties, shrieks and sobs, of a set of old women, yelling till the
Miracle was successfully performed, are things never to be forgotten.

"I spent three weeks in this most glittering of countries, and saw
most of the usual wonders,--the Paestan Temples being to me much the

most valuable. But Pompeii and all that it has yielded, especially
the Fresco Paintings, have also an infinite interest. When one

considers that this prodigiousseries of beautiful designs supplied
the place of our common room-papers,--the wealth of poetic imagery

among the Ancients, and the correspondingtraditionalvariety and
elegance of pictorialtreatment, seem equallyremarkable. The Greek

and Latin Books do not give one quite so fully this sort of
impression; because they afford no direct measure of the extent of

their own diffusion. But these are ornaments from the smaller class
of decent houses in a little Country Town; and the greater number of

them, by the slightness of the execution, show very clearly that they
were adapted to ordinary taste, and done by mere artisans. In general

clearness, symmetry and simplicity of feeling, I cannot say that, on
the whole, the works of Raffaelle equal them; though of course he has

endless beauties such as we could not find unless in the great
original works from which these sketches at Pompeii were taken. Yet

with all my much increased reverence for the Greeks, it seems more
plain than ever that they had hardly anything of the peculiar

devotional feeling of Christianity.
"Rome, which I loved before above all the earth, now delights me more

than ever;--though at this moment there is rain falling that would not
discredit Oxford Street. The depth, sincerity and splendor that there

once was in the semi-paganism of the old Catholics comes out in St.
Peter's and its dependencies, almost as grandly as does Greek and

Roman Art in the Forum and the Vatican Galleries. I wish you were
here: but, at all events, hope to see you and your Wife once more

during this summer.
"Yours,

"JOHN STERLING."
At Paris, where he stopped a day and night, and generally through his

whole journey from Marseilles to Havre, one thing attended him: the
prevailing epidemic of the place and year; now gone, and nigh

forgotten, as other influenzas are. He writes to his Father: "I have
not yet met a single Frenchman, who could give me any rational

explanation _why_ they were all in such a confounded rage against us.
Definite causes of quarrel a statesman may know how to deal with,

inasmuch as the removal of them may help to settle the dispute. But
it must be a puzzling task to negotiate about instincts; to which

class, as it seems to me, we must have recourse for an understanding
of the present abhorrence which everybody on the other side of the

Channel not only feels, but makes a point to boast of, against the
name of Britain. France is slowly arming, especially with Steam, _en

attendant_ a more than possible contest, in which they reckon
confidently on the eager co-operation of the Yankees; as, _vice

versa_, an American told me that his countrymen do on that of France.
One person at Paris (M. ---- whom you know) provoked me to tell him

that 'England did not want another battle of Trafalgar; but if France
did, she might compel England to gratify her.'"--After a couple of

pleasant and profitable months, he was safe home again in the first
days of June; and saw Falmouth not under gray iron skies, and whirls

of March dust, but bright with summer opulence and the roses coming
out.

It was what I call his "_fifth_ peregrinity;" his fifth and last. He
soon afterwards came up to London; spent a couple of weeks, with all

his old vivacity, among us here. The AEsculapian oracles, it would
appear, gave altogethercheerfulprophecy; the highest medical

authority "expresses the most decided opinion that I have gradually
mended for some years; and in truth I have not, for six or seven, been

so free from serious symptoms of illness as at present." So uncertain
are all oracles, AEsculapian and other!

During this visit, he made one new acquaintance which he much valued;
drawn thither, as I guess, by the wish to take counsel about

_Strafford_. He writes to his Clifton friend, under date, 1st July
1842: "Lockhart, of the _Quarterly Review_, I made my first oral

acquaintance with; and found him as neat, clear and cutting a brain as
you would expect; but with an amount of knowledge, good nature and

liberal anti-bigotry, that would much surprise many. The tone of his
children towards him seemed to me decisive of his real kindness. He

quite agreed with me as to the threatening seriousness of our present
social perplexities, and the necessity and difficulty of doing

something effectual for so satisfying the manualmultitude as not to
overthrow all legal security....

"Of other persons whom I saw in London," continues he, "there are
several that would much interest you,--though I missed Tennyson, by a

mere chance.... John Mill has completely finished, and sent to the
bookseller, his great work on Logic; the labor of many years of a

singularly subtle, patient and comprehensive mind. It will be our
chief speculativemonument of this age. Mill and I could not meet

above two or three times; but it was with the openness and freshness
of school-boy friends, though our friendship only dates from the

manhood of both."
He himself was busier than ever; occupied continually with all manner

of Poetic interests. _Coeur-de-Lion_, a new and more elaborate
attempt in the mock-heroic or comico-didactic vein, had been on hand

for some time, the scope of it greatly deepening and expanding itself
since it first took hold of him; and now, soon after the Naples

journey, it rose into shape on the wider plan; shaken up probably by
this new excitement, and indebted to Calabria, Palermo and the

Mediterranean scenes for much of the vesture it had. With this, which
opened higher hopes for him than any of his previous efforts, he was

now employing all his time and strength;--and continued to do so, this
being the last effort granted him among us.

Already, for some months, _Strafford_ lay complete: but how to get it
from the stocks; in what method to launch it? The step was

questionable. Before going to Italy he had sent me the Manuscript;
still loyal and friendly; and willing to hear the worst that could be

said of his poeticenterprise. I had to afflict him again, the good
brave soul, with the deliberate report that I could _not_ accept this