write at all, till I give you another address. Love to my Father.
"Your affectionate son,

"JOHN STERLING."
Omitting Milan, Florence nearly all, and much about "Art," Michael

Angelo, and other aerial matters, here are some select terrestrial
glimpses, the fittest I can find, of his progress towards Rome:--

_To his Mother_.
"_Lucca, Nov. 27th_, 1838.--I had dreams, like other people, before I

came here, of what the Lombard Lakes must be; and the week I spent
among them has left me an image, not only more distinct, but far more

warm, shining and various, and more deeply attractive in innumerable
respects, than all I had before conceived of them. And so also it has

been with Florence; where I spent three weeks: enough for the first
hazy radiant dawn of sympathy to pass away; yet constantly adding an

increase of knowledge and of love, while I examined, and tried to
understand, the wonderful minds that have left behind them there such

abundant traces of their presence.... On Sunday, the day before I
left Florence, I went to the highest part of the Grand Duke's Garden

of Boboli, which commands a view of most of the City, and of the vale
of the Arno to the westward; where, as we had been visited by several

rainy days, and now at last had a very fine one, the whole prospect
was in its highest beauty. The mass of buildings, chiefly on the

other side of the River, is sufficient to fill the eye, without
perplexing the mind by vastness like that of London; and its name and

history, its outline and large and picturesque buildings, give it
grandeur of a higher order than that of mere multitudinous extent.

The Hills that border the Valley of the Arno are also very pleasing
and striking to look upon; and the view of the rich Plain, glimmering

away into blue distance, covered with an endless web of villages and
country-houses, is one of the most delightful images of human

well-being I have ever seen....
"Very shortly before leaving Florence, I went through the house of

Michael Angelo; which is still possessed by persons of the same
family, descendants, I believe, of his Nephew. There is in it his

'first work in marble,' as it is called; and a few drawings,--all with
the stamp of his enginery upon them, which was more powerful than all

the steam in London.... On the whole, though I have done no work in
Florence that can be of any use or pleasure to others, except my

Letters to my Wife,--I leave it with the certainty of much valuable
knowledge gained there, and with a most pleasant remembrance of the

busy and thoughtful days I owe to it.
"We left Florence before seven yesterday morning [26th November] for

this place; travelling on the northern side of the Arno, by Prato,
Pistoia, Pescia. We tried to see some old frescos in a Church at

Prato; but found the Priests all about, saying mass; and of course did
not venture to put our hands into a hive where the bees were buzzing

and on the wing. Pistoia we only coasted. A little on one side of
it, there is a Hill, the first on the road from Florence; which we

walked up, and had a very lively and brilliantprospect over the road
we had just travelled, and the town of Pistoia. Thence to this place

the whole land is beautiful, and in the highest degree prosperous,--in
short, to speak metaphorically, all dotted with Leghorn bonnets, and

streaming with olive-oil. The girls here are said to employ
themselves chiefly in platting straw, which is a profitable

employment; and the slightness and quiet of the work are said to be
much more favorable to beauty than the coarser kinds of labor

performed by the country-women elsewhere. Certain it is that I saw
more pretty women in Pescia, in the hour I spent there, than I ever

before met with among the same numbers of the 'phare sect.'
Wherefore, as a memorial of them, I bought there several Legends of

Female Saints and Martyrs, and of other Ladies quite the reverse, and
held up as warnings; all of which are written in _ottava rima_, and

sold for three halfpence apiece. But unhappily I have not yet had
time to read them. This Town has 30,000 inhabitants, and is

surrounded by Walls, laid out as walks, and evidently not at present
intended to be besieged,--for which reason, this morning, I merely

walked on them round the Town, and did not besiege them....
"The Cathedral [of Lucca] contains some Relics; which have undoubtedly

worked miracles on the imagination of the people hereabouts. The
Grandfather of all Relics (as the Arabs would say) in the place is the

_Volto Santo_, which is a Face of the Saviour appertaining to a wooden
Crucifix. Now you must know that, after the ascension of Christ,

Nicodemus was ordered by an Angel to carve an image of him; and went
accordingly with a hatchet, and cut down a cedar for that purpose. He

then proceeded to carve the figure; and being tired, fell asleep
before he had done the face; which however, on awaking, he found

completed by celestial aid. This image was brought to Lucca, from
Leghorn, I think, where it had arrived in a ship, 'more than a

thousand years ago,' and has ever since been kept, in purple and fine
linen and gold and diamonds, quietly working miracles. I saw the gilt

Shrine of it; and also a Hatchet which refused to cut off the head of
an innocent man, who had been condemned to death, and who prayed to

the _Volto Santo_. I suppose it is by way of economy (they being a
frugal people) that the Italians have their Book of Common Prayer and

their Arabian Nights' Entertainments condensed into one."
_To the Same_.

"_Pisa, December 2d_, 1838.--Pisa is very unfairly treated in all the
Books I have read. It seems to me a quiet, but very agreeable place;

with wide clean streets, and a look of stability and comfort; and I
admire the Cathedral and its appendages more, the more I see them.

The leaning of the Tower is to my eye decidedlyunpleasant; but it is
a beautiful building nevertheless, and the view from the top is, under

a bright sky, remarkablylively and satisfactory. The Lucchese Hills
form a fine mass, and the sea must in clear weather be very distinct.

There was some haze over it when I was up, though the land was all
clear. I could just see the Leghorn Light-house. Leghorn itself I

shall not be able to visit....
"The quiet gracefulness of Italian life, and the mentalmaturity and

vigor of Germany, have a great charm when compared with the restless
whirl of England, and the chorus of mingled yells and groans sent up

by our parties and sects, and by the suffering and bewildered crowds
of the laboring people. Our politics make my heart ache, whenever I

think of them. The base selfish frenzies of factions seem to me, at
this distance, half diabolic; and I am out of the way of knowing

anything that may be quietly a-doing to elevate the standard of wise
and temperatemanhood in the country, and to diffuse the means of

physical and moral well-being among all the people.... I will write
to my Father as soon as I can after reaching the capital of his friend

the Pope,--who, if he had happened to be born an English gentleman,
would no doubt by this time be a respectable old-gentlemanly gouty

member of the Carlton. I have often amused myself by thinking what a
mere accident it is that Phillpotts is not Archbishop of Tuam, and

M'Hale Bishop of Exeter; and how slight a change of dress, and of a
few catchwords, would even now enable them to fill those respective

posts with all the propriety and discretion they display in their
present positions."

At Rome he found the Crawfords, known to him long since; and at
different dates other English friends old and new; and was altogether

in the liveliest humor, no end to his activities and speculations. Of
all which, during the next four months, the Letters now before me give

abundant record,--far too abundant for our objects here. His grand
pursuit, as natural at Rome, was Art; into which metaphysical domain

we shall not follow him; preferring to pick out, here and there,
something of concrete and human. Of his interests, researches,

speculations and descriptions on this subject of Art, there is always
rather a superabundance, especially in the Italian Tour.

Unfortunately, in the hard weather, poor Calvert fell ill; and
Sterling, along with his Art-studies, distinguished himself as a

sick-nurse till his poor comrade got afoot again. His general
impressions of the scene and what it held for him may be read in the

following excerpts. The Letters are all dated _Rome_, and addressed
to his Father or Mother:--

"_December 21st_, 1838.--Of Rome itself, as a whole, there are
infinite things to be said, well worth saying; but I shall confine

myself to two remarks: first, that while the Monuments and works of
Art gain in wondrousness and significance by familiarity with them,

the actual life of Rome, the Papacy and its pride, lose; and though
one gets accustomed to Cardinals and Friars and Swiss Guards, and

ragged beggars and the finery of London and Paris, all rolling on
together, and sees how it is that they subsist in a sort of spurious

unity, one loses all tendency to idealize the Metropolis and System of
the Hierarchy into anything higher than a piece of showy