of the Casino.  There they caught sight of their friends in the arbor, and the spectacle appeared to overwhelm them.  They bowed, they took off their hats, they waved their handkerchiefs.  It was not enough:  one young fellow mounted on the balustrade of the roof at his neck’s risk, lifted his hat on his cane and flourished it in greeting to the heart’s-friends in the arbor, from whom he had parted two minutes before.

In strange contrast to the producer of this enthusiasm, so pumped and so unmistakably mixed with beer, a fat and pallid Englishwoman sat in a chair upon the roof and coldly, coldly sketched the lovely landscape.  And she and the blonde young English girl beside her pronounced a little dialogue together, which I give, because I saw that they meant it for the public: 

The Young Girl.—­I wonder, you knoa, you don’t draw-ow St. Petuh’s!

The Artist.—­O ah, you knoa, I can draw-ow St. Petuh’s from so mennee powints.

I am afraid that the worst form of American greenness appears abroad in a desire to be perfectly up in critical appreciation of the arts, and to approach the great works in the spirit of the connoisseur.  The ambition is not altogether a bad one.  Still I could not help laughing at a fellow-countryman when he told me that he had not yet seen Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” because he wished to prepare his mind for understanding the original by first looking at all the copies he could find.

VII.

The Basilica San Paolo fuori le Mura surpasses every thing in splendor of marble and costly stone—­porphyry, malachite, alabaster—­and luxury of gilding that is to be seen at Rome.  But I chiefly remember it because on the road that leads to it, through scenes as quiet and peaceful as if history had never known them, lies the Protestant graveyard in which Keats is buried.  Quite by chance the driver mentioned it, pointing in the direction of the cemetery with his whip.  We eagerly dismounted and repaired to the gate, where we were met by the son of the sexton, who spoke English through the beauteous line of a curved Hebrew nose.  Perhaps a Christian could not be found in Rome to take charge of these heretic graves, though Christians can be got to do almost any thing there for money.  However, I do not think a Catholic would have kept the place in better order, or more intelligently understood our reverent curiosity.  It was the new burial-ground which we had entered, and which is a little to the right of the elder cemetery.  It was very beautiful and tasteful in every way; the names upon the stones were chiefly English and Scotch, with here and there an American’s.  But affection drew us only to the prostrate tablet inscribed with the words, “Percy Bysshe Shelley, Cor Cordium,” and then we were ready to go to the grave of him for whom we all feel so deep a tenderness.  The grave of John Keats is one of few in the old burying-ground,