To me the day was not a day of pleasure; for the small stock of strength and spirits with which I set out was soon exhausted, and the rest of the day was wasted in efforts to appear cheerful and support myself to the end, lest I should spoil the general mirth:  on all I looked with complacency tinged with my habitual melancholy.  What I most admired was the delicious view, from an eminence in the wildest part of the gardens, over the city and Campagna to the blue Apennines, where Frascati and Albano peeped forth like nests of white buildings glittering upon a rich back ground, tinted with blue and purple; the hill where Cato’s villa stood, and still called the Portian Hill, and on the highest point the ruined temple of Jupiter Latialis visible at the distance of seventeen miles, and shining in the setting sun like burnished gold.  What I most felt and enjoyed was the luxurious temperature of the atmosphere, the purity and brilliance of the skies, the delicious security with which I threw myself down on the turf without fear of damp and cold, and the thankful consciousness, that neither the light or worldly beings round me, nor the sadness which weighed down my own heart, had quite deadened my once quick sense of pleasure, but left me still some perception of the splendour and classical interest of the glorious scenes around me, combined as it was with all the enchantment of natural beauty—­

      “——­The music and the bloom
    And all the mighty ravishment of spring.”

TOLSE AI MARTIRI OGNI CONFIN, CHI AL CORE TOGLIER POTEO
LA LIBERTA DEL PIANTO!

    O ye blue luxurious skies! 
        Sparkling fountains,
        Snow-capp’d mountains,
    Classic shades that round me rise!

    Towers and temples, hills and groves,
        Scenes of glory,
        Fam’d in story,
    Where the eye enchanted roves!

    O thou rich embroider’d earth! 
        Opening flowers,
        Leafy bowers,
    Sights of gladness, sounds of mirth!

    Why to my desponding heart,
        Darkly thinking,
        Sadly sinking,
    Can ye no delight impart?[Q]

Sunday, 31.—­To-day the Holy week begins, and a kind of programma of the usual ceremonies of each day was laid on my toilette this morning.  The bill of fare for this day runs thus:—­

“Domenica delle Palme, nel Capella Papale nel Palazzo Apostolico, canta messa un Cardinal Prete.  Il Sommo Pontefice fa la benedizione delle Palme, con processione per la Sala Regia.”

I gave up going to the English service accordingly, and consented to accompany R** and V** to the Pope’s Chapel.  We entered just as the ceremony of blessing the palms was going on:  a cardinal officiated for the poor old pope, who is at present ill.

After the palms had been duly blessed, they were carried in procession round the splendid anti-chamber, called the Sala Regia; meantime the chapel doors were closed upon them, and on their return, they (not the palms, but the priests) knocked and demanded entrance in a fine recitative; two of the principal voices replied from within; the choir without sung a response, and after a moment’s silence the doors were opened, and the service went on.