Good-Friday.—­I saw more new, amusing, and delightful things yesterday, than I can attempt to describe or even enumerate:  but I think there is no danger of my forgetting general impressions:  if my memory should fail me in particulars, my imagination can always recall the whole.

In the morning I declined going to see the ceremonies at the Vatican.  The procession of the host from the Sistine to the Pauline Chapel; the washing of the Pilgrims’ feet, etc.—­all these things are less than indifferent to me; and the illness and absence of the poor old pope rendered them particularly uninteresting.  Every body went but myself; and it was agreed that we should all meet at the door of the Sistine Chapel at five o’clock.  I remained quietly at home on my sofa till one; and then drove to the Museum of the Vatican, where I spent the rest of the day; it was a grand festa, and the whole of the Vatican, including the immense suite of splendid libraries, was thrown open to the public.  All the foreigners in Rome having crowded to St. Peter’s, or the chapels, to view the ceremonies going on, I was the only stranger amidst an assemblage of the common people and peasantry, who had come to lounge there till the lighting up of the Cross.  I walked on and on, hour after hour, lost in amazement, and wondering where and when this glorious labyrinth was to end; successive galleries fitted up with the gay splendour of an Oriental Haram, in which the books and manuscripts are all arranged and numbered in cases; the beautiful perspective of hall beyond hall vanishing away into immeasurable distance; the refulgent light shed overall; and add to this, the extraordinary visages and costumes of the people, who with their families wandered along in groups or singly, all behaving with the utmost decorum, and making emphatic exclamations on the beauties around them. “Ah! che bella cosa!  Cosa rara!  O bella assai!” all furnished me with such ample matter for amusement, and observation, and admiration, that I was insensible to fatigue, and knew not that in five hours I had scarcely completed the circuit of the Museum.

One room (the Camera del Papiri) struck me particularly:  it is a small octagon, the ceiling and ornaments painted by Raffaelle Mengs with exquisite taste.  The group on the ceiling represents the Muse of History writing, while her book reposes on the wings of Time, and a Genius supplies her with materials:  the pannels of this room are formed of old manuscripts, pasted up against the walls and glazed.  The effect of the whole is as singular as beautiful.

A new gallery of marbles has lately been opened by the Pope, called from its form the Sala della Croce:  in splendid, classical, and tasteful decoration, it equals any of the others, but is not, perhaps, so remarkable for the intrinsic value of its contents.