13.—­The day arose as beautiful, as brilliant, as cloudless, as I could have desired for the first day in Rome.  About seven o’clock, and before any one was ready for breakfast, I walked out; and directing my steps by mere chance to the left, found myself in the Piazza di Spagna and opposite to a gigantic flight of marble stairs leading to the top of a hill.  I was at the summit in a moment; and breathless and agitated by a thousand feelings, I leaned against the obelisk, and looked over the whole city.  I knew not where I was:  nor among the crowded mass of buildings, the innumerable domes and towers, and vanes and pinnacles, brightened by the ascending sun, could I for a while distinguish a single known object; for my eyes and my heart were both too full:  but in a few minutes my powers of perception returned; and in the huge round bulk of the castle of St. Angelo, and the immense facade and soaring cupola of St. Peter’s, I knew I could not be mistaken.  I gazed and gazed as if I would have drunk it all in at my eyes:  and then descending the superb flight of steps rather more leisurely than I had ascended, I was in a moment at the door of our hotel.

The rest of the day I wish I could forget—­I found letters from England on the breakfast table—­

* * * * *

Until dinner time were we driving through the narrow dirty streets at the mercy of a stupid laquais de place, in search of better accommodations, but without success:  and, on the whole, I fear I shall always remember too well the disagreeable and painful impressions of my first day in Rome.

Dec. 18.—­A week has now elapsed, and I begin to know and feel Rome a little better than I did.  The sites of the various buildings, the situations of the most interesting objects, and the bearings of the principal hills, the Capitol, the Palatine, the Aventine, and the AEsquiline, have become familiar to me, assisted in my perambulations by an excellent plan.  I have been disappointed in nothing, for I expected that the general appearance of modern Rome would be mean; and that the impression made by the ancient city would be melancholy; and I had been, unfortunately, too well prepared, by previous reading, for all I see, to be astonished by any thing except the Museum of the Vatican.

I entered St. Peter’s expecting to be struck dumb with admiration, and accordingly it was so.  A feeling of vastness filled my whole mind, and made it disagreeable, almost impossible to speak or exclaim:  but it was a style of grandeur, exciting rather than oppressive to the imagination, nor did I experience any thing like that sombre and reverential awe, I have felt on entering one of our Gothic minsters.  The interior of St. Peter’s is all airy magnificence, and gigantic splendour; light and sunshine pouring in on every side; gilding and gay colours, marbles and pictures, dazzling the eye above, below, around.  The effect of the whole has not diminished in a second and third visit; but rather grows upon me.  I can never utter a word for the first ten minutes after I enter the church.