All this sounds, while I soberly write it down, very sentimental, and picturesque, and poetical.  It was exactly what I saw—­what I often see:  such is the place, the scenery, the people.  Every group is a picture, the commonest object has some interest attached to it, the commonest action is dignified by sentiment, the language around us is music, and the air we breathe is poetry.

Just as I was writing the word music, the sounds of a guitar attracted me to the window, which looks into a narrow back street, and is exactly opposite a small white house belonging to a vetturino, who has a very pretty daughter.  For her this serenade was evidently intended; for the moment the music began, she placed a light in the window as a signal that she listened propitiously, and then retired.  The group below consisted of two men, the lover and a musician he had brought with him:  the former stood looking up at the window with his hat off, and the musician, after singing two very beautiful airs, concluded with the delicious and popular Arietta “Buona notte, amato bene!” to which the lover whistled a second, in such perfect tune, and with such exquisite taste, that I was enchanted.  Rome is famous for serenades and serenaders; but at this season they are seldom heard.  I remember at Venice being wakened in the dead of the night by such delicious music, that (to use a hyperbole common in the mouths of this poetical people) I was “transported to the seventh heaven:”  before I could perfectly recollect myself, the music ceased, the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses threw open their casements, and vehemently and enthusiastically applauded, clapping their hands, and shouting bravos:  but neither at Venice, at Padua, nor at Florence did I hear any thing that pleased and touched me so much as the serenade to which I have just been listening.

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14.—­To-day was quite heavenly—­like a lovely May-day in England:  the air so pure, so soft, and the sun so warm, that I would gladly have dispensed with my shawl and pelisse.  We went in carriages to the other side of the Palatine, and then dispersing in small parties, as will or fancy led, we lounged and wandered about in the Coliseum, and among the neighbouring ruins till dinner time.  I climbed up the western side of the Coliseum, at the imminent hazard of my neck; and looking down through a gaping aperture, on the brink of which I had accidentally seated myself, I saw in the colossal corridor far below me, a young artist, who, as if transported out of his senses by delight and admiration, was making the most extraordinary antics and gestures:  sometimes he clasped his hands, then extended his arms, then stood with them folded as in deep thought; now he snatched up his portfolio as if to draw what so much enchanted him, then threw it down and kicked it from him as if in despair.  I never saw such admirable dumb show:  it was better than any pantomime.