A year has passed since I have been thus occupied.  The seasons have made their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful robe of surpassing beauty.  A year has passed; and I no longer guess at my state or my prospects—­loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my inseparable companion.  I have endeavoured to brave the storm—­I have endeavoured to school myself to fortitude—­I have sought to imbue myself with the lessons of wisdom.  It will not do.  My hair has become nearly grey—­my voice, unused now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears.  My person, with its human powers and features, seem to me a monstrous excrescence of nature.  How express in human language a woe human being until this hour never knew!  How give intelligible expression to a pang none but I could ever understand!—­ No one has entered Rome.  None will ever come.  I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now cling with the same fond trust.

Winter has come again; and the gardens of Rome have lost their leaves—­ the sharp air comes over the Campagna, and has driven its brute inhabitants to take up their abode in the many dwellings of the deserted city—­frost has suspended the gushing fountains—­and Trevi has stilled her eternal music.  I had made a rough calculation, aided by the stars, by which I endeavoured to ascertain the first day of the new year.  In the old out-worn age, the Sovereign Pontiff was used to go in solemn pomp, and mark the renewal of the year by driving a nail in the gate of the temple of Janus.  On that day I ascended St. Peter’s, and carved on its topmost stone the aera 2100, last year of the world!

My only companion was a dog, a shaggy fellow, half water and half shepherd’s dog, whom I found tending sheep in the Campagna.  His master was dead, but nevertheless he continued fulfilling his duties in expectation of his return.  If a sheep strayed from the rest, he forced it to return to the flock, and sedulously kept off every intruder.  Riding in the Campagna I had come upon his sheep-walk, and for some time observed his repetition of lessons learned from man, now useless, though unforgotten.  His delight was excessive when he saw me.  He sprung up to my knees; he capered round and round, wagging his tail, with the short, quick bark of pleasure:  he left his fold to follow me, and from that day has never neglected to watch by and attend on me, shewing boisterous gratitude whenever I caressed or talked to him.  His pattering steps and mine alone were heard, when we entered the magnificent extent of nave and aisle of St. Peter’s.  We ascended the myriad steps together, when on the summit I achieved my design, and in rough figures noted the date of the last year.  I then turned to gaze on the country, and to take leave of Rome.  I had long determined to quit it, and I now formed the plan I would adopt for my future career, after I had left this magnificent abode.