TWO

CARDINALS.

257

plump legs were encased in purple stockings, while a little way behind them marched three servants in livery, and at a still further distance, followed two carriages with purple cushions and trimmings. "They are cardinals, poor fellows," said our friend; "they are not allowed to walk in the streets of Rome; the dignity of their office forbids it. So, whenever they are inclined to fetch a walk, they are obliged to order their carriages and drive out to this solitary Campagna, where they can alight and stretch their legs without reprehension. A cardinal, who lives near the church of Trinita del Monte, was desirous to walk to the church, and asked to be so far indulged, but his application was denied." Their Eminences, I suppose, were going to take a look at the newly-discovered sepulchres.

Besides what he is doing on the Via Latina, the Pope is digging away vigorously at Ostia on the sea-shore. Here the foundations of several villas of vast dimensions, with the lower part of their walls, have been uncovered, and a large number of statues have been found.

It has been an infinite relief to us to come away from the noisy and dirty city of Naples, swarming with blackguards and beggars, and pass a few days in this quiet place. I remember when Rome was as dirty as Naples; it has now become a city of clean, well-swept streets-a city from which New York might, in this respect, take example. There is here no ostentatious display of rags and disgusting deformities by those who ask alms, such as you encounter at every step that you take in Naples. There are beggars here, it is

258

CHANGES FOR THE BETTER.

true quite enough of them-but not so many as formerly. Every time I come to Rome I see some external change for the better; I perceive that something has been done for the embellishment of the city or for the public convenience. Since I was here last, five years since, the New Appian Way, a broad, well-paved road, with causeys over the hollows, leading from Rome to Gensano, has been completed, crossing the beautiful woody glen of Lariccia and the deep ravine of Gensano with stupendous bridges, which, if they make the road less pretty, shorten it greatly and keep it at a convenient level. Within a few years past the small round stones with which the streets of Rome were formerly paved, and which were the torture and the terror of all tender-footed people, have been taken up, and the city is now paved throughout with small cubic blocks of stone, which present a much smoother and more even surface. The streets in the night were, not very long ago, bewilderingly dark; they are now well lighted with gas. New houses have been built, and those who have employed their money in this way, I am told, find their advantage in it. Studios for painters are erected on the tops of old houses, the lower rooms of which are let to sculptors; yet I hear that last winter, notwithstanding the number of new studios. which have been built, there was not a vacant one to be had at any price.

The increase in the number of houses implies an increase in the population. There is certainly an increase in the number of artists residing here, and Rome is now more the

AMERICAN

ARTISTS

AT ROME.

259

great general school of art than ever. When I first came to this place, in 1835, there was not an American artist at Rome, that I could hear of; now the painters and sculptors from our country are numerous enough to form a little community; they amount, every winter, to thirty or more. The veterans of art from different parts of the European continent sometimes come, in a quiet way, to pass a winter at Rome. Cornelius, whose frescoes are seen on the walls and ceilings of the finest public buildings of Munich, was here last winter, and occupied the same rooms which formed his studio when, more than thirty years since, he was here to study the grand frescoes of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Guido. I perceive that in the New York journals very full accounts have been given of what the American artists here are doing, so that with regard to them I have nothing to tell which would be news. It is remarkable that they find Rome a better place for obtaining orders from their own countrymen than any of the American cities. Men who would never have thought of buying a picture or a statue at home, are infected by the contagion of the place the moment they arrive. No talk of the money market here; no discussion of any public measure; no conversation respecting new enterprises, and the ebb and flow of trade; no price current, except of marble and canvas; all the talk is of art and artists. The rich man who, at home, is contented with mirrors and rosewood, is here initiated into a new set of ideas, gets a taste, and orders a bust, a little statue of Eve, a Ruth, or a Rebecca,

260 DEATH OF BARTHOLOMEW THE SCULPTOR.

and half a dozen pictures, for his luxurious rooms in the United States.

You have heard of the death of poor Bartholomew, the sculptor. He came to the hotel at Naples, where I was, the evening before I went with my family to Castellamare; I was absent a week, and when I came back he was dead and in his grave. He had fought a hard battle with poverty, and had just won it; orders were beginning to come in upon him from all quarters, and his great grief, when he breathed his last, was, that he could not place his mother in that state of comfort which he would easily have secured to her if a brief respite from death had been allowed him. I have been to his studio since my arrival in Rome, and there I saw the last work of his hand-a fine statue, justifying the reputation he has lately acquired-Eve, after the Fall, in an attitude of dejection, and wearing an expression of profound sorrow. I could scarcely help fancying that the marble figure mourned the death of the artist to whom it owed its being.

The French hold Rome yet-for the Pope. Every morning the streets resound with the tramp of Gallic cavalry. Troops of heavy Norman horses drink from troughs filled by the waters of the Claudian aqueduct, and in the massive Baths of Diocletian are locked up the thunders which at a moment's notice may batter down the city. The stranger who strolls near them with a segar is warned away by the French guards. There is a French police here, to which the Italian police is subsidiary, and it is said to be much the better of the two.

AIX LES BAINS.

261

LETTER XXIV.

THE CITIES OF NORTHERN ITALY.

AIX LES BAINS, Savoy, July 1, 1858.

WHILE We are stopping for a day at the ancient wateringplace of Aix les Bains, I employ an hour or two in writing of some things I have observed in the journey through Italy, northward.

This place has the reputation of a remarkably healthy air, and it is certainly the abode of a healthy-looking, freshcolored population. They boast that its harsh, saline springs, strongly impregnated with sulphur, attract to it in summer a crowd of strangers, who, at that season, swell its population of four thousand to twice the number. Yet it is a very unattractive watering-place, compared with the German ones near the Rhine, and the French ones among the Pyrenees. Its hotels are well kept, but no pains have been taken in opening and embellishing grounds and laying out walks for those who frequent Aix for the benefit of its waters and its air. Its only walks are along dusty carriage-roads, and mostly in the glare of the sun; and in this respect it is disadvantageously contrasted with the places I have mentioned. A spacious and massive building for the baths is now, however, going up, the cost of which is partly defrayed out of