dined-sleeping where we slept, and by some strange fatality visiting galleries and ruins the same day we visited them.

Speaking of the donkey ride reminds me that I have omitted a curious specimen of this mode of travelling which I witnessed this morning near the famous Plautian Tomb. On a little mousecolored donkey, a trifle larger than a Newfoundland dog, shaggy and meek, were mounted a burly man and his wife, both astraddle, with the woman before and the man behind. The docile little fellow went ambling along, picking up carefully his slender feet, and with his long ears flapping over his face looking as unconscious and innocent as a lamb.

Truly yours.

TRICE.

LETTER XXXIII.

An Improvisatrice-Ascent of St. Peter's.

ROME, April. DEAR E.-I have just returned from hearing an IMPROVISABah!—what a world of disappointment. I had read Corinna till I expected to behold in an Italian Improvisatrice an embodied inspiration. She sung to a small audience in one of the rooms of the Theatre Argentina. An Urn was left at the door, in which every one, who wished, dropped on a bit of paper the subject he wished her to improvise. This Urn was to be handed to the Improvisatrice, from which she must draw, by chance, the number of topics she was to render into verse during the evening. I sat all on the "qui vive," waiting her appearance, expecting to see enter a tall, queenly beauty, with the speak ing lip and flashing eye uttering poetry even in their repose. I expected more, from the fact that these inspired birds are getting rare even in Italy, and this was the second opportunity there had been of hearing one during the entire year. Well, at last she came, a large, gross-looking woman, somewhere between thirtyfive and fifty years of age, and as plain as a pikestaff. She ascended the platform, somewhat embarrassed, and sat down: the Urn was handed her, from which she drew seven or eight papers, and read the subjects written upon them. They were a motley mess enough to turn into poetry in the full tide of song. I looked at her somewhat staggered, and wished very much to ask her, if, (as we say at home) she did not want to back out of the undertaking. However, she started off boldly and threw off verse after verse with astonishing rapidity. After she had finished she sat down, wiped the perspiration from her forehead, while a man, looking more like Bacchus than Cupid, brought her a cup of nec. lar in the shape of Coffee, which she coolly sipped before the

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audience, and then read the next topic and commenced again. Between each effort came the Coffee. Some of the subjects were unpoetical enough, and staggered her prodigiously. The "spavined dactyls" would not budge an inch, and she would stopsmite her forehead-go back-take a new start, and try to spur over the chasm with a boldness that half redeemed her failures; sometimes it required three or four distinct efforts before she could clear it. The large drops of moisture that oozed from her forehead, in the excitement, formed miniature rivulets down her cheeks, till I exclaimed to myself, well there is perspiration there, whether there be inspiration or not; and, after all, who can tell the difference.

I will do her the justice, however, to say that her powers of versification, in some instances, were almost miraculous. She would glide on without a pause, minding the difficulties of rhythm, rhyme and figures, no more than Apollo himself. Columbus was one of her subjects, and she burst forth, (I give the sentiment only,) "Who is he, that, with pallid countenance and neglected beard, enters, sad and thoughtful, through the City's gates. The crowd gaze on him as, travel-worn, he walks along, and ask, 'Who is he?'-Christopher Colombo, is the answer. They turn away, for 'tis an unknown name.” Then, with a sudden fling, she changed the measure, and standing on the bow of his boat, flag in hand, the bold adventurer strikes the beach of a New World. The change from the slow, mournful strain she first pursued, to the triumphant bounding measure on which the boat of the bold Italian met the shore, was like an electric shock, and the house rung with "brava, brava." But, alas! there was no Corinna there; I had rather heard the fair, proud-looking pianist that accompanied her.

In the afternoon I drove with some friends to St. Peter's for the purpose of mounting to the top. No one can ascend it without an order from the office of the Cardinal Secretary of State. This order is obtained by a paper from somebody else, I forget whom. This paper my friend had sent me, with the request to send and get the order. I put it in my pocket with the full determination to do as he requested. But just as our carriage was driving up to the magnificent steps of St. Peter's he asked if I had the order.

I slowly pulled forth the paper from the spot where it had lain snugly for two or three days, and shook my head. "Then we are done for it," said he. I had no apology to make—there sat his lady, who had taken all this trouble for nothing. "Never mind,” said he, “let us try what we can do without an order.”

We went to the Sacristan who kept the door, and told him our case, and plead to have the regulation dispensed with, but he was inexorable. I asked him if he could bear to have us return te our own country, after having come so far, without ascending St. Peter's. "Mi fa niente ma non posso permitterlo." "It is noth ing to me, but I cannot allow it." I then appealed to his gallantry, and made up a long story about the lady on my arm. "Mi rincresce moltissimo, signore, ma non è possibile," "I am very sorry, sir, but I can't help it," was all I could get out of him. I then undertook to bribe him, but it was of no use. He was the first Italian door-keeper I had seen, money would not buy. "Never mind," said Mr. "I understand that some of these Sacristans keep permissions to sell." Off he started, and in a few minutes returned with one that cost just 4 pauls—a half a dollar. I handed it to the Sacristan, and said, "There, will that do ?”— Oh, you would have shouted at the look of blank astonishment with which he regarded me. It was all right, signed and sealed as his Holiness directs, but said he, "Did you not write it yourself?" "What!" said I, "forge that seal ?" pointing to the Cardinal's signet. He shook his head-" but where did you get it ?" "St. Peter gave it to me," I replied. (He opened his eyes still wider)" He did not wish me to leave his church without seeing its wonders." "Il Santo Pietro è piu generoso di le." "Pass on," said the old man, with an ominous shake of the head, and we began to mount. The ascent to the top of the roof is so gradual that horses pass up and down with loads. On the roof the houses of the workmen scattered around look like a little village.

The Dome is double and you ascend between the double walls. Every now and then a door lets you through to the inside, where there is a narrow path on which to walk, and gaze down-down on the pigmies that are crawling over the dim pavement below. The enormous statues are dwindled to a point, and the smoke of

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incense throws a haze like a summer atmosphere over the wealth of marble beneath. The concave of the Dome is wrought in Mosaic, representing virgins and saints, &c. From the pavement it seems to be the finest of work, while here the stones are large as the end of your thumb. The sentence in Mosaic, "Tu es Petrus," &c., (Thou art Peter,) which is barely visible from below, is found to be composed of letters six feet long. An American Vandal had been here a few days before, and in order to carry away a memento of the Dome, had gouged out one of the eyes of a saint with his jack-knife.

I will not attempt to describe the view from the top. The Mediterranean, blue and dim, in the distance on the one side, the Albano, the Sabine and Volscian hills on the other; Rome, the Coliseum, Forum, the winding Tiber, palaces and temples, immortal each with its history, and all grand and mighty with the Past, were too much for one glance. The mind became perfectly stupified with the crowd of images and emotions that overwhelmed it. Glorious old Rome, that " coup d'œil," has become a part of my existence. It is daguerreotyped on my heart for ever.

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Now for a chapter of statistics. I hate them, but in no other way can you get an idea of the size of St. Peter's. I will not give you feet and inches, but say that if Trinity Church is finished on the plan with which it was commenced you could pile about 12 of them into St. Peter's, and have considerable room left for walking about.-By taking off the steeples you could arrange two rows of them in the Church, three in a row, then clap on the steeples again under the Dome and they would reach a trifle more than half way to the top. You could put two churches like the Trinity under the Dome and have the entire nave of the Church, and both side aisles wholly unoccupied. Take three Astor Houses and place them lengthwise, and they would nearly extend the length of the inside of St. Peter's-make a double row of them and they would fill it up half way to the roof pretty snug. Thirty or forty common churches could be stowed away in it without much trouble, and the four columns that support the Dome are each larger than an ordinary dwelling house. But this is nothing-the marble-the statuary-the costly tombs-the architecture-the art are indescribable. Truly yours.