ove for the Seven-hilled City
inspired many a lyric that mirrors the Roman atmosphere of that day;
Kate Field, with a young girl's glad enthusiasm over the marvellous
loveliness of a Maytime in Rome, and her devotion to those great
histrionic artists, Ristori and Salvini; George Stillman Hillard,
leaving to literature the rich legacy of his "Six Months in
Italy,"--a work that to this day holds precedence as a clear and
comprehensive presentation of the scenic beauty, the notable monumental
and architectural art, and the general life and resources of this land
of painter and poet. Other names, too, throng upon memory--that of
William Dean Howells, painting Italian life in his "Venetian Days," and
charming all the literary world by his choice art; and among later work,
the interesting interpretations of Rome and of social life in Rome, by
Marion Crawford, Henry James, and Richard Bagot,--in chronicle, in
romance, or in biographical record. During the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, indeed, the visitors to Rome--authors, artists,
travellers of easy leisure--defy any numerical record. Mrs. Louise
Chandler Moulton, poet, romancist, and delightful _raconteur_ as well,
has recorded some charming impressions of her various sojourns in Rome
both in her "Random Rambles" and in "Lazy Tours." Of the Palatine Hill
we find her saying:--

"Sometimes we go to the Palace of the Caesars, and look off upon the
heights where the snow lingers and the warm light rests, making
them shine like the Delectable Mountains. Nearer at hand are the
almond trees, in flower, or the orange trees, bright at once with
their white, sweet blossoms and their golden fruit."

Mrs. Moulton writes of the "stately dwellers" in Rome whom time cannot
change; and to whom, whenever she returns, she makes her first visit;
some of whom are in the mighty palace of the Vatican and some of whom
dwell in state in the Capitol.

"The beautiful Antoninus still wears his crown of lotus in Villa
Albani and the Juno whom Goethe worshipped reigns forever at the
Ludovisi," she writes; "I can never put in words the pleasure I
find in these immortals." Mrs. Moulton loved to wander in the Villa
Borghese "before the place is thronged with the beauty and fashion
of Rome as it is in the late afternoon. I do not wonder that Miriam
and Donatello could forget their fate in these enchanted glades,"
she wrote, "and d