ntings of Keats's and Shelley's tombs, not only are the slabs
and marble there, but there, also, in all their naturalness, are
the stately pines and cypresses above, with the sunshine and
shadows alternating between them, and in the background the
turreted top of St. Paul's Gateway, the Pyramid of Caius Cestius,
all lending effect and picturesqueness to the whole."

The present King of Italy purchased one of Mr. Benton's paintings,
called "Giornata di tristezza."

While art abounds in Rome, less can be said for literature. There is a
large and admirable selected Italian library in connection with the
Collegio Romano; but while these books circulate, under certain
conditions, to visitors, and the courtesy of the librarian and his staff
is generously kind, the location and the Italian methods render it a
matter of some difficulty to avail one's self of its resources. In the
Piazza di Spagna there are two circulating libraries, but although one
of these claims twenty-five thousand volumes, the majority are of
mediocre fiction and almost none, if any, of the important modern works
are to be found here. The visitor who is a subscriber to this library
passes into a small, dark room, where one window looking on the street
hardly does more than make the darkness visible, and he must take the
catalogue to the window and stand in order to decipher the list, which
is hardly, indeed, worth the trouble, as there are very few volumes of
any pretension to importance in the collection, and of late years no
additions, apparently, have ever been made. The other circulating
library, while far preferable, is still in crowded rooms and the
assortment is limited. The visitor in Rome who cares for reading matter
looks forward with delight to Florence, with its noble circulating
library, to which access is so easy and whose conduct in all ways is so
convenient and grateful to the guest.

In Rome, however, one finds his romance embodied in life and his history
written in the streets and in the marvellous structures. His poetry is
in her art, her ruins, her magical loveliness of hillside vistas, her
infinite views over the Campagna, her sapphire skies, and her luminous,
golden atmosphere.

"_Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles,
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits
Her sapphire gates,
Beguiling to her bright estates._"

"_Oh, Signor! thine the amber hand,