fancied that a man immersed like
him in affairs might have learned with surprise the inner and more
fragrant meaning of the symbols with the outside of which his life was
satisfied; and I was glad to reflect that in our day such a thing is
impossible.

The grave of our beloved poet is sunken to the level of the common
earth, and is only marked by the quaintly lettered, simple stone
bearing the famous epitaph. While at Rome I heard talk of another and
grander monument which some members of the Keats family were to place
over the dust of their great kinsman. But, for one, I hope this may
never be done, even though the original stone should also be left
there, as was intended. Let the world still keep unchanged this
shrine, to which it can repair with at once pity and tenderness and
respect.

A rose-tree and some sweet-smelling bushes grew upon the grave, and
the roses were in bloom. We asked leave to take one of them; but at
last could only bring ourselves to gather some of the fallen petals.
Our Hebrew guide was willing enough, and unconsciously set us a little
example of wantonness; for while he listened to our explanation of
the mystery which had puzzled him ever since he had learned English,
namely, why the stone should say "_writ_ on water," and not _written_,
he kept plucking mechanically at one of the fragrant shrubs, pinching
away the leaves, and rending the tender twig, till I, remembering the
once-sensitive dust from which it grew, waited for the tortured
tree to cry out to him with a voice of words and blood, "Perche mi
schianti?"

VIII.

It seems to me that a candid person will wish to pause a little
before condemning Gibson's colored statues. They have been grossly
misrepresented. They do not impress one at all as wax-work, and there
is great wrong in saying that their tinted nakedness suggests impurity
any more than the white nakedness of other statues. The coloring
is quite conventional; the flesh is merely warmed with the hue
representing life; the hair is always a very delicate yellow, the eyes
a tender violet, and there is no other particularization of color; a
fillet binding the hair may be gilded,--the hem of a robe traced
in blue. I, who had just come from seeing the fragments of antique
statuary in Naples Museum, tinted in the same way, could not feel
that there was any thing preposterous in Gibson's works, and I am not
ashamed to say that they gave me pleasure.

As we passed, in his studi