a level space on the top of the
tower. Close at hand is the facade of a church, the highest pinnacle of
which appears to be at about the same level as the battlements of
the tower, and there are two or more stone figures (either angels or
allegorical) ornamenting the top of the facade, and, I think, blowing
trumpets. These personages are the nearest neighbors of any person
inhabiting the upper story of the tower, and the sound of their angelic
trumpets must needs be very loud in that close vicinity: The lower story
of the palace extends out and round the lower part of the tower, and
is surrounded by a stone balustrade. The entrance from the street is
through a long, arched doorway and passage, giving admittance into a
small, enclosed court; and deep within the passage there is a very broad
staircase, which branches off, apparently, on one side, and leads to the
height of the tower. At the base of the tower, and along the front of
the palace, the street widens, so as to form something like a small
piazza, in which there are two or three bakers' shops, one or two
shoe-shops, a lottery-office, and, at one corner, the stand of a woman
who sells, I think, vegetables; a little further, a stand of oranges.
Not so many doors from the palace entrance there is a station of French
soldiers and a sentinel on duty. The palace, judging from the broad
staircase, the balustraded platform, the tower itself, and other tokens,
may have been a grand one centuries ago; but the locality is now a
poor one, and the edifice itself seems to have fallen to unaristocratic
occupants. A man was cleaning a carriage in the enclosed court-yard,
but I rather conceive it was a cab for hire, and not the equipage of a
dweller in the palace."

John Lothrop Motley, the historian of the Netherlands, had come to Rome
this winter and brought his family with him. I believe my father had met
Motley in America; at all events, we saw a good deal of him now. He
was an exceedingly handsome man, not only on account of the beauty
of physical features which marked him, but in the sensitiveness and
vividness of expression which constantly illuminated them. He was at
this time about five-and-forty years of age, and lacked a couple of
inches of six feet in height. His hair, a dark, chestnut brown, had the
hyacinthine wave through it, and was slightly streaked with gray;
his beard, which was full and rather short, was likewise wavy; he was
quietly and harmoniously dressed,