198 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 



TO MBS. TORBEY. 



LEGHORN, May 8. 



Whenever I have an hour to spare I know of 

 no pleasanter mode of occupying it than by writing to 

 you, for to you my thoughts, whenever they are at 

 rest, spontaneously revert. I have yet an hour before 

 the vetturino starts for Florence, and I may as well 

 commence another sheet, the first of a series which I 

 may be unable to send you for several weeks, as I here 

 leave the Mediterranean, loveliest of seas, and ex- 

 cept I find an American ship on the Adriatic, which 

 is not very probable, I must keep them all until I 

 reach Hamburg. I have just closed a formidable 

 packet of journal, to be sent from here in the ship 

 Sarah and Arsilia, which is to sail for New York 

 next week. . . . 



I am very well satisfied with my visit to Rome. In 

 the brief space of time I spent there I saw everything 

 I wished except the pope himself, and I believe I had 

 a glimpse of him ; one statue of Michael Angelo's, 

 which I only learned about when it was too late ; the 

 Catacombs, where the early Christians used to con- 

 ceal themselves, which are some miles off ; the monu- 

 ment of Cecilia Metella, which is not handsome, but is 

 immortalized by three or four singularly sweet stanzas 

 in "Childe Harold;" and the Basilica of St. Paul, 

 which is some distance out of the city, and was nearly 

 destroyed by fire about ten years ago. This is a very 

 small list compared with what I have seen, so I am 

 quite content. I wish you could see Rome ; there is 

 so much that you would enjoy in the highest degree, 

 and it is laying up a fund to be enjoyed afterwards as 

 long as you live. 



