198 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 
TO MRS. TORREY. 
LrcHorn, 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. 
