Peter has a palace, and a church, and a museum, such as monarchs envy in vain. Let us hope, pray, and entreat that it may never be demolished, like the palace of the Cæsars; that no republican Guiscard may arise; but that the President of the Future may take up his residence there, should the popes vacate it.
My friend, Theodore Watts, was at Rome with me a part of the time. I forget what he thought of it all; it is so long ago. I know we visited the poets’ tombs together, and St. Paolo fuori.
Pio Nino must have had a temper, because he studied the inconvenience of strangers by making them take tickets of admission in front of the Vatican, while he vaticinated that the back entrance not being handy, but involving a long walk, would excite irritation, so he admitted visitors only at his back door. The elliptical columns forming the portico in the Piazza S. Pietro, look like out-bent arms for receiving and hugging the flock.
I was with Watts, one day in December, on this little round. We stood with our backs against a wall, for shelter against a bitter wind, the sun shining through snow, and the warmth, so long as we remained there, delicious.
We went the usual round of the loggie, Raphaelizing, and of the indoor statuary squares and streets; and got into the Sixtine, on the roof of which Michael Angelo re-created the world.
LXVI.
I have left England twice since my visit to Rome: once in 1878, to stay at Ballenstedt, near the Harz, for a summer; once more to Stassfurt, for a prolonged sojourn. In my own country, Bath has been my favourite place, where I have been for several seasons. Brighton, too, I have often visited, having my brother there. Neither have I neglected the Isle of Wight, my favourite spot being on the unfashionable West, at Totland’s Bay.
There is, however, little left to say about England, by a native, therefore little to record; but I have found plenty to do at home.