These Diminutive, Intimate Things Bring One Near To The Old Roman Life; They Seem Like Pearls Strung Upon The Slender Thread That Swings Across The Gulf Of Time.

A little glass cup that Roman lips have touched says more to us than the great vessel of an arena.

There are two small silver _casseroles_, with chi- selled handles, in the museum of Avignon, that struck me as among the most charming survivals of anti- quity.

I did wrong just above, to speak of my attack on this establishment as the only recreation I took that first wet day; for I remember a terribly moist visit to the former palace of the Popes, which could have taken place only in the same tempestuous hours. It is true that I scarcely know why I should have gone out to see the Papal palace in the rain, for I had been over it twice before, and even then had not found the interest of the place so complete as it ought to be; the fact, nevertheless, remains that this last occasion is much associated with an umbrella, which was not superfluous even in some of the chambers and cor- ridors of the gigantic pile. It had already seemed to me the dreariest of all historical buildings, and my final visit confirmed the impression. The place is as intricate as it is vast, and as desolate as it is dirty. The imagination has, for some reason or other, to make more than the effort usual in such cases to re- store and repeople it. The fact, indeed, is simply that the palace has been so incalculably abused and altered. The alterations have been so numerous that, though I have duly conned the enumerations, supplied in guide- books, of the principal perversions, I do not pretend to carry any of them in my head. The huge bare mass, without ornament, without grace, despoiled of its battlements and defaced with sordid modern windows, covering the Rocher des Doms, and looking down over the Rhone and the broken bridge of Saint-Benazet (which stops in such a sketchable manner in mid- stream), and across at the lonely tower of Philippe le Bel and the ruined wall of Villeneuve, makes at a dis- tance, in spite of its poverty, a great figure, the effect of which is carried out by the tower of the church be- side it (crowned though the latter be, in a top-heavy fashion, with an immense modern image of the Virgin) and by the thick, dark foliage of the garden laid out on a still higher portion of the eminence. This garden recalls, faintly and a trifle perversely, the grounds of the Pincian at Rome. I know not whether it is the shadow of the Papal name, present in both places, combined with a vague analogy between the churches, - which, approached in each case by a flight of steps, seemed to defend the precinct, - but each time I have seen the Promenade des Doms it has carried my thoughts to the wider and loftier terrace from which you look away at the Tiber and Saint Peter's.

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