MEN I HAVE PAINTED
said, "You should take her about, especially if she has not been here before. This is an interesting place; there is much to be seen in ancient as well as modern monuments. People flock here to see the remains of the great Roman builders, like the Colosseum, the Baths of Caracalla, the Forum, and other architectural remains, all constituting the chief glory of the Roman emperors, and, of course, the later period, when the Church was aiming at supremacy over the civil power, and at the height of its glory and splendour devoted its great wealth and influence to the creation of the Vatican, St. Peter's, and the many other churches."
Listening until he had finished, I rose, thanked him for his kind reception and courtesy, and departed, wondering.
Finding no encouragement here, I attacked the Vatican, and wasted days in marching up and down its marble stairs, until the guards and huissiers must have wondered what I was so persistent in seeking. At last one of the ecclesiastics to whom I had been directed, who held some official position in the offices of the Vatican, and whose name I now forget, awakened in me such a sense of indignation that I expostulated with him in tones that brought him to a more obliging disposition of mind, and he advised me to see Cardinal Rampollo, who was in a position to grant or refuse my request at once. He could have told me this before. After he had listened to my criticisms of the Church's attitude in living upon the past and doing nothing for the present or the future of Art, and was convinced that Rome had passed through three successive periods—of greatness, under the Cæsars, of mediocrity, under the popes, and of decadence, under the modern kings—by referring him to the architecture of each period to corrobo-
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