.

.

.' Yes, go thy way, young enthusiast, and, whether to London town or to old Rome, may success attend thee; yet strange fears assail me and misgivings on thy account.

Thou canst not rest, thou say'st, till thou hast seen the picture in the chamber at old Rome hanging over against the wall; ay, and thus thou dust exemplify thy weakness--thy strength too, it may be--for the one idea, fantastic yet lovely, which now possesses thee, could only have originated in a genial and fervent brain.

Well, go, if thou must go; yet it perhaps were better for thee to bide in thy native land, and there, with fear and trembling, with groanings, with straining eyeballs, toil, drudge, slave, till thou hast made excellence thine own; thou wilt scarcely acquire it by staring at the picture over against the door in the high chamber of old Rome.