I tried to draw, but it hurt me so much after looking about all day
that I despair of doing anything, though I don't abandon the idea
altogether.'

There are many letters on the religious state of Rome. The
apparently direct supplications to the Saints, the stories told in
sermons of desperate sinners--saved through some lingering observance
paid to the Blessed Virgin, and the alleged abuse of the
Confessional, shocked Patteson greatly, and therewith he connected
the flagrant evils of the political condition of Rome at that time,
and arrived at conclusions strongly adverse to Roman Catholicism as
such, though he retained uninjured the Catholic tone of his mind.

It was art which was the special attraction to Coley of all the many
spells of old Rome. He spent much time in the galleries, and studied
'modern painters' with an earnestness that makes Ruskinism pervade
his letters.

At Florence, Coley wrote as usual at much length of the galleries,
where the Madonna del Cardellino seems to have been what delighted
him most. He did not greatly enter into Michel Angelo's works, and
perhaps hardly did their religious spirit full justice under the
somewhat exclusive influence of Fra Angelico and Francia, with the
Euskinese interpretation. The delight was indescribable. He says:--
'But I have written again and again on this favourite theme, and I
forget that it is difficult for you to understand what I write, or
the great change that has taken place in me, without seeing the
original works. No one can see them and be unchanged. I never had
such enjoyment.' His birthday presents were spent on a copy of the
beloved Madonna del Cardellino, of which he says:--'though it does