Before leaving the church we went to look at the mosaic copy of the
"Transfiguration," because we were going to see the original in the
Vatican, and wished to compare the two. Going round to the entrance of
the Vatican, we went first to the manufactory of mosaics, to which we had
a ticket of admission. We found it a long series of rooms, in which the
mosaic artists were at work, chiefly in making some medallions of the
heads of saints for the new church of St. Paul's. It was rather coarse
work, and it seemed to me that the mosaic copy was somewhat stiffer and
more wooden than the original, the bits of stone not flowing into color
quite so freely as paint from a brush. There was no large picture now in
process of being copied; but two or three artists were employed on small
and delicate subjects. One had a Holy Family of Raphael in hand; and the
Sibyls of Guercino and Domenichino were hanging on the wall, apparently
ready to be put into mosaic. Wherever great skill and delicacy, on the
artists' part were necessary, they seemed quite adequate to the occasion;
but, after all, a mosaic of any celebrated picture is but a copy of a
copy. The substance employed is a stone-paste, of innumerable different
views, and in bits of various sizes, quantities of which were seen in
cases along the whole series of rooms.

We next ascended an amazing height of staircases, and walked along I know
not what extent of passages, . . . . till we reached the picture-gallery
of the Vatican, into which I had never been before. There are but three
rooms, all lined with red velvet, on which hung about fifty pictures,
each one of them, no doubt, worthy to be considered a masterpiece. In
the first room were three Murillos, all so beautiful that I could have
spent the day happily in looking at either of them; for, methinks, of all
painters he is the tenderest and truest. I could not enjoy these
pictures now, however, because in the next room, and visible through the