noise, and rubbish, and dust, were to be seen, in all directions, these kneeling monks. Between Foligno and Spoleto is the river and valley of the Clitumnus: and here is a small ancient building now converted into the chapel of San Salvadore, which is supposed to have been the temple of Clitumnus. In the vale of Clitumnus, cattle were fed and fattened for sacrifices. It has been very striking all through Italy, to find the cattle either white or cream-coloured, such as were anciently preferred for sacrifices; and they have a fashion here, of dressing their heads after a manner like the use of the ancient fillets which bound the head of the victim-a relic, probably, of that custom. In this neighbourhood, at Ameria, was the birthplace of Roscius. At Spoleto there is an ancient cathedral, with some good paintings; a very lofty aqueduct; and in the vicinity, fine wild scenery. The hills are entirely covered with evergreen oak. TERNI situated on the Nar, or Neri. Three or four miles above the town is the celebrated cascade Del Marmore. It is on the Veleno, a river or canal which conveys the waters of the Lake of Luco into the Nar. The greatest of the three falls here is three hundred feet, and it is very well worth a walk or ride from Terni to see. There is a powerful description of it in the fourth canto of Childe Harold. As I came home from the falls in early evening and beneath a clear sky, I thought the splendour of the evening sky in Italy surpassed that of all other climes I had known, as well as that of the day-time. The Vale of Terni is pretty, but neither this nor that of the Clitumnus is as beautiful as the Vale of Tiber, below Otriculo. The name of Tiber may doubtless spread a charm over it; but the windings of the river are certainly very graceful, and its banks are more like our own meadows than anything I have seen in Italy. These three vales would scarcely have drawn my attention as scenery, unless it were in a country so entirely destitute of scenery as that part of Italy through which I have passed. The ranges of the Apennines, however, which are passed over on this route, and especially about Narni and Terni, are by no means so barren and tame as those beyond Florence. There are spots, romantic and wild, and quite like Switzerland. --- CIVITA CASTELLANA, November 7.-Our Dominican has been ill during the whole journey. On the second day after leaving Florence, he was attacked with a low bilious fever, with which he has travelled the whole distance; and the way in which he has got along with it, is worth mentioning the rather, as I think it is common on the Continent, in all cases where disease is not violent. It is remarkable that people here, either from being instructed on the point, as our people are not, or from use, or from some cause, adopt in all such cases, as did the Dominican, a certain plan; and that is to eat nothing. He took no medicine, and he eat nothing on the whole journey but a little soup maigre. He travelled almost the entire distance from Florence to Rome, with a fever that, in America, would have put him in bed and under the hands of the doctor. For the day past, he has been decidedly improving; and I do not doubt that to-morrow evening we shall leave him in Rome nearly recovered. Yes, we shall leave him, to bury his mind in the rubbish of longaccumulating prescription; to pore over the dusty tomes of scholastic theology; to draw from the armories of Bellarmine and Bossuet, weapons wherewith to fight heretics; to struggle on with his breviary, and his beads, and his offices; to merge his individuality in an order; to sink, a drop into the ocean of the church, and to be borne wherever the current of its mighty will directs. And yet my mind tells me, that this man will one day be a distinguished member of that church, or its more distinguished adversary. May he fare well! This is the last sleeping-place on the journey; thirty-five miles from Rome. It is thought to be the ancient Falerii; where the schoolmaster, according to the Roman legend, offered, in time of siege, to deliver up to Camillus his pupils, consisting of the noblest families of the city. Camillus, says the account, caused the youths to be sent back, and the master to be soundly flogged.* Civita Castellana took its name, I suppose, from the castle, a massive and noble structure. There is a strange-looking old cathedral here, the front of which was built, I believe, out of an arch, and still retains the same form. The entrance to the city, on the side towards Terni, is by a bridge, over a tremendous chasm. Our road, thus far, has been the ancient Via Flaminia, but we left it here for the Via Cassia, which leads through Monte Rosi, Baccano, and Storta-places of no interest. Indeed, on leaving Tuscany, and especially in approaching Rome, the country and the villages have become more desolate and miserable. The worst villages I saw in Ireland are not so dismal. On the eighth day of November, from the high land near Baccano, and about fourteen miles distant, I first saw Rome; and although there is something very unfavourable to impression, in the expectation that you are to be greatly impressed, or that you ought to be, or that such is the fashion, yet Rome is too mighty a name to be withstood by any such, or any other influences. Let you come upon that hill in what mood you may, the scene will lay hold upon you, as with the hand of a giant. I scarcely know how to describe the impression-but it seemed to me, as if something strong and stately, like the slow and majestic march of a mighty whirlwind, swept around those eternal towers; the storms of time that had prostrated the proudest monuments of the world, seemed to have left their vibrations in the still and solemn air; ages of history passed before me; the mighty procession of nations-kings, consuls, emperors, empires, and generations, had passed over that sublime theatre. The fire, the storm, the earthquake had gone by; but there was yet left the still small voice-like that at which the prophet "wrapped his face in his mantle." This, like almost everything else in the old Roman story, vanishes at the touch of M. Niebuhr. CHAPTER XV. ENTRANCE TO ROME- GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE CITY AND PEOPLE --FIRST IMPRESSIONS-A GLANCE AT ST. PETER'S AND THE FORUM-THE SEVEN HILLS -THE APPIAN WAY-TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA-FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA — THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT-THE ESQUILINE HILL-THE CHURCH DI STEFANO ROTONDO. -- November 10.-The entrance to Rome by the Porta del Populo, or Gate of the People, presents a view that is noble and worthy of the Eternal City. A large square, or rather circular open space, spreads before you, from which three streets run diverging, and penetrate into the city-the Corso in the middle, the Babuino on the left, and the Ripetta running along the Tiber, on the right. On the points, between these streets, stand two small but beautiful churches. In the centre of this place or Piazza del Populo-stands an Egyptian obelisk. each side of the piazza are fountains, and over these fountains, and all along upon the surrounding walls, are statues. It is really an appropriate introduction to Rome-or to what you feel that Rome should be. Should be, I say-for, alas! Rome, as a city, separate from its works of art and its ruins, is a dismal, dirty, disagreeable place. Its streets are narrow, dark, damp, and, above all, filthy, to a degree that is insufferable and inexpressible. No writer could dare to defile his page with a description of the horribly indecent uses to which the streets, squares, and public places of this city are put. Besides, in walking, you are thrust down to the lowest level of the streets; there being no sidewalks in Rome, except upon a part of the Corso. The people in the streets generally appear ill-clad, poor, and dirty; and beggars present themselves at every point, and at every moment. One gets to be absolutely afraid to look any man in the face, lest he should stretch out his hand and beg. Amidst all this begging and filth, a hundred fountains spring up in every part of the city, sufficient to wash the streets and the people: pity they are not applied to both purposes! As to the general countenance of the population-I have seen prevailing gravity and depression before-but never did I see such a cloud upon the face of any people, as that which has settled down upon the Roman brow. November 12.-I have been four days in Rome, and am scarcely convinced, yet, that I am here. I seem to have arrived at the consummation of my dreaming. I walk in my sleep altogether. This comfortable fireside at the Hotel de Londres-this pleasant chitchat-these agreeable friends; no sign of desolation here; no sound of its mighty footsteps; how can all this be in Rome! In truth, these common sights and sounds of city life and bustle, these common avocations and actions, rising in the morning, making one's toilet, eating one's breakfast, and walking abroad, are so at war with all one's impressions about the wonderful, glorious, transcendent, and majestic of Rome, that it is difficult to bring them together. Contrasts here heighten impression; and they heighten it in another respect. For I think it is not only the schoolboy's impression which we entertain about the glory of Rome, but it is the schoolboy's wonder, in part, which we feel at being here. "Ah! little thought I," says Rogers "Ah! little thought I, when in school I sat, * # * Towards Tiber to turn or climb the Palatine." If Rogers might say this, much more may I, who conned my lesson three thousand miles farther off than he. I said it was the schoolboy's impression that one has about Rome, and conformably to this remark, I found my first voluntary steps directed to the Forum. Circumstances before this carried me to pass two or three hours at St. Peter's, of which I will only say now in passing, that it is a structure of stupendous magnificence (that is the characteristic feature-not solemnity, nor sublimity exactly, for one is not aware of the size), and that it does not, at first view, offend the eye, as I expected it would. This, indeed, is far less than we ought to be able to say, of a building of such boundless expense as St. Peter's; yet I cannot doubt that there are several structures in Europe, which, from their general form and architecture, afford a higher pleasure than this. But to pass this by for the present-what shall I say of the Forum, on and about which I have passed the last two days? Denominated now, Il Campo Vaccino-The Cow Pasture; waste and desolate, or trodden by a set of wretches employed in digging into its ruins, and not worthy to dig up the ruins of what their ancestors built; a field, the very soil and substance of which are the mouldered dust of ancient glory; surrounded by a few columns and porticoes, that stand the mournful landmarks and witnesses of what it once was-who can look upon it without feeling a blank, a disappointment, though he had known all this before? Where was the Rostrum? where the Comitia? where did Cicero plead? There is not a stone to tell. An entire portico of one temple is standing; three columns of another; but of what temples is matter of dispute. Three other columns lift their beautiful shafts in the opposite quarter of the Forum; but to what they belonged is not certainly known.There is not one locality of ancient Rome here, but it is disputed. I went this morning to the top of the Capitol, from which all Rome, modern and ancient, is visible—the hills, the distant ruins of temples and aqueducts, the surrounding Campagna. In passing the eye along from east to west, the Seven Hills come in the following order: the Aventine (lying from the Capitoline southeast), the Palatine, the Cœlian, the Esquiline, the Viminal, and the Quirinal. Some of them appear from this point of view scarcely as elevations, covered as they are with houses. I descended from the Capitol, passed through the Forum towards the Aventine, and found the temple of Janus with its four gateways— a beautiful and massive ruin-the little arch of Septimius just by, and farther on, the temples of Vesta and Fortune. I then went to the top of the Aventine, and came down across the Circus Maximus, lying between that and the Palatine-the scene of the seizure of the Sabine women by the Roman youths. November 17.-Three or four days ago, I went out on the Appian Way, once lined with monuments, appearing now itself like a lengthened tomb-with nothing living upon its silent and deserted course, with scarcely any relics indeed to tell what it once was—the street of mausoleums and temples, through which the Roman people, as they rode, were reminded at every step of their mighty dead. We visited the tomb of the Scipios, and, with the aid of lights and a guide, traced out its subterranean passages. It was a family tomb, and several of the sarcophagi remain untouched; though the finest of them, that of Cornelius Scipio, is removed to the Vatican. We next rode to the beautiful and majestic monument of Cecilia Metella, the largest Roman structure of the kind remaining, I believe-except the monument of Adrian in the city, which is now converted into a military establishment, and called the Castle of St. Angelo. Strange use of a tomb it is, but still more strange that the tomb of a lovely woman should have been converted to this use, as was that of Cecilia Metella in the times of the middle ages. * Lovely woman, I say, for so one is apt to think of her to whom such remarkable honour was done. Nothing, indeed, is actually known of her, but that she was the wife of Crassus, Pompey's competitor for popular favour, and afterward his colleague in the first triumvirate. One has little respect for him, indeed: the early contest between him and Pompey was essentially a contest between wealth and talent, and his after course was not honourable. The most respectable action, to my mind, which we know of him, is his building this noble monument. From the tomb of Cecilia Metella we went to the fountain of Egeria, a spot which, in former days, when the country about Rome was cultivated, may have been beautiful enough for the residence of the Muses; but alas! there are doubts about the locality, as there are concerning almost everything else here. November 22.-This evening I went to see the Coliseum by moonlight. It is indeed the monarch, the majesty of all ruins-there is nothing like it. All the associations of the place, too, give it the most impressive character. When you enter within this stupendous circle of ruinous walls, and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladiatorial combats and Christian martyrdoms; and as you lift your eyes to the vast amphitheatre, you meet, in imagination, the eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, assembled to witness these bloody spectacles. What a multitude and mighty array of human beings, and how little do we know in modern times of great assemblies! One, two, and three, and at its last enlargement by Constantine, more than three hundred thousand persons could be seated in the Circus Maximus! But to return to the Coliseum we went up, under the conduct of a guide, upon the walls, and terraces, or embankments, which supported the ranges of seats. The seats have long since disappeared; and grass overgrows the spots where the pride, and power, and wealth, and beauty * By the Frangipani family. |