The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-01 00:00:00

ixty pounds of armour, to c

to bear the sun's r

rivets, to endure with fortitud

r, and thirst, to

subdue

rage every other nation ; yet all this power and grandeur
fell by the insidious mining and imperceptibly sapping in-
fluence of luxury And the cruel tyranny of the army
over the laws and civil power completed the downfall of
all-prwerful and majestic Rome! Where is now the

, filled by animals
Where the

uluri u m ?

he Animar
and beasts from every part of the world ?
golden house of the tyrant Nero, and the bronze
one hundred and twenty feet in height, near it?
no more, the chariots, the horses, the cohorts, the le-

atues,

\Are hear no more the exulting
shout, the multudinous cry, the clangour of martial
music, the laureated victor emperor! The slave thrown
to the tiger and wild dogs all alike sleep in the dust!
Truly, _ _

gions, the triumphal car

" The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
All point to earth, and hiss at human pride."

The mausoleum of Augustus with its statue of him on
its summit, and its two Egyptian obelisks at its entrance
must have been a grand edifice of three stories in height;
now, despoiled of its statue, its obelisks removed to grace
the front of the Church Santa Maria and the Piazza di
Morte Cavallo, it is degenerated into an amphitheatre for
bull fights and fireworks. The tomb of Cecilia Metilla is
a picturesque object out on the vast campagna where the
sepulchres of Scipio and the the catacombs attract the
wandering strayer's gaze. There are thirty of these cata-
combs, some of immense extent, without the fifteen gates

of Rome. Through the kindness of my esteemed friend,
Mr. Gibson, brother to the justly celebrated artist, who,
since the death of the venerable T'norwalsden, is consi-
dered the first living sculptor in the world, I explored the
largest and most interesting of these caticombs with a
party of ladies and gentlemen. After hearing a most
learned address from him, we were conducted by Mr.
Gibson through these vast ancient and interesting ceme-
teries and harbours of repose for the primitive Christians
and persecuted Jews. In several of these the halls are
painted, and stone altars and chairs remain in the small
places of worship. We were one hour and three quarters
exploring these streets of the dead, much have I been in-
debted to the three talented Gibsons for their kind and
polite attentions to me. Both at Rome and in Liverpool
how many delightful walks to distant villas, how many
objects of rare interest, unknown to the multitude of hur-
rying travellers, have 1 through their interesting kind at-
tentions had access to, benefitting by their refined talk
and classic conversation. Long before I ever thought of
visiting Italy, I enjoyed one long evening's talk with Mr.
S. Gibson and one or two friends, which began at five
P.M., and continue with ones light intermission for re-
freshment, until four a.m. ; thus the feast of reason and
flow of soul lasted eleven hours! Immediately after that
relation of his two years tour in Italy and residence at
Rome, I wrote those stanzas published in a Liverpool
journal :

" Ah, shall they ever greet my longing eyes,
Say, Italy's fair plains, its azure skies?
Shall I behold tho e snow clad towering mountains,
Home's august palaces, high Panes, and four.tains,
Pause at the watch. dog's bark by Tiber's wave,
Or sadly mourn o'er Keats the poet's grave." &c.
How loath am I to leave ancient for modern Rome, how
can I tear myself from the grandest and sub'. melt objects
my eyes have ever beheld ? what associations reign over
the mind and hold it all enthralled with the great, the
powerful, the mystic past. One evening, I was on the
Tarpein Rock, another on the " Campidoglio "—no, the
camp oil will not, must not, supersede the name of capi-
tol. There at the capitol, gazing at the dying gladiator
so antique, or at the Vatican on the Laocoon, found at
the Shetta antique also, or in modern villas, their choicest
gems of art are the antique. Thus looking at objects mel-
lowed by time, surrounded by a halo of sublime asssocia-
lions, who cannot respect age? And thou, mysterious
temple of Janus, who cannot remember thy double face,
thy war and peace, thy now emilty niches for thy twelve
statues, (that of Janus himself is gone) and thy brazen
gates, no more open in war, nor shut in peace, give indi-
cations so fraught with interest to the bane or weal of
mankind, but still there it stands, sold, firm, lasting, al-
though its brazen covering laid on at the time of Romu-
lus, is gone, still it is an object of surpassing interest, and
like the dark Cloacae near it, sublime in its age, neglect,
and decay.

Imperceptible, however, at Rome are the transitions
from one century to another. The Partheon, once dedi-
cated to all the gods or virtues, now dedicated to the vir-
gin and all the martyrs, is of great antiquity, repaired and
ornamented by Agrippa, son-in-law to Augustus. Its
I eight and diameter equally 144 feet, round its vast cir-
cumference are 14 columns of yellow marble, fluted en-
tire, and the finest in Rome. M. AGRIPPA. L. F.
COS. TERTIVM FECIT is inscribed upon the porphyry
figures of its portico, but many fatal spoliations and acci-
dents have befallen this beautiful temple! its bold and ele-
gant roof was much injured by the dreadful eruption of Ve-
suvius in the reign of Tiberius ; its walls decorated with lead
and brass, with works of silver over them ; its ornamental
gilded bronze plates were stripped; Alaric carried of all
its statues of gold and silver; Genseric afterwards loaded
a ship with its finest marble statues, the inestimable
works of Diogenes became the prey of the barbarous
Constantine 11., and the early christian Pontiffs pillaged
it, and also all the rich pagan temples of Rome. Boniface
IV. made a church of it; Rappheel, Hannibal, Caracci,
and other artists left money by will for its reparation ;
Benedict 11. covered it with lead; Pope Urban VIII. re-
paired it and built up two wretched ugly belfries; at one
time its beautiful portico with its sixteen granite columns
four feet in diameter were chisell'd, cut, and their capitals
injured to support wretched shops and pedlar's sheds;
Eugene IV. knocked all these out, but still the Partheon
like our St Paul's is sadly hemmed in and its effect de-
stroyed by small houses and shops; close to it is a boar-
butcher's place, with heads, hides, and offal spoiling the
effect of this superb antique relic ! A great overflowing
of the Tiber took place from the mountain snow being
suddenly dissolved, and a heavy day's rain. Some of the
lower streets were inundated to the depth of eight feet.
Tortonia's Great Theatre and the Partheon were alike
flooded, and it was a beautiful sight to stand upon the
altar, and from the watery mirror see the beautiful roof
of the Partheon reflected with its grand aperture at the
top. No wonder that Pliny in the palmy days of the Par-
therm, from its richness, thought it " one of the wonders
of the world." But farewell the Cresars' Palace, the
golden house of Nero, the Tarcrean rock, and the Capi-
tol !—farewell the vast Campagna, with its encircling
mountains, its aqueducts and tombs ! Ye arches,
temples, baths, and fountains, I shall never see ye more !
To behold the fragments of thy greatness, all-powerful
Rome, was a privilege, an honour, a delight, a solemn
lesson silently shooting the soul, never, never to be for-
gotten. Still, in my imagination I see Titus Vespasian
entering by the Coliseum, pass the temple of Peace, along
the Appian way where the stones still bear traces of their
chariot wheels. I see the captive Jews, seven hundred
of the handsomest of them selected at the destruction
of Jerusalem to grace his triumphal entry into Rome.
Hear the acclamations of myriads of people as the trum-
pets sound at his approach up the Capitol! Here too Co-
riolanus passed, crowned with his oaken garland; before
him ehmorous noise, behind him tears ; he addresses
Virgilia, •` My gracious silence ; hail ! would'st thou have
laughed had I come coffin'd home, that weepest to see me

" Ah ! my dear! such eyes the widows in Co-
_ioli wear, and mothers that lack sons." here too at
the base of Pompey's Pillar great Cm3ar fell. "Julius
Caesar who at Phillipi to good Brutus ghosted : what was
it made pale Cassius to conspire? and what the all
honest, honoured Roman Brutus, with the armed
rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, to drench
the Capitol ? but that they would have one man
but a man 1" Shakspeare, the inspired noet, who, as Dr.
Johnson observes, " exhausted worlds and then imagined
new," must have had—as he appears to have had upon
every thing—a just conception of the power, weAocss,
luxury, privation, military tyranny, and slavery,' that
oppressed and were the curse of Rome, when Coriolanus
was banished, and, heading the Volscians, threatened the
burning of the city. The entreaties of his friends and
brother officers are coldly heard, and abruptly answered ;
but when the mother, wife, child, present themselves, the
obdurate, cold, flinty-hearted soldier, the•hero of a hun-
dred fights, with nine wounds upon his gallant body,
relents; and when his mother says to him, " Do you
know this lady ?" how beautiful is the reply ! " The
noble sister of Publicola, the moon of Rome ! chaste as
the icicle that's curdled by the frost from purest snow,
and hangs on Dian's temple! Dear Valeria 1"

triumph