The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-12-30

| of these grand works yet standing, and you
almost expect TO see them 90 down before your
| sight, arch after arch.
| The grotto over the fountain of Egeria rs an
interesting bit of RUM though stripped Oh It's
rich marbles, and every way dilapidated. VI
the Temple of Bacchus there remains enough
to suggest faint vision of pillared and sculp-
tured beauty. But what wilderness of ruin
are the Baths of Caracalla! The longer you
wander among these stupendous remains the
more YOU are amazed by the conceptions they
give YOU of the beauty and grandeur of those
vast temples of pleasure, in which the Romans
reyelled like gods, and in whose voluptuous at
mosphere Rome's destruction ripened. Against
the black walls, and among the broken pillars,
found roses in luxuriant bloom, and this re-
minded me that here the poet Shelley wrote
his " Prometheus Unbound"
The lofty dome of the Pantheon opens to-
ward heaven in almost its first grandeur defy
ing the deyastatiops of Time. Its beautiful
pavement seems yet little worn by the tread Of
! nnnumbered generations and the majestic pill
lars of its portco bear up grandly under the
weight of more than eighteen centuries The
attempt to christianize the Pantheon, and Ike
places in Rome, by the introduction of affairs
and shrines, glaring pictures and bedizened
statues of saints, has, in my opinion, signally
| failed Their character remains sternly and
obstinately pagan The ghosts of the dead
deities fit around them still. They are forever
haunted by the sensuous, voluptu0us, imperous,
magnificent, old Roman spirit. Amid the stern
simplicity of these sublime ruins, the taste in
| voluntarily resents the accessories And parades
of the theatrical Catholic worship, as it might
some monstrous anachronism in poetry or art.
Even the crosses and shriDes in the Coliseum
seem but pious impertinences, and the arrogant
triumphing of a new faith and own that |
find it impossible to see the dimnutive soldiers
and effeminate priests of to-day in the Forum,
or the ruined temples of the old heroes and d.
whites, without desire to have them swept
away and their places filled by stalwart fol-
lowers of Mars and manly worshippers of
Jove.
Among the most interesting antiquities Of
Rome are the Columbaria, on the Appian Way.
These subterranean tombs are 30 called, from
their consisting of tier on tier of inches, like
pigeon-hoes where the ashes of the dead are
stOred-some in classic urns, but most in round
earthen receptacles, with covers very like pre-
serve-pots or pickle-jars. You can thrust your
hand into almost any one of these, and bring
it up full of the ashes and bony fragments of
somebody or something. In these economical,
gregarious sepulchres, were deposited all that
stood fire of the slaves and inferior officers of
the imperial and princely houses Over every
niche is an inscription, and beside many of the
urns and jars a lamp and small vessel for
containing wine.
The grandest view have yet had of the
city and surrounding country was from the
tower of the Capitol. There it lay beneath
me, in one vast, magnificent circle. Rome !!
Rome the fact that | am indeed in it's midst,
which seems to come to and pass from my mind
in a sort of ebb and flow of realization, broke
upon me then almost overpoweringly.
No more the dream, the longing
The pilgrim strays at last
Amid thy haunted temples,
Thou city of tho past,
Whose eagles once made darkness
Wheroe their wings unfurled-
Whose seven hills propped glory
That domed tho ancient world"
wrote those lines some time last year. for
another-little dreaming what few months
would bring forth for me. Almost prophetic
they seemed when | stood on that high tower,
and looked down on those seven hills, on the
yellow Tiber, on the Tarpeian Rock, on the
Pantheon, the Coliseum, the noble arches Of
Constantine, Titus and Septimus Severus-on
the beautiful ruins of the temples about the
Forum, and the dark mass of crumbling ma
sonry, Of undistinguishable fragments of col
umns, arches, and vaults, called, as though in
bitter mockery of greatness, the Palace OF
the Caesars. With these mingled, yet forever
distinct, was modern Rome headed by that
consecrated wonder and spendor of the world,
ST. Peters Out beyond the city walls our
eager gaze was directed to plains and mount
oil v1o vyhn W.
miliar as school-hOuse words-Latium, Etruria,
the Camp of Hannibal, the Sabine Hills, the
Alban Mount Frascati, Tusculum, and far
away over the desolate campagna, Tivo But
! soon turned from the distant to the near, and
looked long and thoughtfully down upon the
Forum and the Coliseum, once the point of
the highest architectural speendor the world
could boast. Soon from those glorious frag-
ments and colossal limitations my mind grasp
ed large conceptions of Romes proudest times
The broken arches Of the Coliseum seemed to
dill out again, and the vast amphitheatre to
enclose its shouting thousands. The fallen and
buried columns about the Forum seemed to
arise from the dust, and range themselves in
their old accustomed places. Priests and YES
tails seemed minstering at sculptured affairs,
to which the long -banshed deities had de-
scended The warlike brothers sat curbing
their fierce steeds--Vesta in her white purity,
and Minerva in the calm ma esty of wisdom,
stood again before their worshippers, and Jupi-
ter sat sublime in his ancient temple.
And the host Of the historical recollections
of Rome-the memoirs Of battles, and tri-
umphs, and sieges and revolutions-how they
scormed upon the heart Scenes in the victo-
rious disastrous splendid and guilty reigns of
her Emperors, the countless tumults and in
surrections of her republics, seemed to pas,
before me- | saw the Forum now surging
with an assembled populace, excited to frenzy
by the words of some powerful orator, now
| brilliant with some sacred festival now gor-
geous with the triumphal course of an army
returned from foreign conquests, the victorious
leader standing, laurel-crowned, in his chariot
followed by csptives in chains, and slaves bear
ing spoil; and now | beheld it Oyerrun with
barbarian hordes, staying pillaging, and de-
stroying, till the night closed in blood and
| flame
Over that Via Sacra, how many Of those
whom the world counts among her immortals
have walked Horace, and Virgil, and Cicero
and Catulus. and Brutus, and Caesar, and
Mark Antony, and Cato, and Coriolanus, and
it may be, Peter and Paul.
The chaste Lucreta" must have trod
those stones, and Brutus's heroic Portia; the
"noble volumnia," the high-souled Cornelia,
and the hapless Virginia The stern virginius
passed here daily, and near by he struck down
base tyrant through the tender heart of his
child--surely the grandest sacrifice to freedom
and virtue in the annals Of time.
have thought best to reserve all have to
say of modern Rome, for other times. As yet,
I have comparatively little interest in things
that sepuchre of the old glory of this lovely
thing from the midst of shadows-fies to you
Ike n rock from ruins Hopng that YOU will