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

off to the left, the eye grew weary in following
| destruction around, you wonder to see so much
of these grand works yet standing, and you
almost expect to see them 20 down before your
sight, arch after arch.
| The grotto over the fountain of Egeria is an
interesting bit of ruin, though stripped of its
rich marbles, and every way dilapidated OF
the Temple of Bacchus there remains enough
to suggest a faint vision of pillared and sculp-
tured beauty But what a 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 Romes 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 devastations of Time Its beautiful
pavement seems yet little worn by the tread Of
unnumbered generations and the majestic pill
lars of its portieo bear up grandly under the
L
attempt to christianize the Pantheon, and like
places in Rome by the introduction of affairs
and sbrines glazing pictures and bedizened
statues of saints, has, in my opinion, sgnally
failed. Their character remains sternly and
obstin ately pagan The ghosts of the dead
deities fit around them still. They are forever
haunted by the sensuous, voluptuous, imperious,
magnificent, old Roman spirit Amid the stern
1 ...t &c ha 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 shrines in the Coliseum
seem but pious impertnences, and the arrogant
triumphing of new faith and own that |
find it impossible to see the diminutive soldiers
and efemnate 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 so called, from
their consisting of tier on tier of inches like
| pigeon holes, where the ashes of the dead are
stored-some in classic urns but most in round
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 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 its 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 the past
| Whose eagles once made darkness
| Where'er their wings unfurled-
Whose seven hills propped glory
| That domed tho ancient world.
| wrote those lines some time last year, for
another-lttle dreaming what few months
would bring forth for me. Almost prophetic
they seemed when | stood on that high tower,
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 splendor of the world,
ST. Peters. Out beyond the city walls our
eager gaze was directed to plains and mount
aims, and ancient places, whose names were ia
miiar as school house words-Latum, Etruria,
the Camp of Hannibal, the Sabine Hills, the
Alban Mount Frascati, Tusculum, and far
away over the desolate campagna, Tivoli. 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 sIAeDdor the world
could boast. Soon from those glorious frag-
ments and colossal limitations my mind grasp
ed large conceptions of Rome's proudest times
| The broken arches of the Coliseum seemed to
| ill 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 mnlstering at sculptured affairs,
| to which the long banished deties had de-
scended The warlike brothers sat curbing
| their fierce steeds-Ve sta 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
svormed 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 laurelcrowDed in his chariot
followed by captves in chains, and slaves bear
ing spoil and now beheld it overrun with
barbarian hordes Staying, pllaging, 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 Catullus, and Brutus, and Caesar, and
Mark Antony, and Cato, and Coriolanus, and,
it may be, Peter and Paul
The chaste Lucretian must have trod
those stones, and Brutus's heroic Portia the
mobile 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 vet,