nent even now. From almost any part one may range in vision far to the south, from the Coliseum, the Campagna, the pyramid of Cestius, the Sepulchre of Metella, even to the Albanian and Tusculan hills. Below us-far below, are the Farnese Gardens, elegantly laid off. Under us, wherein were enacted scenes of power, whose effect flashed from the Thames to the Danube, you may find peasants in long coarse shirts, sweating under the hot hay which they are lugging into the stables! Fortune turns her ver-shifting wheel, the king goes down, the peasant up! 15. FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA. How refreshingly different in fact and association is the fountain of Egeria, which we visited shortly after. Through freshly-mowed fields of hay, over gentle undulations, and under cordial umbrage of orchard trees, we found our way into the vale of Numa's nymph. Turning around a hill, and passing down, we stand pleased to hear the dripping and gushing of water. Farther along, and we see under an overhanging hill of foliage and flowers, the classic fountain. Its presiding goddess is broken, but her reclining form is still visible. Stone paves surround her, upon which the lucid lymph gushes and sprays. Of course we drank the water. We would not show the least disrespect to the spirit of Nature, which Numa quaffed in such glorious goblets at the hands of the nymph, and from the influence of which Rome received her first great impulse. The eternal "rub-a-dub-DUB” of the French soldiery reminds me, as I write, for the hundredth time, that the people who stole the female Sabines, and respected Numa, have most wretchedly deteriorated. While in Egeria's pleasant vicinage, which brings Ohio to mind at every step, we might describe Metella's tomb, so celebrated by Byron's stanzas. You know how sweetly and touchingly he puts the queries about her incognito as to character, wondering who she was- -"the lady of the dead"-whether she died young in beauty, with the hectic light upon her cheek; or old-surviving all her kindred; and winding up with the unsat isfactory conclusion "Thus much alone we know-Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife. Behold his love or pride!" A conspicuous tomb, ivy-garlanded, 70 feet in diameter, solid with walls 25 feet through-it has stood stronger than the fortresses of power, for nineteen centuries! 16. THE PANTHEON. You must pardon my omitting many lesser beauties, for the Pantheon is the central orb around which all revolve, and by which they all shine. But who is not familiar with the Pantheon? Eighteen centuries ago it was described with admiration. Fire, pillage, flood and rain have wasted their efforts in vain. Its beauty seems destined to be a glory for ever. So perfect are its proportions, that Pagan and Christian, Greek and Vandal, alike found in it the spirit of beauty, which is common to all God's creatures. Hence its singular preservation. It is only 143 feet in diameter, and 143 feet high. The portico is composed of sixteen columns of oriental granite, with capitals and bases of Greek marble. Each column is about 50 feet high. The great bronze doors speak of classic times. The interior of the temple is a rotunda, supporting a dome one half of the height, or 71 feet. Niches surround, which Michael Angelo gracefully converted from places for Pagan deities into places for saints and martyrs. Only one of the old pieces of statuary remains an ancient Vestal, now bedizened with the frippery of jewels, and answering as the presiding saint of a shrine, before which numbers bow in silent adoration. The dome rises majestically, and is divided into square panels, originally covered with bronze. Every thing in the shape of metal has been removed, save the brass ring which supports the aperture above. The effect of this rising dome, and the open space, is very imposing. The clouds are seen floating over the miracle of architecture, like fairy ships in a sea of azure. The eye and the dome swim with them, dizzily entranced. The sunlight, spiritually thin and transparent, slants in beauty through the aperture, and down the swelling dome, illumining a shrine and a marble saint. Apollo seems enamored of the place, and fills it with his presence. The perfection of architecture is said to consist in the ability of the columns to support the entablature; just as that wall is perfect which supports the roof. The idea of utility is connected with that of beauty. Out of their marriage, in "sweet union doubled," springs Harmony. This harmony breathes in the Pantheon. It extends from the portico to the smallest capital; from the largest niche to the nicest tracery; from the swelling: dome to the majestic whole. It is the grace and charm of the Pantheon. It is the fit tomb for Raphael, whose sublime genius towered so finely to-day, as we gazed on his "Transfiguration." His remains are under one of the shrines, before which a ghostly father was saying mass. Annibal Carrachi also lies here in his company. One of the first things which attracted our wonder was, that so large a temple seemingly, should be so small in fact. This is designed. Madame de Stäel says, that it proceeds from the great space between the pillars, and from the air playing so freely within, and still more from the absence of ornament, with which St. Peter's is surcharged. This latter fact will account for the seemingly small appearance of St. Peter's, compared to its actual size. But in the Pantheon every concomitant is present, to make it "Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime,— From Jove to Jesus-spared and blessed by Time; Passing out of the Pantheon, you will find the step to the ridiculous at its door, where an herb-market, a puppet-show, a crowd around a fiddler, and a "natural panram," as our guide termed it, are presented. The hurly-burly of old women, and the chaffering of buyers of cherries, radishes, apricots, etc., rise amid the plash of fountains. Rome is never without these latter beauties. Here, aqueducts are copious and clear. After entering a palace or so-among which is the Rospigliosi, where we saw Guido's splendid fresco of Aurora being copied by several artists we ascend, for a closing view, the Janiculum. 17. THE JANICULUM. We pass by the prison wherein the Republicans are confined; we pass across the Tiber, and through the region inhabited by those who call themselves the descendants of the old Romans. I only saw one of them. He was over six feet without boots-wore baggy, dirty linen pants, and a questionable coat. His head gloried in a red cap. He moved a Roman Ichabod Crane, the ghost of Famine, Campbell's last man, or whatever else you please-only do not call him an old Roman. If you do, burn Tacitus and Plutarch. We ascended into that part of the city where the French and Italians fought. Men are engaged even yet in mending the wall. We can see where it has been breached and patched. The picture which follows but faintly delineates the scene. The so-called palace of Garibaldi, as well as its adjacent buildings, are in ruins. Marks of musket and cannon balls are plenty. In the finest gallery of Rome-the marble room of the Colonna Palace—we saw a cannon ball lying upon a white step, with the marks of its ruin yet apparent in the broken marble. It had entered one of the windows. Every where about Rome, espe cially on the western side, are the marks of no ordinary, nay, of a terrific struggle. We drove up to the fine fountain of the Janiculum; saw far, far down, the French cavalry practising, the colonnades and Basilica of St. Peter's, the Vatican with its rich gardens and palaces, and all around us that Campagna, which seems (as has been beautifully said) to be wasted, as if the earth, fatigued by Glory, disdained to be productive. Passing down, I observed a gravel mound by the road-side, with two rough crosses of wood stuck on it. It was the grave of some four hundred brave fellows, (God bless them, for the priests did not, even refusing them decent burial,) who fell here, defending the young Republic from the invasion of perfidious foes,-foes who should have been friends. May the Avenger-No! Injustice, false and foul, is ever its own Avenger. The human heart contains the whip of scorpions. Think you, no tears water that little mound-no curses are muttered over those rude crosses ! 18. FAREWELL TO ROME. Before leaving Rome, we visited the theatre. It is cheap in price and poor in quality. The box, to the first, is only fifteen cents. It looked odd, that theatre did, under the open sky, with the seats of stone, and a few hundred lazily laughing at a comedy which was only pantomime to us. We could see that it was a love scene, anyhow. Love knows no language, you know. For all that we could understand of what a big-whiskered servant in a Duke's disguise was saying to a pretty Baroness, enamored of his swaggering air, it might have been as well the Kickapoo. Time gallops fast amidst orange groves and picture galleries, ruins and roses, Villas and Vaticans, music and mosaic. As yet the confusion arising from the multiplicity of objects, all intensely interesting, prevents me from giving prominence where all is so beautiful and bewitching. I could as soon tell "which nymph more neatly trips it before Apollo than the rest." We are about to close our sojourn at Rome. Ten days were never as full of incident to us. We have mingled in every variety of life, have recognized our own kind in the smiles and woes of the oppressed and beggared, have spared no effort to renew the great scenes which were here enacted, and no pains to learn the present state of things in this anomalous govern ment. |