grasping my hand a second time, gave it a yet heartier squeeze. I was at a loss to explain this sudden friendship; for I was pretty sure this exceedingly agreeable gentleman had never seen me till that moment. How long this might have lasted

I know not, had not a person in the dogana, compassionating my dullness, stepped up to me, and whispered into my ear to give the searcher a few paulos. I was a little scandalized at this proposal to bribe his Holiness's servant; but I could see no chance otherwise of having the iron gate opened. Accordingly, I got ready the requisite douceur; and, waiting his return, which soon happened, took care to drop the few pauls into his palm at the next squeeze. On the instant the gate

opened.

But alas! I was in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for midnight assassinations, I began to grow a little apprehensive. After wandering about for some time, I lighted on a French sentry, who obligingly led me to a caffé hard by, which is kept open all night. There I found a young German, an artist evidently, who, having finished his coffee, politely volunteered to conduct me to the Hotel d'Angleterre.

CHAPTER XXI.

MODERN ROME.

Tower of Capitol best Site for studying Topography of blance in the Sites of great Cities-Site of Rome-Campa Its Extent and Boundaries-Ancient Fertility and Ma dern Desolation of Campagna-Approach to Rome from Etruria-Solitariness of this once famous HighwayRome-The Flaminian Way-The Porta del PopoloPopolo-Its Antiquities-Pincian Hill-General Plan Corso-The Via Ripetta-The Via Babuina-Populatio tionate Numbers of Priests-Variety of Ecclesiastica Dresses of the various Orders-Their indescribably Filth -The ordinary Priest-The Priest's Face-The Beggarsrangement in its Edifices-Rome an unrivalled Combinatio and Dirt.

ONE of my first days in Rome was passed on the top of the Capitol. It is incomparably the best spot study the topography of the Eternal City, with that rounding region. Here one stands between the living a -between the city of the Cæsars, which lies entom Seven Hills, with the vine, the ivy, and the jessamin its grave, and the city of the Popes, spread out with las, and towers, and everlasting chimes, on the low of the Campus Martius. The world has not suc

sketch the features of the scene as they here present themselves.

We

There would appear to be a law determining the site, as well as the character, of great events. It has often been remarked, that there is a resemblance between all the great battle-fields of the world. One attribute in especial they all possess, namely, that of vastness; inspiring the mind of the spectator with an idea of grandeur, to which the recollection of the carnage of which they were the scene adds a feeling of melancholy. The Troy and the Marathon of the ancient world have found their representative in the modern one, in that gloomy expanse in Flanders where Napoleon witnessed the total defeat of his arms and the final overthrow of his fortunes. would make the same remark regarding great capitals. There is a family likeness in their sites. The chief cities of the ancient world arose, for the most part, on extensive plains, nigh some great river; for rivers were the railroads of early times. I might instance queenly Thebes, which arose in the great valley of the Nile, with a boundary of fine mountains encircling the plain on which it stood. Babylon found a seat on the great plain of Chaldea, on the banks of the Euphrates. Niniveh arose on the same great plain, on the banks of the Tigris, with the glittering line of the snowy Kurdistan chain bounding its horizon. To come down to comparatively modern times, ROME has been equally fortunate with her predecessors in a site worthy of her greatness and renown. No one needs to be told that the seat of that city, which for so many ages held the sceptre of the world, is the CAMPAGNA DI ROMA.

I need not dwell on the magnificence of that truly imperial plain, to which nature has given, in a country of hills, dimensions so goodly. From the foot of the Apennines it runs on

and on for upwards of an hundred miles, till it meets the Neapolitan frontier at Terracina. Its breadth from the Volscian hills to the sea cannot be less than forty miles. Towards the head of this great plain lies Rome, than which a finer site for the capital of a great empire could nowhere have been found. By nature it is most fertile; its climate is delicious. It is watered by the Tiber, which is seen winding through it like a thread of gold. A boundary of glorious hills encloses it on all sides save the south-west. On the south-east are the gentle Volscians, clothed with flourishing woods and sparkling with villas. Running up along the plain, and lying due east of Rome, are the Sabine hills, of a deep azure colour, with a fine mottling of light and shade upon their sides. Shutting in the plain on the north, and sweeping round it in a magnificent bend towards the west, are the craggy and romantic Apennines. Such was the stage on which sat invincible, eternal Rome. This plain was traversed, moreover, by thirty-three highways, which connected the city with every quarter of the habitable globe. Its surface exhibited the richest cultivation. From side to side it was covered with gardens and vineyards, in the verdure and blossoms of an almost perpetual spring; amid which rose the temples of the gods of Rome, the trophies of her warriors, the tombs and monuments of her legislators and orators, and the villas and rural retreats of her senators and merchants. Indeed, this plain would seem, in imperial times, to have been one vast city, stretching out from the white strand of the Mediterranean to the summit of the Volscian hills. But in proportion to its GRANDEUR then is its DESOLATION From the sea to the mountains it lies silent, waste, unploughed, unsown,-a houseless, treeless, blackened wilderness. "Where," you exclaim, "are its highways?" They are blotted

now.

out.

"Where are its temples, its palaces, its vineyards?" All

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way. Scarce a heap remains, to tell of its numerous gnificent structures. Their very ruins are ruined. The ks as if the foot of man had never trodden it, and the man never cultivated it. Here it rises into melanounds; there it sinks into hollows and pits: like that hich God overthrew, it neither is sown nor beareth. habited by the fox, haunted by the brigand, and ed in spring and autumn by a few herdsmen, clad in xins, and living in caves and wigwams, and reminding their savage appearance, of the satyrs of ancient myIt is silent as a sepulchre. John Bunyan might nted it for his " Valley of the Shadow of Death." I suppose that you are approaching Rome from the You have disengaged yourself from the Apennines,uresque Apennines,-in whose sunny vales the vine ns, and on whose sides the olive still lingers. You ncing along a high plateau which rises here and there cal mounts, on which sits some ancient and renowned indled now into a poor village, whose inhabitants are men, and who move about oppressed by the languor ghs upon this whole land. Beneath your feet are nean chambers, in which mailed warriors sleep,-for ancient land of Etruria over which your track lies. he wolf suckled Romulus, this soil had nourished a eroes. The road, so filled in former times by a neveroncourse of legions going forth to battle or returning oh,-of consuls and legates bearing the high behests nate to the subject provinces, and of ambassadors ces coming to sue for peace, or to lay their tributary e feet of Rome,—is now solitary and untrodden, save aveller from a far country, or the cowled and corded vhose vow brings him to the shrine of the apostles.

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