Bonaparte, the mother of the plebeian Charlemagne, that ruler who, if fate had spared him, would have really established throughout Italy "lo buon stato," of which poor Rienzi dreamed. The silent halls are gloomy in deep shadows, as though sympathising with the sorrows of the modern Niobe, who saw her children drop off one by one in the flower of their age-last of all, that grandson hailed king of this Rome, whose cupolas he never beheld glowing in the southern sunshine, for before he knew the city he was intended to rule, death had cut the thread of his short span. Deep melancholy hangs over all the reminiscences of the imperial family at Rome; even at this hour its representative, Prince Canino, is an exile from its walls.

But I have been tempted to linger on my road, and at this rate shall never complete, as I desire, the day that I have chalked out. Let us on to the Aventine, once divided from the Palatine and the Capitoline Hills, in the days when history was young, by a marsh so profound that the plebes of Rome could only reach their favourite hill in boats; on we go, skirting the open ground, where stands the Temple of Vesta, the prettiest ruin perhaps in the world, its base washed by the Tiber-and the church, known as the Bocca della Verità, once a temple dedicated to Ceres, mounting an ascent, up the steep side of the Aventine, where none but Roman horses could have kept their footing, to say nothing of dragging a heavy carriage after them. I was extremely alarmed at finding our centre of gravity so utterly unsupported; but as the Italian coachman Carlo only laughed at my fears, and declared it would be personally a "vergogna" towards himself if I did not allow him to proceed, I was fain to sit still and resign myself to my fate. Arrived at the summit, horrid, envious walls rose up, bordering the lonely lanes, opening out in various directions; not a soul appeared-not a sound was heard, save the busy hum of men below, blended with the rushing waters of the Tiber. Above all was solitude and desolation-ruins-and their very remains have passed away-destruction and time have not spared a stone. The Aventine possesses only suggestive recollections. Instead of being crowned by the sacred Grove dedicated to the Furies, it is belted by a noble zone of churches, which I proposed to visit. The walls, however, were abominable; for aught I know Cacus and his cavern may have been hid by the enclosures, but they were impenetrable, and I could only dismount and dream of Hercules and his victory over the ancient monster, and remember the unpropitious augury of Remus, and rebuild in my own mind the magnificent shrines and temples that once uprose on this hill, in honour of Diana, erected by the united Latin tribes in emulation of her great fane at Ephesus-the stately edifices in honour of Juno, and of the Bona Dea, who sat enthroned, crowned with her mural coronet. It was on the Aventine that the last Gracchus retired to die-that Marius was born-and more interesting still, that the second separation of the senate from the people occurred after the death of Virginia in the Forum. Those words of fire had no sooner been pronounced by Virginius holding aloft the knife still streaming with the maiden's blood, by which he dedicated the soul of Appius to the infernal gods, than the plebeians, goaded to madness by the outrage offered them by the Tribune, in the person of Virginia, retired to the Aventine, but not before the body of the slaughtered maiden had been borne in solemn procession through the city, followed by the Roman matrons and damsels throwing

flowers, jewels, and even their own hair, as offerings to her offended

manes.

Virginius, on returning to Rome from Mount Algidum with the legions which had revolted from the kingly dominion by his persuasion, forming the nucleus of the future republic, encamped on the Aventine. Here, too, were situated those once beautiful Horti Serviliani, in whose groves Nero took refuge when he fled from his golden house during the sedition that cost him his life. The Tiber lay invitingly at his feet, as it winds round the abrupt slopes of the Aventine, and he determined to end his life by a plunge in its waters; but, pusillanimous and undecided, he, who was unworthy to live, wanted courage to die!

Would that the lonely vineyards around could have upheaved and discovered the ruins which long centuries have confided to their bosoms! Not a vestige was here to assist the imagination; and the lettuces and endive sprouted, and cabbages swelled, under the pale olive-trees, in the most provokingly common-place manner, as if to drive away all classical enthusiasm.

Along the centre of the hill extends a broad road, where stand three churches-San Sabina, San Alessio, and the Priorato-without a doubt erected on the site of Pagan temples. San Alessio was hermetically sealed, but I penetrated into its neighbour (only divided from it by a garden) and entered a cortile, within which stands the dignified but modern-looking church of Santa Sabina, on the supposed site of the temple of Juno Regina. It might have served as a portico to the city of the dead, so desolate was its aspect. Grass grew in the cortile, and moss had gathered round the columns. Unbroken silence prevailed: the very birds were silent, and I felt actually afraid of waking the melancholy echoes by pulling a bell at one of the great doors. An inscription over the door, in mosaic, informed me that the church stood on the site of Santa Sabina's house, who suffered martyrdom at Rome during the persecution of Adrian. A church was erected to her honour as early as the year 430. Sabina was an Umbrian widow, noble and wealthy, who became a Christian through the zealous teaching of her maid Seraphina, by birth a Syrian. These details were highly interesting while contemplating the church, although to those at a distance they may possibly appear trite and unpalatable.

After waiting some time for in Italy patience becomes one of those cardinal virtues one is forced daily to practise-a boy appeared and opened the church, a fine large building of the Basilica form, but exceedingly damp and chilly, with scarcely a vestige of antiquity remaining, so completely has Sixtus V. renovated it. In a side chapel is one of the most beautiful pictures in Rome, the "Virgin of the Rosario," painted by Sassofenato, which, being hung in a good light, is seen with every possible advantage. It is a sweet and most delicately beautiful composition, coloured with a transparent clearness worthy of Raphael. Well may it be called a perfect jewel; it reminded me of those pretty verses (a remnant of the republic) addressing the Virgin as—

Maria della bionda testa

I capelli son fila d'oro,
Rimirando quel bel tesoro,
Tutti gli angeli fan festa.

The Virgin, a beautiful creature, though not too much idealised,

draped in red, presents the infant Saviour to San Dominico and San Catarina of Siena, who, habited as a nun, kneels at her feet. There is a sweet youthfulness and freshness in the figure of the saint extremely touching; a sort of devotional abandon in her prostrate attitude full of expression. Beautiful angels, graceful as Albano's Cupids, hover above, bearing a red flag or drapery over the Virgin, harmonising agreeably with her robe, and a white lily lies at her feet. Long could I have gazed on that picture had not the damp cold of the church warned me to withdraw.

The ignorant boy, my custode, knew nothing; but, like Jim in "Bleak House," had a determined idea "of moving on." At first I thought he was an idiot, but discovered that he was French-some offshoot from the regiment quartered in the monastery, who were smoking and lounging about in the cloisters whither he led us, incessantly jabbering some unintelligible patois. Tradition says, that within the garden stands an olivetree, planted by St. Dominic during his residence here, after leaving San Sixto near the Porta Sebastiana, a convent he gave up to some vagrant nuns who had wandered somewhat too freely before he undertook the reform of their order.

I left the church and wandered forth along the summit of the Aventine, silent and musing as all nature around. The sun shone hotly, though in January; and there was that deathlike repose peculiar to midday in Italy. I strolled into the open cancello of a villa, and followed a dark walk of overarching box and ilex, on to a stone terrace overlooking the city, which lay at my feet, divided by the river into two unequal portions. There was the Ponte Rotto, now broken no longer, as a handsome iron suspension bridge connects the old Roman arches yawning on either side of the river. Beyond, in the centre of the current, was the island of the Tiber, with its shiplike prow, still evidencing the artificial appearance of a vessel which the ancient Romans had given to the spot where stood the once magnificent temple of Esculapius. On the opposite or Trastevere side, gardens filled with richly-laden orange and lemon trees enlivened the long sombre lines of the houses, flinging back the sun's rays, and lighting up the bright globes of fruit that clustered on the dark boughs-the Janiculum backing the prospect broken by villas and casinos, with here and there a solitary pine-tree.

The church of the Priorato is situated in this romantic garden, belonging now to Cardinal Marini, and incorporated into his villa. Within the church, its walls all white as the driven snow, lie the monumental effigies of the knights of Malta in full armour, carved in marble, stretched in stern repose, each on his funereal pile. What recollections of daring courage and chivalric devotion to a noble cause does not this solitary spot, consecrated to the heroic dead, suggest! No names mark the restingplaces of these once valiant warriors; but in the heavenly chronicle preserved above their memories may not be forgotten. All hail to these gallant knights, sleeping tranquilly their last slumber on the silent Aventine!

The woman custode threw open the wide entrance-door, and a glorious view burst into sight. Rome was invisible, but the windings of the Tiber through the leafy groves called Campi del Popolo Romano, and the desolate Monte Testaccio, surmounted by a single cross, occupied the foreground. Beyond lay the low, marshy Campagna towards Ostia,

broken by the magnificent Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mino, surrounded by vineyards and gardens-the trees just bursting into snowy blossoms. All save this bright spot was indescribably melancholy. In the surrounding plain, redolent of malaria, ruin, decay, and pestilence unite to form a wilderness terrible in summer both to man and beast. The wind sighed gently as it rose from the plain, fanning the deep woods of the garden, like the voice of nature mourning over the desolation of this once rich and pleasant land.

I turned into a little pasture in the surrounding garden, where grew an immense date-tree, at whose foot ran a little streamlet, issuing from a broken fountain disfigured by some mutilated god of ancient Rome, now shorn of his fair proportions, sans nose, sans mouth, sans eyes, sans everything," as the melancholy Jacques says. By this time the whole population of the custode's family having gathered round the forestiera lady, all repeating the usual cry of "Danmi qualche cosa," I beat a rapid

retreat.

The roads along the Aventine, now mounting up, then dashing down, covered with rough masses of unbroken rubbish, would be the despair of any but Roman coachmen, who possess the art of teaching their horses to climb like cats. Down at last we jolted into a deep hollow at the back of the Forum, to a dirty, miserable open space, where the wretched malefactors of revolutionary Rome are executed. A more dreary place to die in car. scarcely be conceived; and I felt such a horror of the locality and its sanguinary reminiscences, that for a moment the very puddles looked filled with blood.

It was but a moment, and the intervening walls shut out the dreary arena where crime sighs out its last wretched groan; and I found myself descending into a kind of hole before an ancient church, in my search for the Cloaca Massima, whither I was bound. Beside the church, and much below the level of the surrounding buildings, stands a well-preserved marble arch of square and massive proportions, having four distinct arched entrances, marking the meeting of four ancient highways. Rows of niches, separated from each other by small columns, still remain, indicating where statues once stood; and it has a solid, substantial look, defying even now time and decay. The arch is that of Janus Quadrifons, and the church St. George, whose name, joined to our national cry of " Merrie England," still defies the world, as in ages gone by, when these sounds reached even to the burning Desert, rallying the English knights against the Paynim's power. Times are changed now, and the Crescent and the Cross united under the tutelary patronage of St. George, who still slays his dragon on creaking signs that swing before public-houses where lonely cross-roads meet, deeply embosomed in the leafy lanes of verdant England, undismayed by the mishaps which have made him acquainted with such strange bedfellows in his public line of life.

Close beside the church (a grotesque old pile, sinking into motherearth out of sheer weakness and old age) stands another arch, almost incorporated into the building, richly decorated with arabesques and frescoes, erected to Septimus Severus by the bankers and tradesmen of the city. On one side appears the Emperor with his consort Julia, on the other their sons Geta and Caracalla, though the figure of the former has been effaced by order of the brother, who so barbarously caused his death.

Here was a rich old corner that detained me some time, but no Cloaca could I discover, and the solitude was almost unbroken by the appearance of even a beggar. I was just going away in despair, when I was attracted towards a pretty garden in which some labourers were working. On my asking where was the Cloaca, a man, with an expressive Italian gesture, indicating his knowledge of what I asked, led me along a little pathway to a screen of orange-trees skirting a bank, from whence the ground fell rapidly towards a deep watery ditch, penetrating the adjoining houses through an arch, precisely as a stream passes under a mill. "Ecco," said he, "la Cloaca."

The place swarmed with washerwomen, who scrub perpetually at small reservoirs in the thickness of the wall under the massive vaults once the pride of Rome.

I was infinitely disappointed, and could only marvel at the high trumpetings conveyed in the sound and fame-of a name, nothing but a name -which leads half Europe to gaze on an impure ditch! It is all very well for books and antiquarians to tell us that those blocks of stone are of Etruscan architecture, and were hewn and constructed in the time of Tarquinius Priscus V., king of Rome, and give us long details of the draining of the marshy ground between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills effected by this giant ditch. Rome is quite dirty and damp enough down here to make all this comprehensible, but does not alter the fact that the much-extolled Cloaca, through which, Strabo says, a waggon loaded with hay might once pass, must now be classed as one of the many disagreeable objects from which one turns disgusted away.

While I stood gazing on the scene around, a Cistercian monk entered the garden, dressed in white with the red and blue cross peculiar to the order conspicuous on his breast. He had spied me out, and came to ask for "Elemosina," that universal chorus of the modern Roman tongue. He was a venerable-looking old man, and I fell into conversation with

him.

"You are English?" said he.

I owned the soft impeachment. "You are a Catholic?"

"No," replied I.

"Are there," said he, "many convents in England?"

Very few," said I, "and we wish that there were still fewer. Monks may be very well here-in questo paese-but we are too active and busy in the north to admire them."

"Alas!" said he, with a sigh, "la Madonna vi aiuta!-Our great convent," continued he, "is in France; there are none of our order in England, dove per lo più so bene che ci sono pochi Cristiani"-(where indeed I know there are scarcely any Christians)-such being the opinion Catholics entertain of us when they speak frankly of us, who esteem ourselves as the lamps of the world, the sun and centre of moral civilisation! We are not even Christians! O miserere!

In this obscure neighbourhood are the now nearly invisible remains of the Cerchio Massimo, under the shadow of the Palatine, which rises abruptly aloft, crowned with the stupendous ruins of the palace of the Cæsars. The Cerchio, situated in a vale between that hill and the Aventine, must ever be interesting as the well-known site of the rape of the