II.

The Forum and the Capitol by Night-"In Memoriam "—Legends of the Church of the Ara Coeli-A Scrap of Contemporary History.

I

LEFT the party with whom I had visited the Coli

seum deep in discussion touching a certain emperor's supposed admiration for an English lady, who, if report speaks true, would have had no objection to re-enact the rôle of the Montespan or the Pompadour. The French ladies had been charmed with the coloured lights and a game of hide-and-seek with the count in the lower gallery. Every one was talking. I pined for solitude, and wandered off along the Sacred Way towards the Forum. Once out of reach of the ladies' shrill voices, not a sound broke the solemn stillness of the night. The moon, yet high in the heavens, cast down her "dim religious light; " the stars shone out, leading the mind to other worlds, more glorious perchance than our own ; the night breezes blew softly by, heavy with perfume. How was it? Suddenly a cloud came before my eyes, the present vanished, and I was again at the old home, the sunny home where I was born. How my heart

swelled as I gazed at the bright English woods of living oak, and the terraced garden sloping to the sun, where I played as a child! And there were the verandah and the dear round room, and the books, and the armchair, and one that was wont to sit in it, so fondly loved, so hardly parted from-one whom I never shall see again! Her eyes were turned upon me with an earnest mother's glance, and I felt her soft hand. But hold, my tears!-the vision had fled, and my soul sickened to think it was a dream! But oh! the depths of household memories, the deep, thrilling chords of unutterable love that were struck in that brief instant of my spirit's wandering!

Opposite the Coliseum, on a low hill, stands a lonely portico, its altar broken and its statue gone, once forming part of the magnificent temple designed and built by Adrian, and dedicated to Venus and to Rome. A forest of stately arcades on either side united the double portico elevated on marble steps, conceived by the imperial architect as an improvement on the design of the famous Apollodorus, whose skill had roused his envy, and whose life was afterwards sacrificed by a too honest criticism of the emperor's design. Still, notwithstanding the disapprobation of Apollodorus, no temple in ancient Rome excelled it in grandeur. The remains of the pillared colonnade border the

Sacred Way-that way still paved with the identical great blocks of stone worn by the chariot-wheels of old Rome! What a world of recollections does it not evoke! What tears have fallen here what glory passed by! How many joyful feet have rushed along it what noble blood has soiled it! Here passed the Emperors Augustus, Nero, Tiberius, Caligula, Domitian, gods and priests, to offer sacrifices in the great temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, "supremely great and good," followed by the most gorgeous trains the sun ever shone upon. Here passed the triumphant generals and commanders seated in burnished chariots of gold-Trajan and Titus and Julius Cæsar, Pompey and Sylla, and so many others, crowned with martial laurels won from barbarian nations whose names the world scarce knew-bearing the front of celestial Jove himself in their high pride, as the voices of assembled thousands proclaimed them "saviours of their country," and saluted the victorious legions in their train. Slowly and wearily over those great stones long lines of captives dragged their clanking chains. Here passed the sainted Apostles Peter and Paul to the damp vaults of the Mamertine prison; and here the captive Jews, chained to the car of victorious Titus, licked the dust before the Roman plebeians. And if tears have fallen, blood has also been spilt. The

aged Galba tottered along it towards the Milliarum Aureum, when, regardless of his grey hairs, the savage soldiers mercilessly massacred him, opposite the Forum, in face of the Roman people, who dared not raise a voice to stay the cruel deed. Vitellius, too, was dragged half clothed along the Sacred Way, like a beast to be slaughtered in the shambles. Here in early times the wicked Tullia drove in her chariot to the Forum, where sat her husband Lucius, the murderer of her father, whom she saluted king. Here Messalina, proud as Juno, flaunted her voluptuous charms and perfumed vestments. Lucretia's footsteps often pressed these stones when, still a proud and happy wife, she passed to sacrifice in the temple. of Juno, where none but the chastest matrons dared to enter. Out by hence Volumnia and Virgilia sped, fired with the high resolve of saving prostrate Rome; and here, too, on her way to school, went young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome,

"With her small tablets in her hand,
And her satchel on her arm."

The elegant Horace himself tells us he loved to saunter here and criticise the passing scene; and Cicero, with his imperious wife, Terentia-and Catullus and Tacitus-and Livy, all in their day traversed this great world-thoroughfare, ever ebbing and flowing

with multitudes from the basilicas, the temples, the forums, and the circus that bordered its sides; those sides where stood strange uncouth elephants of bronze side by side with the statue of Horatius, who nobly held the bridge against the Etruscan army-one man's arm against a host-and of the brave maiden Clolia, who, rather than dwell longer in the camp of her country's enemies, trusted herself and her companions to the waters of Father Tiber, "to whom the Romans pray.

And now I have reached the Forum. How lovely it is here under this mild and tempered light! No harsh lines-no rude contrasts-no incongruous colours now break the spell that haunts the scene of the mighty past. The lonely marble pillars stand out clear and bright, linking together historic memories of the palladian splendour with which it was once adorned. Lofty arches appear, bearing no marks of decay, but fresh and snowy as when first dug from the marble quarries ; and deep porticoes cast long shadows over the modern buildings, which now shrink back, ashamed to obtrude on this honoured ground haunted by the memories of grand and heroic deeds, and consecrated in the world's historic page above any other spot on God's wide earth, It is an awful and a solemn thing to visit the valley of the Forum by night; the darkness of ages and the dim