Helen. ON certing subjects I jest know: There's gals an' gals, I say, BRIC-A-BRAC. An' the purtiest-don't care where you go- Them ankles, round as a rollin'-pin; A leetle color on her cheek, I'm there, right there, when you're talkin' heart An' this 'ere women-pickin'. We learnt together. At a book I hed n't no special sconce, But in lickin's 'stead o' her, I took The ruler more than once. I'd danced long wi' her rether reg'lar, Fact, I hev heerd 't was feared I'd shake I'd helped her folks at killin'-time, As I said, we started head an' head, At last, my dander up, I said, So, 'rangin' on 't some evenin's prev'ous, To this 'ere time, to put it nice, 'Cept I'd kissed her onct or twice, The grays, I swings! they made things whistle, A-gittin' to the Fair; An', like a gold finch on a thistle, She sot beside me square. As I was sayin', the grays warn't lazy, It ain't my style-doin' things by halves, We took all in, from the colts an' calves Ball butter, punkins two foot thro', Turnips, an' cheese, an' honey, Pink-eyes, rag carpets, an' patch quilts too- I scattered the coppers; an' my pile, We heerd the speech an' lots o' the band, We made a day on 't: see all the stock, 'Thout any compound fractur's. The Goddess. (DEDICATED TO T. B. ALDRICH.) "A MAN should live in a garret aloof, And have few friends and go poorly clad, With an old hat stopping a chink in the roof To keep the Goddess constant and glad." So thought the poet and so thought I. A garret I found me without delay, And hung a picture of lurid gloom Dante and Virgil, by G. Doré. But the saddest picture by far in the room Was the one I made, with my bottle of ink Spinning a verse with a thread of thought And still I fear to come again, And half misdoubt my wondrous gain; While the wind blew fresh through the hat and And half misdoubt that I have dreamed thou didst chink. not say me nay. THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. No. 3. VOL. XXXV. JANUARY, 1888. THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. BAPTISM OF CHRIST. (FROM CRYPT OF LUCINA. ACCORDING TO ROSSI AND ROLLER.) AMONG the many objects of interest which claim the attention of visitors to Rome re the Catacombs, or subterranean cemeeries of the early Christians, outside of the ity walls. They attract alike the archæoloist, the historian, and the theologian. It is Ow more than fourteen hundred years since he celebrated scholar and monk, St. Jerome, he translator of the Latin Bible, then a stuent at Rome, used to visit that vast necropos with his friends on Sundays to quicken his devotion by the sight of the tombs of martyrs nd confessors from the times of persecution. There," he says, "in subterranean depths the passes to and fro between the bodies of those that are buried on both sides of the galleries, and where all is so dark that the prophecy is fulfilled, The living go down ino Hades.' Here and there a ray from above, not falling in through a window, but only pressing in through a crevice, softens the gloom. As you go onward, it fades away, and visitor in the darkness of night which surrounds you The same impression is made in our days, only the darkness is deeper and the tombs are emptied of their treasures; yet the air is filled with the associations of the past when heathen Rome and Christian Rome were engaged in deadly conflict which ended in the triumph of the cross. Not many years after the days of Jerome, who died at Bethlehem in 420, the Catacombs were virtually closed and disappeared from the memory of the Christian world. The barbarian invasions of Alaric, Genseric, Ricimer, Vitiges, Totila, and the Lombards turned the Eternal City again and again into a heap of ruins and destroyed many valuable treasures of classical and Christian art. The pious barbarism of relic-hunters robbed the graves of martyrs and saints, real and imaginary, of their bones and ornaments and transferred them to the Pantheon and churches and chapels for more convenient worship. Cartloads of relics were sold to credulous and superstitious foreigners. In the year 1578 they were unexpectedly brought to light again, and created as great an interest in the Christian world as the discovery of long-lost Pompeii and Herculaneum in the eighteenth, and the discovery of Nineveh and Babylon, Mycena and Troy, in the nineteenth century. Some laborers in a vineyard on the Via Salaria, digging pozzolana, came upon an old subterranean cemetery ornamented with fresco paintings, sculptured sarcophagi, and Greek and Latin inscriptions. "On that day," says De' Rossi, "was born the name and the knowledge of Roma Sotterranea." A new chapter of ancient church history was opened, Copyright, 1887, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved. |