ended. Here the
victors paused before making their vows, until the message came from
the Mamertine Prisons below to announce that their noblest prisoner and
victim, while the clang of their triumph and his defeat rose ringing in
his ears as the procession ascended the steps, had expiated with death
the crime of being the enemy of Rome. Over these very steps,--nineteen
centuries ago, the first great Caesar climbed on his knees after his
first triumph. At their base, Rienzi, "last of the Roman tribunes,"
fell. And, if the tradition of the Church is to be trusted, it was on
the site of the present high altar that Augustus erected the "_Ara
primogenito Dei_" to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the coming of
our Saviour. Standing on a spot so thronged with memories, the dullest
imagination takes fire. The forms and scenes of the past rise from their
graves and pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled
together in strange poetic confusion. Truly, as Walpole says, "memory
sees more than our eyes in this country."

And this is one great charm of Rome,--that it animates the dead figures
of its history. On the spot where they lived and acted, the Caesars
change from the manikins of books to living men; and Virgil, Horace, and
Cicero grow to be realities, as we walk down the Sacred Way and over
the very pavement they may once have trod. The conversations "De Claris
Oratoribus" and the "Tusculan Questions" seem like the talk of the last
generation, as we wander on the heights of Tusculum, or over the grounds
of that charming villa on the banks of the Liris, which the great Roman
orator so graphically describes in his treatise "De Legibus." The
landscape of Horace has not changed. Still in the winter you may see
the dazzling peak of the "_gelidus Algidus_" and "_ut alta stet
nive candidum Soracte_"; and wandering at Tivoli in the summer, his
description,

"Domus Albuneae resonantis,
Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobililius pomaria rivis,"

is as true and fresh as if his words were of yesterday. Could one better
his compliment to any Roman Lalage of to-day than to call her "_dulce
ridentem_"? In all its losses, Rome has not lost the sweet smile of its
people. Would you like to know the modern rules for agriculture in Rome,
read the "Georgics"; there is so little to alter, that it is not worth
mentioning. So, too, at Rome, the Emperors become as familiar as the
Popes. Who does not know the curl