f in my calendar of life. In thinking over it now, and drawing
out the threads of recollection from the varied woof of thought I have
woven to-day, I almost wonder how I dared so much at once; but within
reach of them all, how was it possible to wait? Let me give a sketch of
our day's ramble.

Hearing that it was better to visit the ruins by evening or moonlight,
(alas! there is no moon now) we started out to hunt St. Peter's. Going
in the direction of the Corso, we passed the ruined front of the
magnificent Temple of Antoninus, now used as the Papal Custom House. We
turned to the right on entering the Corso, expecting to have a view of
the city from the hill at its southern end. It is a magnificent street,
lined with palaces and splendid edifices of every kind, and always
filled with crowds of carriages and people. On leaving it, however, we
became bewildered among the narrow streets--passed through a market of
vegetables, crowded with beggars and contadini--threaded many by-ways
between dark old buildings--saw one or two antique fountains and many
modern churches, and finally arrived at a hill.

We ascended many steps, and then descending a little towards the other
side, saw suddenly below us the _Roman Forum_! I knew it at once--and
those three Corinthian columns that stood near us--what could they be
but the remains of the temple of Jupiter Stator? We stood on the
Capitoline Hill; at the foot was the Arch of Septimus Severus, brown
with age and shattered; near it stood the majestic front of the Temple
of Fortune, its pillars of polished granite glistening in the sun, as if
they had been erected yesterday, while on the left the rank grass was
waving from the arches and mighty walls of the Palace of the Caesars! In
front, ruin upon ruin lined the way for half a mile, where the Coliseum
towered grandly through the blue morning mist, at the base of the
Esquiline Hill!

Good heavens, what a scene! Grandeur, such as the world never saw, once
rose through that blue atmosphere; splendor inconceivable, the spoils of
a world, the triumphs of a thousand armies had passed over that earth;
minds which for ages moved the ancient world had thought there, and
words of power and glory, from the lips of immortal men, had been
syllabled on that hallowed air. To call back all this on the very spot,
while the wreck of what once was, rose mouldering and desolate around,
aroused a sublimity of thought and feeling too powerful for words.