the
sublime spirit of the scene. The roused bard might here pour forth his
thoughts in the wildest climaces, and I could believe he felt it all.
This is like the Italy of my dreams--that golden realm whose image has
been nearly chased away by the earthly reality. I expected to find a
land of light and beauty, where every step crushed a flower or displaced
a sunbeam--whose very air was poetic inspiration, and whose every scene
filled the soul with romantic feelings. Nothing is left of my picture
but the far-off mountains, robed in the sapphire veil of the Ausonian
air, and these ruins, amid whose fallen glory sits triumphant the spirit
of ancient song.

I have seen the flush of morn and eve rest on the Coliseum; I have seen
the noon-day sky framed in its broken loopholes, like plates of polished
sapphire; and last night, as the moon has grown into the zenith, I went
to view it with her. Around the Forum all was silent and spectral--a
sentinel challenged us at the Arch of Titus, under which we passed and
along the Caesar's wall, which lay in black shadow. Dead stillness
brooded around the Coliseum; the pale, silvery lustre streamed through
its arches, and over the grassy walls, giving them a look of shadowy
grandeur which day could not bestow. The scene will remain fresh in my
memory forever.

CHAPTER XLI.

TIVOLI AND THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.

_Jan. 9._--A few days ago we returned from an excursion to Tivoli, one
of the loveliest spots in Italy. We left the Eternal City by the Gate of
San Lorenzo, and twenty minutes walk brought us to the bare and bleak
Campagna, which was spread around us for leagues in every direction.
Here and there a shepherd-boy in his woolly coat, with his flock of
browsing sheep, were the only objects that broke its desert-like
monotony.

At the fourth mile we crossed the rapid Anio, the ancient Teverone,
formerly the boundary between Latium and the Sabine dominions, and at
the tenth, came upon some fragments of the old Tibertine way, formed of
large irregular blocks of basaltic lava. A short distance further, we
saw across the plain the ruins of the bath of Agrippa, built by the side
of the Tartarean Lake. The wind, blowing from it, bore us an
overpowering smell of sulphur; the waters of the little river Solfatara,
which crosses the road, are of a milky blue color, and carry those of
the lake into the Anio. A fragment of the old bridge over it still
remains.

Finding the water quite w