chool-book lore as to
"Claudius" and the "fourth century" and the "residence of Roman
Emperors," but when it rains Bishops and Archbishops and Electors we
fly before them. For, after all, what signifies the paltry learning of
a dry-as-dust dominie compared with the vivid tales these grand old
ruins tell if suffered to speak for themselves? In Treves people need
to absorb silently, and then assimilate undisturbed by weary chatter.
One looks at the tender turquoise sky, flecked with luminous clouds;
at the fine horizontal distance, with its sense of breadth and
breathing-space; at the low hills covered with vines; at the
cornfields, and orchards, and river--and we wonder what the old Romans
thought of it all, and reflect on the strangeness of life that a
people so remote from our times should have lived and loved and died,
as we live and love and die to-day. Whether Treves lie on the right or
left bank of the Moselle is immaterial except to the tiresomely
precise or to those who pin their faith to guide-books and such
shallow teachers. There is a more valuable lesson to be learnt of the
place than that of its exact situation; and no Baedeker or Murray can
help you to appreciate Treves as quiet communings with your own
intelligence will. If it so happens that you have none to commune
with, then God help you--and yours!

In Treves you have not far to go in search of the Romans. Their
_magnum opus_ confronts you boldly at the very threshold of the town.
Solid and massive and symmetrical, it stands a pregnant lesson to the
jerry-builders of to-day. There is little affinity indeed between the
building methods of the ancient Romans and those of their trade whose
sorry, pitiable record exists in the Quartiere Nuovo of Rome. About
the Porta Nigra is no trace of stucco or rubble. The huge blocks of
which it is built stand one upon the other clean-hewn and square. No
signs of mortar are left, but we see marks of iron or brass clamps.
Its colour is a warm, deep red, softened here and there by streaks of
green.

The Porta Nigra has passed through strange phases since first it
started in life as a city gate. Obviously built for purposes of
fortification, and equipped with towers of defence, its second phase
was an ecclesiastical one, and the "spears" were indeed turned into
"pruning-hooks" when the bellicose propugnaculum found itself
transformed into a church.

"Last scene of all,
That ends this str