alth of genius within him, but he had not learned, before he was
killed by criticism, the received, and, therefore, the best manner of
producing it for the eye of the world. Had he lived longer, the strength
and richness which break continually through the affected style of
"Endymion" and "Lamia" and his other poems, must have formed themselves
into some noble monuments of his powers. As it is, there is not a poet
living who could surpass the material of his "Endymion"--a poem, with
all its faults, far more full of beauties. But this is not the place for
criticism. He is buried fitly for a poet, and sleeps beyond criticism
now. Peace to his ashes!

EXCURSIONS NEAR ROME[25]

BY CHARLES DICKENS

The excursions in the neighborhood of Rome are charming, and would be
full of interest were it only for the changing views they afford of the
wild Campagna. But every inch of ground in every direction is rich in
associations, and in natural beauties. There is Albano, with its lovely
lake and wooded shore, and with its wine, that certainly has not
improved since the days of Horace, and in these times hardly justifies
his panegyric. There is squalid Tivoli, with the river Anio, diverted
from its course, and plunging down, headlong, some eighty feet in search
of it, with its picturesque Temple of the Sibyl, perched high on a crag;
its minor waterfalls glancing and sparkling in the sun; and one good
cavern yawning darkly, where the river takes a fearful plunge and shoots
on, low down under beetling rocks.

There, too, is the Villa d'Este, deserted and decaying among groves of
melancholy pine and cypress-trees, where it seems to lie in state. Then,
there is Frascati, and, on the steep above it, the ruins of Tusculum,
where Cicero lived, and wrote, and adorned his favorite house (some
fragments of it may yet be seen there), and where Cato was born. We saw
its ruined amphitheater on a gray, dull day, when a shrill March wind
was blowing, and when the scattered stones of the old city lay strewn
about the lonely eminence, as desolate and dead as the ashes of a
long-extinguished fire.

One day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteen
miles distant; possest by a great desire to go there by the ancient
Appian Way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started at half-past
seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were out upon the open
Campagna. For twelve miles we went climbing on, over an unbroken
success