s
own well-liveried menials. "Adieu, then! we shall meet soon."

"Ay, at Philippi, my Lord. Reverend Father, your blessing!"

It was some time subsequent to this conference that Rienzi quitted the
sacred edifice. As he stood on the steps of the church--now silent and
deserted--the hour that precedes the brief twilight of the South lent
its magic to the view. There he beheld the sweeping arches of the mighty
Aqueduct extending far along the scene, and backed by the distant and
purpled hills. Before--to the right--rose the gate which took its
Roman name from the Coelian Mount, at whose declivity it yet stands.
Beyond--from the height of the steps--he saw the villages scattered
through the grey Campagna, whitening in the sloped sun; and in the
furthest distance the mountain shadows began to darken over the roofs
of the ancient Tusculum, and the second Alban (The first Alba--the Alba
Longa--whose origin Fable ascribes to Ascanius, was destroyed by Tullus
Hostilius. The second Alba, or modern Albano, was erected on the plain
below the ancient town, a little before the time of Nero.) city, which
yet rises, in desolate neglect, above the vanished palaces of Pompey and
Domitian.

The Roman stood absorbed and motionless for some moments, gazing on the
scene, and inhaling the sweet balm of the mellow air. It was the soft
springtime--the season of flowers, and green leaves, and whispering
winds--the pastoral May of Italia's poets: but hushed was the voice of
song on the banks of the Tiber--the reeds gave music no more. From the
sacred Mount in which Saturn held his home, the Dryad and the Nymph, and
Italy's native Sylvan, were gone for ever. Rienzi's original nature--its
enthusiasm--its veneration for the past--its love of the beautiful and
the great--that very attachment to the graces and pomp which give so
florid a character to the harsh realities of life, and which power
afterwards too luxuriantly developed; the exuberance of thoughts
and fancies, which poured itself from his lips in so brilliant and
inexhaustible a flood--all bespoke those intellectual and imaginative
biasses, which, in calmer times, might have raised him in literature to
a more indisputable eminence than that to which action can ever lead;
and something of such consciousness crossed his spirit at that moment.

"Happier had it been for me," thought he, "had I never looked out from
my own heart upon the world. I had all within me that makes contentment
of t