for these matchless specimens of humanity. At length, then, I had found a

consolation. I had not vainly sought the storied precincts of Rome--I had

discovered a medicine for my many and vital wounds.

I sat at the foot of these vast columns. The Coliseum, whose naked ruin is

robed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in the sunlight on my

right. Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the Capitol. Triumphal

arches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed the ground at my feet. I

strove, I resolved, to force myself to see the Plebeian multitude and lofty

Patrician forms congregated around; and, as the Diorama of ages passed

across my subdued fancy, they were replaced by the modern Roman; the Pope,

in his white stole, distributing benedictions to the kneeling worshippers;

the friar in his cowl; the dark-eyed girl, veiled by her mezzera; the

noisy, sun-burnt rustic, leading his heard of buffaloes and oxen to the

Campo Vaccino. The romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbow

hues of sky and transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow the

Italians, replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity. I remembered the dark

monk, and floating figures of "The Italian," and how my boyish blood had

thrilled at the description. I called to mind Corinna ascending the Capitol

to be crowned, and, passing from the heroine to the author, reflected how

the Enchantress Spirit of Rome held sovereign sway over the minds of the

imaginative, until it rested on me--sole remaining spectator of its

wonders.

I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pauseless flight;

and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round this spot,

605

The Last Man