under the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and the mossy
walls and towers now mouldering and desolate which formed the circuit of
ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered
even in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with
death," he added, "to think of being buried in so sweet a place."

[Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLA, PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS, ROME
_Page 216_]

In the old cemetery (immediately adjoining the pyramid and separated
from the new one by a wall) is the grave of Keats (who died in 1821)
with its unique inscription, "Here lies one whose name was writ in
water." Beside it is that of his friend, Joseph Severn, who died in
1829, and near these the grave of John Bell, the famous writer on
surgery and anatomy. In the new or more modern cemetery the visitor
lingers by the graves of Shelley and his friend, Trelawney; August
Goethe (the son of the poet); of William and Mary Howitt, who died in
1879 and 1888. Not merely, however, do the names of Keats and Shelley
allure the visitor to poetic meditations; but here lie the earthly forms
of many a poet, painter, and sculptor of our own country, with their
wives and children, who have sought in the Eternal City the
atmosphere for art and who, enamoured by the loveliness of Rome,
continued there for all their remaining years. These graves, these
sculptured memorials, are eloquent with the joys, the sorrows, the
achievements and the failures, the success and the defeat, of the
artistic life in a foreign land. Many of these memorial sculptures are
the work of the husband or the father, into which is inseparably joined
the personal tenderness to the artist's skill. Especially noticeable are
the graves of the wives of three American sculptors,--William Wetmore
Story, Richard S. Greenough, and Franklin Simmons. Each of these is
marked by a memorial sculpture created by the husband, and the three
different conceptions of these sculptors are interesting to contrast.
That of Mr. Story is of an angel with outspread wings, kneeling, her
head bowed in the utter despair and desolation of hopeless sorrow. The
figure has the greatest delicacy of beauty and refinement and
tenderness; but it is the grief that has no support of faith, the grief
that has no vision of divine consolation. On the memorial monument is
simply the name, Emelyn Story, born in Boston, 1820, died in Rome in
1898, and the note that it is the last work of W