has been adopted. What, indeed, matters it, in so far as the
imagination is concerned, by what emperor, consul, or dictator, these
mighty remains were reared or ruined? Whether these Titanian halls first
echoed to the voices of Pagan or the chant of Christian priests? Whether
this inexplicable labyrinth of vaults and cells, and buried gardens
which overrun the Esquiline, where the work of art and nature is so
strangely melted and fused together by "the alchymy of vegetation,"
really formed part of the golden house of the monstrous Nero; or of the
baths of him, the gentlest of the Caesars, who, when he had gone to rest
without doing a good action, regretted that he had lost a day? Equally
they remain monuments of the grandeur of the minds which gave them
birth; mysterious, suggestive--perhaps the more suggestive, the more
awakening curiosity and interest, from the very obscurity in which their
origin, purposes, or fortunes are shrouded. And if individual
associations become dim or doubtful, they merge in the clear light which
these gigantic fragments, betraying, even in ruin, their original beauty
of proportion and grandeur of conception, throw upon the lofty and
enduring character of the Roman people.

* * * * *

These volumes, then, as we have said, will neither replace Murray, nor
form a substitute for Eustace. Neither is their interest mainly owing to
mere vivid or literal portraiture; by painting in words, as an artist
would do by forms and colours, and enrolling before us a visible
panorama, such as might present a clear image of the scenes described
here to those who had never witnessed them. Their charm--for a charm, we
trust, they will have to a considerable number of readers--arises simply
from the truth with which they seize, and the happy expression in which
they embody, _the spirit of the spot_; marking, by a few expressive
touches, the moral as well as the physical aspect of the scene, and
awakening in the reader a train of associations often novel in
conception, as well as felicitous in expression; but which appear in
general so congenial and appropriate, that we are willing to persuade
ourselves they are a reproduction of thoughts, and dreams, and fancies,
which had occurred to ourselves in contemplating the same objects. Hence
it is to those, who have already witnessed the scenes described, that
these volumes address themselves. They do not paint pictures, but revive
impr