nd only remotely affected, here and there, by the light
of lamps of oil, faintly twinkling in a disheartened Mantuan fashion.

If you turn this pensive light upon the yellow pages of those old
chronicles of which I spoke, it reveals pictures fit to raise both
pity and wonder for the past of this city,--pictures full of the glory
of struggles for freedom, of the splendor of wise princes, of the
comfort of a prosperous and contented people, of the grateful fruits
of protected arts and civilization; but likewise stained with images
of unspeakable filth and wickedness, baseness and cruelty, incredible
shame, suffering, and sin.

Long before the birth of Christ, the Gauls drive out the Etruscans
from Mantua, and aggrandize and beautify the city, to be in their turn
expelled by the Romans, under whom Mantua again waxes strong and fair.
In this time, the wife of a farmer not far from the city dreams a
marvelous dream of bringing forth a laurel-bough, and in due time
bears into the world the chiefest of all Mantuans, with a smile upon
his face. This is a poet, and they call his name Virgil. He goes from
his native city to Rome, when ripe for glory, and has there the good
fortune to win back his father's farm, which the greedy veterans of
Augustus, then settled in the Cremonese, had annexed to the spoils
bestowed upon them by the Emperor. Later in this Roman time, and only
three years after the death of Him whom the poet all but prophesied,
another grand event marks an epoch in Mantuan history. According to
the pious legend, the soldier Longinus, who pierced the side of Christ
as he hung upon the cross, has been converted by a miracle; wiping
away that costly blood from his spear-head, and then drawing his hand
across his eyes, he is suddenly healed of his near-sightedness, and
stricken with the full wonder of conviction. He gathers anxiously the
precious drops of blood from his weapon into the phial from which
the vinegar mixed with gall was poured, and, forsaking his life of
soldier, he wanders with his new-won faith and his priceless treasure
to Mantua, where it is destined to work famous miracles, and to be
the most valued possession of the city to all after-time. The saint
himself, preaching the Gospel of Christ, suffers martyrdom under
Tiberius; his tongue is cut out, and his body is burnt; and his ashes
are buried at Mantua, forgotten, and found again in after ages
with due signs and miraculous portents. The Romans give