he lordly Augustus, the cruel Nero, the beastly
Caligula, the warlike Trajan, the philosophic Antoninus, the stern
Hildebrand, the infamous Borgia, the terrible Innocent; and last of all,
and closing this long procession of shades, came one, with shuffling
gait and cringing figure, who is not yet a shade,--Pio Nono. The creak
of the old gate, as the sentinel undid its bolt and threw back its
ponderous doors, awoke me from my reverie.

We were stopped the moment we had entered the gate, and desired to
mount to the guard-room. In a small chamber on the city-wall, seated at
a table, on which a lamp was burning, we found a little tight-made
brusque French officer, busied in overhauling the passports. Declaring
himself satisfied after a slight survey, he hinted pretty plainly that a
few pauls would be acceptable. "Did you ever," whispered my Russian
friend, "see such a people?" We were remounting our vehicle, when a
soldier climbed up, with musket and fixed bayonet, and forced himself in
between my companion and myself, to see us all right to the
custom-house, and to take care that we dropped no counterband goods by
the way. Away we trundled; but the Campagna itself was not more solitary
than that rain-battered and half-flooded street. No ray streamed out
from window; no sound or voice of man broke the stillness; no one was
abroad; the wind moaned; and the big drops fell heavily upon the plashy
lava-paved causeway; but, with these exceptions, the silence was
unbroken; and, to add to the dreariness, the city was in well-nigh total
darkness.

I intently scrutinized the various objects, as the glare of our lamps
brought them successively into view. First there came a range of massive
columns, which stalked past us, wearing in the sombre night an air of
Egyptian grandeur. They came on and on, and I thought they should never
have passed. Little did I dream that this was the piazza of St Peter's,
and that the bulb I had seen by favour of the lightning was the dome of
that renowned edifice. Next we found ourselves in a street of low, mean,
mouldering houses; and in a few moments thereafter we were riding under
the walls of an immense fortress, which rose above us, till its
battlements were lost in the darkness. Then turning at right angles, we
crossed a long bridge, with shade-like statues looking down upon us from
either parapet, and a dark silent river flowing underneath. I could
guess what river that was. We then plunged into a