g it midnight;--temples, baths, or halls,
Pronounce who can; for all that learning reaped
From her research hath been, that these are walls.
Behold the imperial mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls."

But Cowper rises to a yet higher pitch, and reads the true moral which
is taught by this fallen mount. For to Rome may we apply his lines on
the fall of the once proud monarchy of Spain.

"Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see
The robber and the murderer weak as we?
Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,
Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed.
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand
Rolled over all our desolated land,
Shook principalities and kingdoms down,
And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers,
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.
'Tie thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And Vengeance executes what Justice wills."

One day I ascended the Palatine, picking my steps with care, owing to
the abominations of all kinds that cover the path, to spend an hour on
the mount, and survey from thence the mighty wrecks of empire strewn
around it. The steps of the stair by which I ascended were formed of
blocks of marble, the half-effaced carvings on which showed that they
had formed parts of former edifices. Protruding from the soil, and
strewn over its surface, were fragments of columns and capitols of
pillars. I emerged on the summit at the spot where the vestibule of
Nero's palace is supposed to have stood. I thought of the guards, the
senators, the ambassadors, that had crowded this spot,--the spoils,
trophies, and monuments, that had adorned it; and my heart sank at the
sight of its naked desolation and dreary loneliness. The flat top of the
hill ran off to the south, covered with a various and somewhat
incongruous vegetation. Here was a thicket of laurels, and there a
clump of young oaks; here a garden of vines, and there rows of cabbages.
A monk, habited in brown, was looking out at the door of his convent;
and one or two women were busy among the vegetables, making up a load
for market. On the farther edge of the hill rose the tall, moveless,
silent cypresses of which I have spoken. On the right rose the square
tower of the Capitol, with the perperine substructions of i