The ancient Fathers of the convent sleep.

No storied marble with monastic pride
Records the actions of their tranquil life,
Or tells how, fighting for their faith, they died
Unconquer'd martyrs of religious strife.

They are not laid in decent shroud and pall,
To wait, commingling with their kindred earth,
Th' Archangel's trumpet, whose dread blast shall call
The whole creation to a second birth.

But midst the mouldering relics of the dead
In shapes fantastic, which the brethren rear,
Profaned by heretic's unhallowed tread,
The monkish skeletons erect appear.

The cowl is drawn each ghastly skull around,
Each fleshless form's arrayed in sable vest,
About their hollow loins the cord is bound,
Like living Fathers of the Order drest.

And as the monk around this scene of gloom
The flick'ring lustre of his taper throws,
He says, 'Such, stranger, is my destined tomb;
Here, and with these, shall be my last repose.'

At night I went with a party of English to see the Coliseum, but
the moon was as English as the party, and gave a faint and feeble
light. Still, with this dim moon it was inconceivably grand. The
exquisite symmetry of the building appears better, and its vast
dimensions are more developed by night. I long to see it with an
Italian sky and full moon; but not with a parcel of chattering
girls, who only 'flout the ruins grey.'

[Page Head: THE HOLY WEEK AT ROME]

April 9th, 1830 {p.315}

On Wednesday called on Bunsen, the Prussian Minister, who lives
at the top of the Tarpeian Rock, in a house commanding one of the
best views of Rome. He has devoted himself to the study of Roman
history and antiquities, and has the whole subject at his
fingers' ends. He is really luminous, and his conversation
equally amusing and instructive. He is about to publish a book
about ancient and modern Rome, which, from what I hear, will be
too minute and prolix. I then went to look at the Tarpeian Rock,
but the accumulation of earth has diminished its height--there is
the Rock, but in a very obscure hole. It was probably twice as
high as it is now. I think it is now about forty feet. Bunsen
says that though the antiquaries pretend to point out the course
of the ancient triumphal way, he does not think it can ever be
ascertained. The only remains (only bits of foundations)