alatine Hill, then by the arch of Janus (which by a late decision of
the antiquarians, has no more to do with Janus than with Jupiter), and
the temple of Vesta, back again over the site of the Circus Maximus,
between the Palatine and the Aventine (the scene of the Rape of the
Sabines), to the baths of Caracalla, where I spent an hour, musing,
sketching, and poetizing; thence to the church of San Stefano Rotundo,
once a temple dedicated to Claudius by Agrippina; over the Celian
Hill, covered with masses of ruins, to the church of St. John and St.
Paul, a small but beautiful edifice; then to the neighbouring church
of San Gregorio, from the steps of which there is such a noble view.
Thence I returned by the arch of Constantine, and the Coliseum, which
frowned on me in black masses through the soft but deepening twilight,
through the street now called the Suburra, but formerly the Via
Scelerata, where Tullia trampled over the dead body of her father, and
so over the Quirinal home.

My excursion was altogether delightful, and gave me the most
magnificent, and I had almost said, the most _bewildering_ ideas of
the grandeur and extent of ancient Rome. Every step was classic
ground: illustrious names, and splendid recollections crowded upon the
fancy--

"And trailing clouds of glory did they come."

On the Palatine Hill were the houses of Cicero and the Gracchi;
Horace, Virgil, and Ovid resided on the Aventine; and Mecaenas and
Pliny on the AEsquiline. If one little fragment of a wall remained,
which could with any shadow of probability be pointed out as belonging
to the residence of Cicero, Horace, or Virgil, how much dearer, how
much more sanctified to memory would it be than all the magnificent
ruins of the fabrics of the Caesars! But no--all has passed away. I
have heard the remains of Rome coarsely ridiculed, because, after the
researches of centuries, so little is comparatively known--because of
the endless disputes of antiquarians, and the night and ignorance in
which all is involved; but to the imagination there is something
singularly striking in this mysterious veil which hangs like a cloud
upon the objects around us. I trod to-day over the shapeless masses of
building, extending in every direction as far as the eye could reach.
Who had inhabited the edifices I trampled under my feet? What hearts
had burned--what heads had thought--what spirits had kindled _there_,
where nothing was seen but a wilderness and w