I felt myself shamefully--no--not _shamefully_, but _lamentably_
ignorant of many things. There is so much of which I wish to know and
learn more: so much of my time is spent in hunting books, and
acquiring by various means the information with which I ought already
to be prepared; so many days are lost by frequent indisposition, that
though I enjoy, and feel the value of all I _do_ know and observe, I
am tantalized by the thoughts of all I must leave behind me
unseen--there must necessarily be so much of what I do not even
_hear_! Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, my little excursion to-day
was delightful. I took a direction just contrary to my last
expedition, first by the Quattro Fontane to the Santa Maria Maggiore,
which I always see with new delight; then to the ruins called the
temple of Minerva Medici, which stand in a cabbage garden near another
fine ruin, once called the Trofei di Mario, and now the Acqua Giulia:
thence to the Porta Maggiore, built by Claudius; and round by the
Santa Croce di Gerusalemme. This church was built by Helena, the
mother of Constantine, and contains her tomb, besides a portion of the
_True Cross_ from which it derives its name. The interior of this
Basilica struck me as mean and cold. In the fine avenue in front of
the Santa Croce, I paused a few minutes to look round me. To the right
were the ruins of the stupendous Claudian Aqueduct with its gigantic
arches, stretching away in one unbroken series far into the Campagna:
behind me the amphitheatre of Castrense: to the left, other ruins,
once called the Temple of Venus and Cupid, and now the Sessorium: in
front, the Lateran, the obelisk of Sesostris, the Porta San Giovanni,
and great part of the ancient walls; and thence the view extended to
the foot of the Apennines. All this part of Rome is a scene of
magnificent desolation, and of melancholy yet sublime interest: its
wildness, its vastness, its waste and solitary openness, add to its
effect upon the imagination. The only human beings I beheld in the
compass of at least two miles, were a few herdsmen driving their
cattle through the gate of San Giovanni, and two or three strangers
who were sauntering about with their note books and portfolios,
apparently enthusiasts like myself, lost in the memory of the past and
the contemplation of the present.

I spent some time in the Lateran, then drove to the Coliseum, where I
found a long procession of penitents, their figures and faces tot