by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, at
the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum.

It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up;
and perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the
lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian
wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate,
it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most
interesting relics of the ancient city,[651] and is certainly the
figure, if not the very animal to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful
verses:--

"Geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos; illam, tereti cervice reflexam,
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua."[652]

26.

For the Roman's mind
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould.
Stanza xc. lines 3 and 4.

It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to
Julius Caesar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all
antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as
composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans
themselves. The first general--the only triumphant politician--inferior
to none in eloquence--comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in
an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and
philosophers that ever appeared in the world--an author who composed a
perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage--at one
time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on
punning, and collecting a set of good sayings--fighting and making love
at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his
mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Caesar
appear to his contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who
were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.

But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with
his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his
impartial countrymen:--

HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.[653]

27.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast.
S