patent
truth.

We were offered a job lot of "relics" for five florins, which included a
piece of the true cross, a bit of the rope that hung Judas, a couple of
hairs from the head of the Virgin Mary, a peeling from the apple of Mother
Eve, a part of the toe nail of Saint Thomas, a finger of Saint John, a
thigh bone of Saint Paul, a tooth of Saint Antony, and a feather of the
cock of Saint Peter, but we persistently declined the proffered honors and
true "relics of antiquity," spending the five florins for a "night liner"
to wheel us about the grand architectural sights of the city of the Caesars.

The night before leaving Rome William and myself climbed upon the topmost
rim of the crumbling Coliseum and gazed down upon the sleeping moonlit
capital with entranced admiration.

The night was almost as bright as day, and the mystic rays from the realm
of Luna, shining on gate, arch, column, spire, tower, temple and dome,
revealed to us the ghosts of vanished centuries, and from the depths of the
Coliseum there seemed to rise the shouts of a hundred thousand voices,
cheering the gladiator from Gaul, who had just slain a Numidian lion in the
arena, when, with "thumbs up," he was proclaimed the victor, decorated with
a crown of laurel and given his freedom forever.

Shakspere could not resist his natural gift of exuberant poetry to sound
these chunks of eloquence to the midnight air, while I listened with
enraptured enthusiasm to the elocution of the Bard:

_Hark! Saint Peter, with his brazen tongue
Voices the hour of twelve;
The wizard tones of tireless Time
Thrills the silvery air;
The multitudinous world sleeps,
Pope and beggar alike--
In the land of lingering dreams--
Oblivious of glory,
Poverty, or war, destructive;
Sleep, the daily death of all
Throws her mesmeric mantle
Over prince and pauper;
And care, vulture of fleeting life
Folds her bedraggled wings
To rest a space, 'till first cock crow
Hails the glimmering dawn
With piercing tones triumphant;
Father Tiber, roaring, moves along
Under rude stony arches
And chafes the wrinkled, rocky shores
As when Romulus and Remus
Suckled wolf of Apennines!
Vain are all the triumphs of man.
These temples and palaces,
Reaching up to the brilliant stars
In soaring grandeur, vast--
Shall pass away like morning mist,
Leaving a wilderness of ruins.
And,