sty,
was promised her eternity. We die, she lives. I say, _let_ a man die. It's
well for him to take hemlock, or open a vein, after having seen the
Secular Games. What was there to live for? I felt it; life was gone; its
best gifts flat and insipid after that great day. Excellent--Tauromenian, I
suppose? We know it in Rome. Fill up my cup. I drink to the genius of the
emperor."

He was full of his subject, and soon resumed it. "Fancy the Campus Martius
lighted up from one end to the other. It was the finest thing in the
world. A large plain, covered, not with streets, not with woods, but
broken and crossed with superb buildings in the midst of groves, avenues
of trees, and green grass, down to the water's edge. There's nothing that
isn't there. Do you want the grandest temples in the world, the most
spacious porticoes, the longest racecourses? there they are. Do you want
_gymnasia_? there they are. Do you want arches, statues, obelisks? you
find them there. There you have at one end the stupendous mausoleum of
Augustus, cased with white marble, and just across the river the huge
towering mound of Hadrian. At the other end you have the noble Pantheon of
Agrippa, with its splendid Syracusan columns, and its dome glittering with
silver tiles. Hard by are the baths of Alexander, with their beautiful
groves. Ah! my good friend! I shall have no time to drink if I go on.
Beyond are the numerous chapels and fanes which fringe the base of the
Capitoline hill; the tall column of Antoninus comes next, with its
adjacent basilica, where is kept the authentic list of the provinces of
the empire, and of the governors, each a king in power and dominion, who
are sent out to them. Well, I am now only beginning. Fancy, I say, this
magnificent region all lighted up; every temple to and fro, every bath,
every grove, gleaming with innumerable lamps and torches. No, not even the
gods of Olympus have anything that comes near it. Rome is the greatest of
all divinities. In the dead of night all was alive; then it was, when
nature sleeps exhausted, Rome began the solemn sacrifices to commemorate
her thousand years. On the banks of the Tiber, which had seen AEneas land,
and Romulus ascend to the gods, the clear red flame shot up as the victims
burned. The music of ten thousand horns and flutes burst forth, and the
sacred dances began upon the greensward. I am too old to dance; but, I
protest, even I stood up and threw off. We danced through three n