ly ripped the man open--No leagues of
chivalry needed in Rome--A resident army--Five foot six--
Corsets and padding--She was wounded in the house of her
friends.

We children had been drilled in Roman history, from Romulus to Caesar,
and we could, and frequently did, repeat by heart the Lays of Ancient
Rome by Macaulay, which were at that period better known, perhaps, than
they are now. Consequently, everything in Rome had a certain degree
of meaning for us, and gave us a pleasure in addition to the intrinsic
beauty or charm that belonged thereto. Our imagination thronged the
Capitol with senators; saw in the Roman Forum the contentions of the
tribunes and the patricians; heard the populus Romanus roar in the
Coliseum; beheld the splendid processions of victory wind cityward
through the Arch of Titus; saw Caesar lie bleeding at the base of
Pompey's statue; pondered over the fatal precipice of the Tarpeian
Rock; luxuriated in the hollow spaces of the Baths of Caracalla; lost
ourselves in gorgeous reveries in the palace of the Caesars, and haunted
the yellow stream of Tiber, beneath which lay hidden precious treasures
and forgotten secrets. And we were no less captivated by the galleries
and churches, which contained the preserved relics of the great old
times, and were in themselves so beautiful. My taste for blackened old
pictures and faded frescoes was, indeed, even more undeveloped than
my father's; but I liked the brilliant reproductions in mosaic at St.
Peter's and certain individual works in various places. I formed a
romantic attachment for the alleged Beatrice Cenci of Guido, or of some
other artist, and was very sorry that she should be so unhappy, though,
of course, I was ignorant of the occasion of her low spirits. But I
liked much better Guide's large design of Aurora, partly because I had
long been familiar with it on the head-board of my mother's bedstead.
Before her marriage she had bought a set of bedroom furniture, and had
painted it a dull gold color, and on this surface she had drawn in fine
black lines the outlines of several classical subjects, most of them
from Flaxman; but in the space mentioned she had executed an outline
of this glorious work of the Italian artist. I knew every line of
the composition thoroughly; and, by-the-way, I doubt if a truer, more
inspired copy of the picture was ever produced by anybody. But the color
had to be supplied by the observer's imagination; now, f