f the Sovereign of
Ocean.

Much smaller than either of these immense temples is the third remaining
Greek building of Paestum, which lies a good quarter of a mile to the
north, not far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads northward
in the direction of Salerno. Like that of Neptune, this temple is
hexastyle, with six columns on each of its facades and twelve on either
flank, but as it is little more than half the size of its grander and
older brethren, it is now frequently known as "Il Piccolo Tempio,"
although its former incorrect ascription to Ceres still clings to it in
popular parlance. It is from this building, which stands on slightly
rising ground, that the best impression of the whole city and of its
wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills and the blue
Mediterranean can be obtained.

"Between the mountains and the tideless sea
Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;
A land of asphodel and weeds that teem
Where once a city's life ran joyfully.
'Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!'
Whisper the winds to Sele's murmuring stream;
Whilst the vast temples preach th' eternal theme,
How pass the glories and their memory.
Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries
Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!
What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies
For centuries have watched the daisies spring!
Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:
Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing."

Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright noontide of a Spring
day, beneath a cloudless sky and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something incongruous in
the sharp contrast between this joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn
atmosphere of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes of
ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric temples as amongst the sooty
chimney stacks of London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards in
the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble of excursionists from
Naples or La Cava that a warm day in Spring invariably attracts to
Paestum:--these are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit of
the place. We long to cross the intervening ages so as to throw ourselves,
if only for one short hour, outside the cares and interests of to-day into
the heart of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;--with the
cheerful sunlight around us, and wi