e itself. At the eastern, there extends
beyond the walls, to a distance equal to the length of the building, a
marble platform, upon which stands the altar of sacrifice, which is
ascended by various flights of steps, some little more than a gently
rising plain, up which the beasts are led that are destined to the
altar.

When this vast extent of wall and column, of the most dazzling
brightness, came into view, everywhere covered, together with the
surrounding temples, palaces, and theatres, with a dense mass of human
beings, of all climes and regions, dressed out in their richest
attire--music from innumerable instruments filling the heavens with
harmony--shouts of the proud and excited populace, every few moments,
and from different points, as Aurelian advanced, shaking the air with
their thrilling din--added to, still further, by the neighing of horses,
and the frequent blasts of the trumpet--the whole made more solemnly
imposing by the vast masses of clouds which swept over the sky, now
suddenly unveiling, and again eclipsing, the sun, the great god of this
idolatry, and from which few could withdraw their gaze;--when, at once,
this all broke upon my eye and ear, I was like a child who, before, had
never seen aught but his own village, and his own rural temple, in the
effect wrought upon me, and the passiveness with which I abandoned
myself to the sway of the senses. Not one there, was more ravished than
I was, by the outward circumstance and show. I thought of Rome's
thousand years, of her power, her greatness, and universal empire, and,
for a moment, my step was not less proud than that of Aurelian.

But, after that moment, when the senses had had their fill, when the eye
had seen the glory, and the ear had fed upon the harmony and the praise,
then I thought and felt very differently. Sorrow and compassion for
these gay multitudes were at my heart; prophetic forebodings of
disaster, danger, and ruin to those, to whose sacred cause I had linked
myself, made my tongue to falter in its speech, and my limbs to tremble.
I thought that the superstition, that was upheld by the wealth and the
power, whose manifestations were before me, had its roots in the very
centre of the earth--far too deep down for a few like myself ever to
reach them. I was like one, whose last hope of life and escape is
suddenly struck away.

I was aroused from these meditations, by our arrival at the eastern
front of the temple. Between the two