ve said, to put you fully in possession of our present
position, plans, and purposes. The fate of Christianity is to us now as
absorbing an interest, as once was the fate of Palmyra.

* * * * *

I had been in the city only long enough to give Julia a full account of
my melancholy visit in the country, and to write a part of it to you,
when I walked forth to observe for myself the signs which the city might
offer, either to confirm, or allay, the apprehensions which were begun
to be felt.

I took my way over the Palatine, desiring to see the excellent Tacitus,
whose house is there. He was absent, being suddenly called to Baiae. I
turned toward the Forum, wishing to perform a commission for Julia at
the shop of Civilis--still alive, and still compounding his
sweets--which is now about midway between the slope of the hill and the
Forum, having been removed from its former place where you knew it,
under the eaves of the Temple of Peace. The little man of 'smells' was
at his post, more crooked than ever, but none the less exquisitely
arrayed; his wig befitting a young Bacchus, rather than a dried shred of
a man beyond his seventieth year. All the gems of the east glittered on
his thin fingers, and diamonds, that might move the envy of Livia, hung
from his ears. The gales of Arabia, burdened with the fragrance of every
flower of that sunny clime, seemed concentrated into an atmosphere
around him; and, in truth, I suppose a specimen of every pot and phial
of his vast shop, might be found upon his person concealed in gold
boxes, or hanging in the merest fragments of bottles upon chains of
silver or gold, or deposited in folds of his ample robes. He was odor in
substantial form. He saluted me with a grace, of which he only in Rome
is master, and with a deference that could not have been exceeded had I
been Aurelian. I told him that I wished to procure a perfume of Egyptian
origin and name, called Cleopatra's tears, which was reputed to convey
to the organs of smell, an odor more exquisite than that of the rarest
Persian rose, or choicest gums of Arabia. The eyes of Civilis kindled
with the fires of twenty--when love's anxious brow is suddenly cleared
up by that little, but all comprehensive word, yes--as he answered,

'Noble Piso, I honor you. I never doubted your taste. It is seen in your
palace, in your dress, nay, in the very costume of your incomparable
slave, who has done me the honor to ca