"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; From our own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall Ancient; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unaltered all: Rome and her ruin past Redemption's skill; The World, the same wide den-of thieves, or what you will, MANFRED'S SOLILOQUY. I do remember me, that in my youth, While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon Of rugged Desolation, and filled up, As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries; And making that which was not, till the place *The Venerable Bede is said to have visited Rome and to have recorded his impressions of the Coliseum in Latin words. which are here translated verbatim by Byron. Became religion, and the heart ran o'er Manfred, act iii., scene 4. THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. REV. W. H. WITHROW, M.A. [At Rome, subterranean burial-vaults have been discovered that date back beyond the Rome of Romulus and Remus; but it is to the tombs of the early Christians that the chief interest belongs. The Catacombs of Rome lie mostly within a radius of three miles from the walls, the farthest being six miles distant. The galleries or tunnels are three to five feet broad and eight feet high, both sides being excavated into tiers of cells. The entire length of the tunnels is taken at five hundred and eighty-seven geographical miles, and the enclosed remains are variously estimated at from four to seven millions! After the sack of Rome by Alaric (A.D. 410), the Catacombs fell into disuse, and their very existence gradually faded out of all recollection, until, on May 31, 1578, they were discovered by some laborers digging for Roman cement.] "When I was a boy," says Jerome,* "being educated at Rome, I used every Sunday, in company with others of my own age and tastes, to visit the sepulchres of the apostles and martyrs, and to go into the crypts dug in the heart of the earth. The walls on either side are lined with the bodies of the dead, and so intense is the darkness as to seemingly fulfil the words of the prophet, 'They go down alive to Hades.' Here and there is light let in to mitigate the gloom. As we advance, the words† of the poet are brought to mind, Horror on all sides; the very silence fills the soul with dread.' We know that for at least three hundred years or for ten generations the entire Christian population of Rome was buried here. And that population was, even at an early period, of considerable size. In the time of persecution, too, the Christians were hurried to the tomb in crowds. In this silent city of the dead we are surrounded by a "mighty cloud of witnesses," "a multitude which no man can number," whose names, unrecorded on earth, are written in the Book of Life. For every one who walks the streets of Rome to-day are hundreds of its former * St. Jerome (Hieronymus), A.D. 346-420. This interesting reminiscence is found in Jerome's Commentary on Ezekiel, b. xx. c. 40. + Quoted from Virgil's Eneid, ii. 755. inhabitants, calmly sleeping in this vast encampment of Death around its walls, "each in his narrow cell for ever laid." Till the archangel awake them they slumber. "It is scarcely known," says Prudentius,* "how full Rome is of buried saints-how richly her soil abounds in holy sepulchres." As the pilgrim to this shrine of the primitive faith visits these chambers of silence and gloom, accompanied by a serge-clad, sandalled monk, he seems like the Tuscan poet wandering through the realms of darkness with his shadowy guide. "And now through narrow, gloomy paths we go, His footsteps echo strangely down the distant passages and hollow vaults, dying gradually away in the solemn stillness of this valley of the shadow of death. The graves yawn weirdly as he passes, torch in hand. The flame struggles feebly with the thickening darkness, vaguely revealing the unfleshed skeletons on either side, till its redness fades to sickly white, like that pale light by which Dante† saw the crowding ghosts upon the shores of Acheron. Deep, mysterious shadows, crouch around; and the dim perspective, lined with the sepulchral niches of the silent community of the dead, stretch on in an apparently unending vista. The very air seems oppressive and stifling, and laden with the dry dust of death. The vast extent and population of this great necropolis overwhelm the imagination, and bring to mind Petrarch's melancholy line, "Full of the dead this far-extending field." Almost appalling in its awe and solemnity is the sudden transition from the busy city of the living to the silent city of the dead; from the golden glory of the Italian sunlight to the funereal gloom of these sombre vaults. The sacred influence of the place subdues the soul to tender emotions. The fading pictures on the walls and the pious epitaphs of the departed breathe on every side an atmosphere of faith and hope, and awaken a sense of spiritual kinship that overleaps the intervening centuries. We speak with bated breath and in whispered tones, and thought is busy with the past. It is impossible not to feel strangely * Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, Roman Christian poet (A.D. 348-408). + Dante (dan-tay), Italian poet (A.D. 1265-1321). ‡ Ach ́ĕron (ch as k), a gloomy river of ancient Greece, which Dante, imitating Greek and Roinan poets, connects with the lower world. moved while gazing on the crumbling relics of mortality committed ages ago, with pious care and many tears, to their last long rest. "It seems as if we had the sleepers known." We see the mother, the while her heart is wrung with anguish, laying on its stony bed-rude couch for such a tender thingthe little form that she had cherished in her warm embrace. We behold the persecuted flock following, it may be, the mangled remains of the faithful pastor and valiant martyr for the truth, which at the risk of their lives they have stealthily gathered at dead of night. With holy hymns, broken by their sobs, they commit his mutilated body to the grave, where, after life's long toil, he sleepeth well. We hear the Christian chant, the funeral plaint, the pleading tones of prayer, and the words of holy consolation and of lofty hope with which the dead in Christ are laid to rest. A moment, and--the spell is broken, the past has vanished, and stern reality becomes again a presence. Ruin and desolation and decay are all around.......... Affecting memorials of domestic affection are found in the toys and trinkets of little children enclosed in their graves or affixed to the plaster without. The dolls strikingly resemble those with which children amuse themselves to-day. They are made of ivory, and some are furnished with wires by which the joints can be worked after the manner of the modern marionettes. Among the children's toys were found a terra-cotta vase with a narrow slit for receiving money, like the common children's savings-banks; an ivory ring; small bronze bells forming part of a child's rattle; and in the Catacomb of St. Sebastian was found a terra-cotta horse of rude design, dappled with colored spots. The human affections are the same in every age. These simple objects speak more directly to the heart than "storied urn or animated bust." As we gaze upon these childish toys in the Vatican Museum, the centuries vanish, and busy fancy pictures the weeping Roman mother placing these cherished relics of her dead babe in its waxen hands or by its side, as it is laid from her loving arms in the cold embrace of the rocky grave; and then, with tear-dimmed eyes, taking a last, long, lingering farewell of the loved form about to be closed from her sight for The Catacombs of Rome (1874). ever. THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII. Once there stood a town in Italy, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, which was to Rome what Brighton or Hastings is to London-a fashionable watering-place. There, Roman gentlemen and members of the Senate built villas, to which they were in the habit of retiring from the fatigues of business or the broils of politics. The outsides of all the houses were adorned with frescoes,* and every shop glittered with all the colors of the rainbow. At the end of each street there was a charming fountain, and any one who sat down beside it to cool himself had a delightful view of the Mediterranean, then as beautiful, as blue and sunny as it is now. *Frescoes, paintings made upon the walls themselves. In fresco-painting, the colors are laid upon the lime while it is still soft and wet. |