My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

obedience by her religion. When I think how all our modern civilization, our art, letters, and jurisprudence, sprang originally from Rome, it appears to me that a narrow religious prejudice has prevented our forming a due estimate of her services to humanity. To some, the glories of the ancient empire, the memory of the days when her sovereignty extended from Britain to the Ganges, and her capital counted its inhabitants by millions, seem to render all her later history insignificant and dull; but to my mind the moral dignity and power of Christian Rome is as superior to her old military omnipotence as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive. The ancient emperors, with all their power, could not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For me, Rome's most enduring glories are the memories of the times when her great missionary orders civilized and evangelized the countries which her arms had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined the world with their virtues; when her pontiffs, single-handed, turned back barbarian invasions, or mitigated the severities of the feudal age, or protected the people by laying their ban upon the tyrants who oppressed them, or defended the sanctity of marriage, and the rights of helpless women against divorce-seeking monarchs and conquerors. These things are the true fulfilment of the glowing prophecy of Rome's greatness, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchises, when Æneas visits the Elysian Fields, and hears from his old father that the mission of the government he is about to found is to rule the world by moral power, to make peace between opposing nations, to spare the subject, and to subdue the proud:

      "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

      Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,

      Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

      ROME TO MARSEILLES

      The weather was fearfully hot the day of my departure from Rome. The sun was staring down, without winking, upon that wonderful old city, as if he loved the sight. The yellow current of old Father Tiber seemed yellower than ever in the glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in the morning had seemed like airs from heaven, before noon had become most uncomfortably like a blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di Spagna was like Tadmor in the wilderness. Not a single English tourist, with his well-read Murray under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage driver broke the stillness of the place with his polyglot solicitations to ride. The great staircase of Trinità de' Monti seemed an impossibility; to have climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun would have been poor entertainment for man or beast. The squares of the city were like furnaces, and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless the narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at the gates and in the public places looked as if they couldn't help it. Now and then a Capuchin monk, in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted cord, toiled along on some errand of benevolence, and made one marvel at his endurance. Occasionally a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking as if he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his dignity and power for a single day of virtuous liberty in linen pantaloons.

      Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there were no buyers, and the shopkeepers slumbered at their counters. The cafés were shrouded in their long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company by their well-wet pavement. A few old Romans found energy enough to call for an occasional ice or lemonade, and talked in the intervals about Pammerstone, and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed down into the Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred the foliage that clothes that mighty ruin. Even the birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena would have perilled life as surely as in those old days when the first Roman Christians there confessed their faith. On such a day, one's parting visits must necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre, and walked along the dusty Via Sacra, pausing a moment to ponder on the scene of Cicero's triumphs, and of so many centuries of thrilling history, and coming to the conclusion that, if it were such a day as that when Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter, the blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in front of the Pantheon, usually so thronged and lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright vegetables had either all been sold, or had refused to grow in such a heat. But the Pantheon itself was unchanged. There it stood, in all its severe grandeur, majestic as in the days of the Cæsars, the embodiment of heathenism, the exponent of the worship of the old, inexorable gods, – of justice without mercy, and power without love. Its interior seemed cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that stupendous pile of masonry, – and I gathered new strength from my short visit. It was a fine thought in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested to our minds by this practice are very striking. When we see that the images of the old revengeful and impure divinities have given place to those of the humble and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that the Saviour of the world stretches out His arms upon the cross, in the place from which the haughty Jupiter once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at once to a conclusion more irresistible than any that the mere force of language could produce. One of our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed this same idea in graceful verse: —

      "The goddess of the woods and fields,

      The healthful huntress undefiled,

      Now with her fabled brother yields

      To sinless Mary and her Child."

      But I must hurry on towards St. Peter's. There are three places in Rome which every one visits as soon as possible after he arrives, and as short a time as may be before his departure – the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and St. Peter's. The narrow streets between the Pantheon and the Bridge of St. Angelo were endurable, because they were shady. It was necessary to be careful, however, and not trip over any of the numerous Roman legs whose proprietors were stretched out upon the pavement in various picturesque postures, sleeping away the long hours of that scorching day. At last the bridge is reached Bernini's frightful statues, which deform its balustrades, seem to be writhing under the influence of the sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronica's napkin was curling with the heat. The bronze archangel stood as usual upon the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo. I stopped a few moments, thinking that he might see the expediency of sheathing his sword and retreating, before he should be compelled, in the confusion of such a blaze as that, to run away; but it was useless. I moved on towards St. Peter's, and he still kept guard there as brazen-faced as ever. The great square in front of the basilica seemed to have scooped up its fill of heat, and every body knows that it is capable of containing a great deal. The few persons whom devotion or love of art had tempted out in such a day, approached it under the shade of its beautiful colonnades. I was obliged to content myself with the music of one of those superb fountains only, for the workmen were making a new basin for the other. St. Peter's never seemed to me so wonderful, never filled me up so completely, as it did then. The contrast of the heat I had been in with that atmosphere of unchangeable coolness, the quiet of the vast area, the fewness of people moving about, all conspired to impress me with a new sense of the majesty and holiness of the place. The quiet, unflickering blaze of the numerous lamps that burn unceasingly around the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles seemed a beacon of immortality. To one who could at that hour recall the bustle and turmoil of the Boulevards of Paris, or of the Strand, or of Broadway, the vast basilica itself seemed to be an island of peace in the tempestuous ocean of the world. I am not so blind a lover of Gothic architecture that I can find no beauty nor religious feeling in the Italian churches. I prefer, it is true, the "long-drawn aisle and fretted vault," and the "storied windows richly dight"; but I cannot for that reason sneer at the gracefully turned arches, the mosaic walls and domes rich in frescoes and precious marbles, that delight one's eyes in Italy. Both styles are good in their proper places. The Gothic and Norman, with their high-pitched roofs, are the natural growth of the snowy north, and to attempt to transplant them to a land where heat is to be guarded against, were as absurd as to expect the pine and fir to take the place of the fig tree and the palm. Talk as eloquently as we may about being superior to external impressions, I defy any man to breathe the quiet atmosphere of any of these old continental churches for a few moments, without feeling that he has gathered new strength therefrom to tread the thorns of life. Lamartine has spoken eloquently on this theme: "Ye columns