The moment in which one takes his first look at Rome is an epoch in his
life. Even if his education should have been a most illiberal one, and
he himself should be as strenuous an opponent of pontifical prerogatives
as John of Leyden or Dr. Dowling, he is sure to be, for the time, imbued
in some measure with the feelings of a pilgrim. The sight of that city
which has exercised such a mighty influence on the world, almost from
its very foundation, fills his mind with "troublings of strange joy."
His vague notions of ancient history assume a more distinct form. The
twelve Caesars pass before his mind's eye like the spectral kings before
the Scotch usurper. The classics which he used to neglect so shamefully
at school, the historical lessons which he thought so dull, have been
endowed with life and interest by that one glance of his astonished eye.
But if he loved the classics in his youth,--if the wanderings of AEneas
and the woes of Dido charmed instead of tiring him,--if "Livy's pictured
page," the polished periods of Sallust and Tacitus, and the mighty
eloquence of Cicero, were to him a mine of delight rather than a
task,--how does his eye glisten with renewed youth, and his heart swell
as his old boyish enthusiasm is once more kindled within it! He feels
that he has reached the goal to which his heart and mind were turned
during his purest and most unselfish years; and if he were as unswayed
by human respect as he was then, he would kneel down with the
travel-worn pilgrims by the wayside to give utterance to his gratitude,
and to greet the queen city of the world: _Salve, magna parens!_
I shall not easily forget the cloudless afternoon when I first took that
long, wearisome ride from Civita Vecchia to Rome. There was no railway
in those days, as there is now, and the diligence was of so rude and
uncomfortable a make that I half suspected it to be the one upon the top
of which Hannibal is said to have crossed the Alps, (_summa
diligentia_.) I shared the _coupe_ with two other sufferers, and was,
like them, so fatigued that it seemed as if a celestial vision would be
powerless to make me forgetful of my aching joints, when (after a
laborious pull up a hill which might be included among the "everlasting
hills" spoken of in holy writ) our long-booted postilion turned his
expressive face towards us, and banished all our weariness by
exclaiming, as he pointed into the blue distance with his short
whip-handle, "_Ecco! Roma! San Pietro!_"
A single glance of the eye served to overcome all our fatigue. There lay
the world's capital, crowned by the mighty dome of the Vatican basilica,
and we were every moment drawing nearer to it. It was evening before we
found ourselves staring at those dark walls which have withstood so many
sieges, and heard the welcome demand for passports, which informed us
that we had reached the gate of the city.
I was really in Rome,--I was in that city hallowed by so many classical,
historical, and sacred associations,--and it all seemed to me like a
confused dream. Twice, before the diligence had gone a hundred yards
inside the gate, I had pinched myself to ascertain whether I was really
awake; and even after I passed through the lofty colonnade of St.
Peter's, and had gazed at the front of the church and the vast square
which art has made familiar to every one, and had seen the fountains
with the moonbeams flashing in their silvery spray, I feared lest
something should interrupt my dream, and I should wake to find myself in
my snug bedroom at home, wondering at the weakness which allowed me to
be seduced into the eating of a bit of cheese the evening before. It was
not so, however; no disorganizing cheese had interfered with my
digestion; it was no dream; and I was really in Rome. I slept soundly
when I reached my hotel, for I felt sure that no hostile Brennus lay in
wait to disturb the city's peace, and the grateful hardness of my bed
convinced me that all the geese of the capital had not been killed, if
the enemy should effect an entrance.
There are few people who love Rome at first sight. The ruins, that bear
witness to her grandeur in the days of her worldly supremacy, oppress
you at first with an inexpressible sadness. The absence of any thing
like the business enterprise and energy of this commercial age makes
English and American people long at first for a little of the bustle and
roar of Broadway and the Strand. The small paving stones, which make the
feet of those who are unaccustomed to them ache severely, the brick and
stone floors of the houses, and the lack of the little comforts of
modern civilization, render Rome a wearisome place, until one has caught
its spirit. Little does he think who for the first time gazes on those
gray, mouldering walls, on which "dull time feeds like slow fire upon a
hoary brand," or walks those streets in which the past and present are
so strangely commingled,--little does he realize how dear those scenes
will one day be to him. He cannot foresee the regret with which he will
leave those things that seem too common and familiar to deserve
attention, nor the glowing enthusiasm which their mention will inspire
in after years; and he would smile incredulously if any one were to
predict to him that his heart, in after times, will swell with homesick
longings as he recalls the memory of that ancient city, and that he will
one day salute it from afar as his second home.
I make no claims to antiquarian knowledge; for I do not love antiquity
for itself alone. It is only by force of association that antiquity has
any charms for me. The pyramids of Egypt would awaken my respect, not so
much by their age or size, as by the remembrance of the momentous scenes
which have been enacted in their useless and ungraceful presence. Show
me a scroll so ancient that human science can obtain no key to the
mysteries locked up in the strange figures inscribed upon it, and you
would move me but little. But place before me one of those manuscripts
(filled with scholastic lore, instinct with classic eloquence, or
luminous with the word of eternal life) which have come down to us from
those nurseries of learning and piety, the monasteries of the middle
ages, and you fill me with the intensest enthusiasm. There is food for
the imagination hidden under those worm-eaten covers and brazen clasps.
I see in those fair pages something more than the results of the patient
toil which perpetuated those precious truths. From those carefully
penned lines, and brilliant initial letters, the pale, thoughtful face
of the transcriber looks upon me--his contempt of worldly ambition and
sacrifice of human consolations are reflected there--and from the quiet
of his austere cell, he seems to dart from his serene eyes a glance of
patient reproach at the worldlier and more modern age which reaps the
fruit of his labour, and repays him by slandering his character. Show me
a building whose stupendous masonry seems the work of Titan hands, but
whose history is lost in the twilight of the ages, so that no record
remains of a time when it was any thing but an antique enigma, and its
massive columns and Cyclopean proportions will not touch me so nearly as
the stone in Florence where Dante used to stand and gaze upon that dome
which Michel Angelo said he would not imitate, and could not excel.
Feeling thus about antiquities, I need not say that those of Rome, so
crowned with the most thrilling historical and personal associations,
are not wanting in charms for me. Yet I do not claim to be an
antiquarian. It is all one to me whether the column of Phocas be forty
feet high or sixty,--whether a ruin on the Palatine that fascinates me
by its richness and grandeur, was once a Temple of Minerva or of Jupiter
Stator; or whether its foundations are of travertine or tufa. I abhor
details. My enjoyment of a landscape would be at an end if I were called
upon to count the mild-eyed cattle that contribute so much to its
picturesqueness; and I have no wish to disturb my appreciation of the
spirit of a place consecrated by ages of heroic history, by entertaining
any of the learned conjectures of professional antiquarians. It is
enough for me to know that I am standing on the spot where Romulus built
his straw-thatched palace, and his irreverent brother leaped over the
walls of the future mistress of the nations. Standing in the midst of
the relics of the grandeur of imperial Rome, the whole of her wonderful
history is constantly acting over again in my mind. The stern simplicity
of those who laid the foundations of her greatness, the patriotic daring
of those who extended her power, the wisdom of those who terminated
civil strife by compelling the divided citizens to unite against a
foreign foe, are all present to me. In that august place where Cicero
pleaded, gazing upon that mount where captive kings did homage to the
masters of the world, your mere antiquarian, with his pestilent theories
and measurements, seems to me little better than a profaner. When I see
such a one scratching about the base of some majestic column in the
Forum (although I cannot but be grateful to those whose researches have
developed the greatness of the imperial city,) I do long to interrupt
him, and remind him that his "tread is on an empire's dust." I wish to
recall him from the petty details in which he delights, and have him
enjoy with me the grandeur and dignity of the whole scene.
The triumphal arches,--the monuments of the cultivation of those remote
ages, no less than of the power of the state which erected them,--the
memorials of the luxury that paved the way to the decline of that
power--all these things impress me with the thought of the long years
that intervened between that splendour and the times when the seat of
universal empire was inhabited only by shepherds and their flocks. It
wearies me to think of the long centuries of human effort that were
required to bring Rome to its culminating point of glory; and it affords
me a melancholy kind of amusement to contrast the spirit of those who
laid the deep and strong foundations of that prosperity and power, with
that of some modern sages, to whom a hundred years are a respectable
antiquity, and who seem to think that commercial enterprise and the will
of a fickle populace form as secure a basis for a state as private
virtue, and the principle of obedience to law. I know a country, yet in
the first century of its national existence, full of hope and ambition,
and possessing advantages such as never before fell to the lot of a
young empire, but lacking in those powers which made Rome what she was.
If that country, "the newest born of nations, the latest hope of
mankind," which has so rapidly risen to a power surpassing in extent
that of ancient Rome, and bears within itself the elements of the decay
that ruined the old empire,--wealth, vice, corruption,--if she could
overcome the vain notion that hers is an exceptional case, and that she
is not subject to that great law of nature which makes personal virtue
the corner-stone of national stability and the lack of that its bane,
and could look calmly upon the remains of old Rome's grandeur, she might
learn a great lesson. Contemplating the patient formation of that
far-reaching dominion until it found its perfect consummation in the age
of Augustus, (_Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem_,) she would see
that true national greatness is not "the hasty product of a day"; that
demagogues and adventurers, who have made politics their trade, are not
the architects of that greatness; and that the parchment on which the
constitution and laws of a country are written, might as well be used
for drum-heads when reverence and obedience have departed from the
hearts of its people.
A gifted representative of a name which is classical in the history of
the drama, some years ago gave to the world a journal of her residence
in Rome. She called her volume "A Year of Consolation"--a title as true
as it is poetical. Indeed I know of nothing more soothing to the spirit
than a walk through these ancient streets, or an hour of meditation amid
these remains of fallen majesty. To stand in the arena of the Coliseum
in the noonday glare, or when those ponderous arches cast their
lengthened shadows on the spot where the first Roman Christians were
sacrificed to make a holiday for a brutalized populace,--to muse in the
Pantheon, that changeless temple of a living, and monument of a dead,
worship, and reflect on the many generations that have passed beneath
its majestic portico from the days of Agrippa to our own,--to listen to
the birds that sing amid the shrubbery which decks the stupendous arches
of the Baths of Caracalla,--to be overwhelmed by the stillness of the
Campagna while the eye is filled with that rolling verdure which seems
in the hazy distance like the waves of the unquiet sea--what are all
these things but consolations in the truest sense of the word? What is
the bitterest grief that ever pierced a human heart through a long life
of sorrows, compared to the dumb woe of that mighty desolation? What are
our brief sufferings, when they are brought into the august presence of
a mourner who has seen her hopes one by one taken from her, through
centuries of war and rapine, neglect and silent decay?
Among all of Rome's monuments of antiquity, there are few that impress
me so strangely as those old Egyptian obelisks, the trophies of the
victorious emperors, which the pontiffs have made to contribute so
greatly to the adornment of their capital. It is almost impossible to
turn a corner of one of the principal streets of the city without seeing
one of these peculiar shafts that give a fine finish to the perspective.
If their cold granite forms could speak, what a strange history they
would reveal! They were witnesses of the achievements of a power which
reached its noonday splendour centuries before the shepherd Faustulus
took the foundling brothers into his cottage on the banks of the Tiber.
The civilization of which they are the relics had declined before the
Roman kings inaugurated that which afterwards reclaimed all Europe from
the barbarians. Yet there they stand as grim and silent as if they had
but yesterday been rescued from the captivity of the native quarry, and
had never seen a nobler form than those of the dusty artisans who
wrought them--as dull and unimpressible as some of the stupid tourists
whom I see daily gazing upon these glorious monuments, and seeing only
so much brick and stone.