THE DOUBLE SPOLIATION.

So far from feeling it her duty to

"Soften down the hoar austerity
Of rugged Desolation, and fill up
As 'twere anew the Gaps of Centuries,
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not;"

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she does her best to expose as much as possible the hideous havoc which Restoration has made in this Aged Pile. Cenotaph of the Gladiator, Shrine of the Martyr,-methinks the plundering hand of the Barberini and the Farnese were less unkind than those Pontific paws, which not contented with the harshness of their uncongenial mason-work, have plucked up the Velvet sward that formed the beautiful carpet, and torn away the wilding cypresses, figtrees, rosebushes, and vines, which constituted at once the tapestry and the diadem of the Colosseum.

Yes! yes! shine on, thou rolling Moon, if it were solely to convince us that Time and Nature are the only effectual comforters of Ruin, and that thou thyself canst impart little of loveliness or sublimity where Man has interfered with their inevitable course.

As it now stands the Colosseum is indeed a wreck, rendered absolutely frightful by repair; and whether by sunlight or moonlight, compels you to lament the "melancholy activity" which, utterly inadequate to the restoration of its pristine

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THE ALTARS OF THE ARENA.

glory, has deprived it of all those adventitious ornaments, trees, and herbage, and a thousand beautiful flowers, which, if they could not conceal, at least served to soften its injuries, and which mitigated the desolation they were unable to repair.

Of course a thousand Imaginations and Memories hunt each other through one's head and heart in such a place and at such an hour as this, but to-night there were Realities, which where they do not dispel, must always reinforce such phantasies.

Before the steps of the Great Cross in the centre, garnished with all the emblems of the Passion, knelt a respectably dressed groupe, apparently father, mother, and daughter, absorbed in a rapture of devotion. The lamps were lighted before the fourteen Shrines, which Benedict the Fourteenth erected around the arena, and flung a dusky light upon the successive Stagioni of our Saviour's sufferings, by which each is distinguished; and we saw a solitary peasant, in the dark costume of his country, evidently faint and toil worn, rise from his Oraisons at one Shrine, only to sink upon his knees before another.

Ah! it was at once a simple and sagacious stroke of that Priestly Sovereign, who, in these prophaned Ruins, planted the Cross, and by a mightier spell than the magician's wand, arrested the rapacity of its patrician Plunderers !

One fancies the fable of St. Leo the First re

ORAISONS IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.

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pulsing Alaric in his Invasion of Rome, and the legend of Leo the Fourth setting bounds to the conflagration of the Borgo by the sign of the Cross, realized by this most wise and consequential measure. And then those very consequences themselves, how congenial to our feelings! How natural that the soil, fertilized by the blood of Christian Martyrs, should feel the faithful knees of Christian humiliation and prayer. How soothing to the humble follower of Him Crucified to pour out his thanksgivings or his griefs, where he beholds the chiefest source both of his mourning and his joy. Who can tell the comfort, the encouragement, the peace that hundreds have carried away with them from this dread Receptacle of Antique Horrors! Who knows the treasure more precious than jewels or gold with which the poor pilgrim goes on his way rejoicing from this spot,-this Amphitheatric Church, where Warrior Saints and Maiden Martyrs beheld from between the bloody foaming jaws of the lion, or beneath the lacerating talons of the bear, the opening Heavens, the glories of God, and the Son of Man standing at His right hand!

Yes, it was indeed a consummate stroke to consecrate the Colosseum by the Cross! would that later Pontiffs had been contented with this solemn Dedication, nor ventured to violate the treasures of Nature in their laudable attempts to fortify the dilapidations of Art!

K

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THE FOX ON THE WALLS.

But the grass and flowers are plucked up, and the trees are torn down!

"I must be cruel only to be kind;

Thus Bad begins, but Worse remains behind."

HAMLET.

An American friend of mine told me that, early this morning, he saw a Fox nestling among the wild Vines, Figtrees, and Honeysuckles, upon the walls of Rome:

"For this our heart is faint, for these things our eyes are dim;

Because of the Mountain of Zion, which is desolate ; the Foxes walk upon it." LAMENT. ch. v.

It was a lonely old Chapel, hidden by vineyards; and its narrow interior, dark as it was by twilight, could never have been much brighter by day, so few, so small, and so dusky were its windows, and so scanty the light which even its portals admitted.

As for the High Altar, you saw a dusky thing which encouraged your conjecture that the Place of Idolatry was somewhere shrined within that dusky balustrade above that flight of steps, and in that sightless recess beyond. But in looking

THE MAUSOLEUM OF ST. HELENA,

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for it you felt the full force of that fine verse in Isaiah :

"We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope

as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men!"

By this arch you made your way into a little dingy Sacristy, which had to thank the darkness even more than the sanctity of the place for the reverence it inspired. By that grated door you looked down the stair of the Catacombs, where they offered to shew us forty entire skeletons. Alas! as if the grim Skeleton above ground were not sufficient; that pale round Ruin which once was the Mausoleum of that great English woman, the Empress St. Helena ! And was this all they could do for the memory of that illustrious Lady? Was this the only compensation they could make for stealing from her Sepulchral Tower her imperial Sarcophagus, that ruddy marvel of Porphyrio which now adorns the Greek Cross of the Vatican? And yet what more did her fame demand? What marbles, what bronzes, what shrines, what statues could have enhanced the Memory of her who devoted all the treasures of the quarry and all the wonders of the chisel to consecrate, to embellish, and to protect that Sepulchre of Joseph's Garden ? And who would wish a more august approach than that which accompanied us last evening from Rome? That league of mighty