sea of dark wood beneath my sight. Near me, on each side, the silver sheet of a mountain streamlet was contrasted with the deep verdure of vegetation along their banks, as they descended from the steep declivities of the hills, and at length united their waters in a bright river, which meandered along the distant plain. Following for a short distance a flowery path, which invited my footsteps, I arrived at a grotto in the hill side, where an assemblage of rudely clad savages were offering sacrifice at the humble shrine of the divinity of their worship. I regarded with respectful curiosity these primitive Spaniards, who, according to the imperfect measure of their intelligence, testified their sense of religious dependence and duty by bowing in adoration before the goddess Nata, the benefactress of their tribe and the tutelar genius of the spot. It was the birth of Granada that I beheld: for in the present name of the city is preserved the memory of the aboriginal Gar-Nata, or Cave of Nata, who, according to the accommodating policy of the Roman priesthood, was admitted in their time into the numerous family of pseudo-deities acknowledged by their system of theology. Imperceptibly the scene was shifted, and centuries seemed to have passed away in the change of a moment. In the peculiar and striking conformation of the neighboring hills, in the gay streams that converged together before me, in the brilliant vegetation of the valleys and the auspicious beauty and mildness of the sky, I recognized the Gar-Nata of the Iberians; but it was no longer as the wilderness, where a troop of barbarians clustered around the cavern of their false idol. The Carthaginian had been there, and left behind him abundant traces of that refined aud enlightened spirit, which invariably accompanies the successful prosecution of a liberal and enlarged commerce. The Roman was there now; and the period had arrived, when the sharp points of his haughty Etruscan spirit were smoothed off into elegance by the civilizing influence of the polished Greeks. A thronged and spacious city, filled with the busy hum of multitudes, with its theatre, its circus, and its gorgeous palaces, the never-failing marks of the old Italian magnificence,-lay stretched out in light and life around the brow of the height where I stood. My contemplation of this brilliant spectacle was interrupted by a gathering crowd at my very side. A rich mansion rose, with its terraced gardens, over a gentle slope just in the rear of the hill, its marble front gilded by the parting rays of the setting sun; and I entered its precincts in the company of a group of persons, whose lofty uncovered brows and rich drapery proclaimed them to be Romans. Its splendid halls were now the house of bereavement and mourning; for their master had assembled his kinsmen to render the last rites of affection to the deceased partner of his fortunes. I thought not of the paintings or sculpture that adorned his dwelling; I rested not on those extraordinary men around me, whose wonderful grandeur of conception and comprehensiveness of purpose and nobleness of execution would almost reconcile us to their more wonderful ambition. As in the custom of Roman funerals, the statues of his long line of ancestry stood there in stern array, from Poplicola the king expeller, and Corvinus who slew the boasting Gaul before the camp of Camillus, down to that Soranus, who, Cicero says, was the most correct speaker among the Latins; but I heeded them not. I regarded only the plain marble tablet, which characterized the virtues of the dead and spoke the affection of the living. To Favonia, wife of P. Valerius Lucanus, it sufficed for happiness to possess the love of her lord and husband'-UNI placuisse viro:-such were the simple words, which said that to the heart, which volumes could not have communicated with half the pathos and force of expression. As I gazed upon the inscription, a kind of commentary on its laconic eloquence came up spontaneously in my mind. It recalled to me that exquisite idea of―I know not what poet,— Domestic love, to thy white hand is given for I saw that the golden key had fallen to the ground; the fingers that held it, were now stiffened in death; and for him, whose hopes and joys it had power to unlock, there was left in the chambers of the heart an aching void, which, amid the ceaseless mutations of this changeful life, other objects of attachment might by possibility enter, but could never fill. It pronounced that she died deplored as she had lived beloved; that her ethereal spirit ascended from earth to heaven, ere the blight of disappointment had come to tarnish the bloom and freshness of her young affections, ere the winter of age had chilled their ardor, ere the selfish influences of the world had subdued their vivacity. It gave assurance that, although the lifeless frame might be consigned to its kindred dust, and the disembodied soul have departed for the mansion of the blest, although weeping friends bade farewell forever on earth to her they had loved and lost,-yet her memory survived to them a bright and consecrated thing, beaming out on their sorrow like 'the train of light which follows the sunken sun,' to cheer and purify and elevate. * By another of the mysterious transitions of the soul in its dreaming moments, the patrician palace of Valerius and the funeral of Favonia had vanished. It seemed to be still the hour of approaching sunset, for the reddening rays of the great luminary were thrown aslant me, as I sat on the bench of a vast amphitheatre, in the midst of an immense multitude of spectators of either sex. The scene was one, whose magnificence they only can fully appreciate, who have wandered over the glorious ruins of Roman greatness, in the countries formerly subject to her empire; for the richest theatres of modern times, beautiful as they may be, are but puny fabrics of lath and gilding, unworthy to compare with the stupendous theatrical structures of the Romans. I looked above and around me, and saw that the hill-side of the once shrine of Nata, the very living rock of the declivity itself, was hewn out to form the vast semi-circular ranges of steps where the spectators sat, so that the graduation of seats corresponded to the natural ascent of the height, while at the lowest part was the scene or place of representation. The latter was a beautiful edifice, with its pillared front facing the city, while that part of it, which more strictly answered to our stage, opened of course upon the crowded amphitheatre. Nothing could surpass the splendor of such a spectacle. The seats, it is true, were faced with slabs of finely polished marble, and a wall of heavy masonry was built around them, containing passages and vomitories for the convenience of the spectators. But the broad arch of heaven alone overcanopied the whole; and there sat the thousands of Roman Illiberis, capable, if the mimes of the stage fatigued their attention, of yet raising their eyes to look forth on a scene enchanting as poet ever imagined or painter transferred to his canvass, and clad in the never-tiring tints of lovely |