wealthy-who was so astute as to boast of this transaction which all the sophistry of his friend Cicero failed to palliate-who, in fine, viewed other men's failings through a powerful lens, and the springs of his own actions through an opaque medium :—such is the Roman patriot whom Addison wishes us to admire, but whom philosophy teaches us to distrust. And "mark the end." Ptolemy, the miser, could not survive the loss of his gold, and therefore destroyed himself-Cato, the stoic, could not bear the ascendancy of Cæsar, and therefore stabbed himself! There is sometimes-perhaps oftener than is imagined-retributive justice even on this side of the grave! SENECA is as pale as when he opened his veins by order of his inhuman pupil. His death was more lingering and painful than that of the infamous Nero, who commanded him to die—but it was more philosophic and cheerful, because unaccompanied by remorse. Hannibal has, at last, out-generaled Fabius, and gained the Capitol-Scipio still maintains his continence, though surrounded by many fair ones, and some that were not less frail than fair! * It is remarkable that the ancient Romans did not discover the means of speedy death produced by the cutting of an artery, instead of the slow and painful dissolution resulting from the opening of numerous small veins. The latter mode of terminating existence is one of the most torturous that can be imagined. The gradual exhaustion by venous hæmorrhage is attended by horrible pains, spasms, and even convulsions; whereas the wound of an artery, as of the carotid, extinguishes the vital spark in a torrent of blood, and consciousness is annihilated in an instant, without suffering. In Seneca's case, even with the aid of the warm-bath, death could not be induced by venesection—and his friends, in pity for his sufferings, were obliged to suffocate him! His wife, Paulina, who, in imitation of the Hindoo widows, was induced to have her veins opened also, was spared immediate death, to die by a lingering disease, the consequence of loss of blood. The moderns are wiser, or at least more scientific, in their generation. They know how to extinguish life by the opening of an artery. The author once witnessed a horrifying instance of this modern science of suicide in the Straits of Malacca. A surgeon in His Majesty's Service, without any apparent cause, laid a razor across the upper part of his thigh, and, taking a volume of Darwin's Zoonomia, struck the back of the instrument, cut the femoral artery, and was dead in twenty seconds! The blow was heard by the officers of the mess-they rushed into his cabin-but he was a corpse! How is it that, among the ancients, the act of suicide is seldom recorded but as the means of escaping tortures, degradation, or captivity,-whereas, among the moderns, it is every day perpetrated without any apparent, or at least apparently adequate cause? The solution is to be sought, and I think to be found, in a combination of moral and physical circumstances distressing the mind and disordering the body. I firmly believe that suicide rarely, if MARBLE MILLENNIUM. 177 The Millenium, like love, levels all distinctions of rank and character, and has introduced into each other's society and acquaintance, many contrasting personages, besides a considerable number that still choose to remain INCOGNITO. Here are seen associating, without the slightest symptom of collision hatred or jealousy, princes and peasants, senators and centurions, fauns and philosophers, satyrs and vestals, matrons and courtezans, despots and democrats (differing more in name than in nature), patriots and traitors, priests and bacchanals, together with every variety of men and animals that prey on or devour each other from the Equator to the Pole, from the banks of the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules ! ANTINOUS is more admired now than in the days of ADRIAN, and for less equivocal reasons-the GLADIATOR dies, not to gain plaudits from the populace, but applause from posterity-Diogenes and Alexander meet once more; but the cynic no longer snarls at the hero-Cleopatra applies the asp to her arm, though she need not now dread the triumphal procession of Augustus— Demosthenes is silently eloquent-Hercules rests on his club, though his muscles are still in action-Archimedes has solved the great problem! Andt his reminds me of the end of all things—and especially of these reflections. It is said that Shakespeare was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, else Mercutio would have killed him. So I perceive that a much longer sojourn on the Capitol would throw myself into a fever, or my readers (if any) into a sleep. I shall therefore sound a retreat. I cannot, however, leave this spot (probably for the last time) without paying one short tribute of respect to a class of its inhabitants to whom I am deeply indebted for many of the most exquisite pleasures I have enjoyed during my earthly pilgrimage I mean the POETS! To the Millennian favourites of the NINE, the odious epithet of "genus irritabile vatum" is no longer applicable. A rival's fame excites not envy in their breasts-a contemporary's merit is not now denied. HOMER, who Wandering from clime to clime observant stray'd, has rested after his travels, and is freed from the labour or pleasure of rehearsing his own poems. He left no issue-or at least successor. But his spirit has gone abroad and multiplied exceedingly. So long "As pity melts us or as passion warms," ever, occurs from purely mental agony, and before perturbations of the mind have disordered the functions of the body. The corporeal disorder re-acts on the mind, and induces temporary insanity. The coroner's verdict, which is often looked upon as a humane or merciful fiction, is in fact founded, though not always clearly understood, upon a physiological truth. ла the soul of the Grecian bard will animate every heart, and speak every language. This itself is no mean immortality; but it is to be hoped that the bard enjoys a still more lasting one! He is blind-that does not surprise us. But that he should be deaf, or at least insensible to the incense of adoration which rises before his shrine in every region of the earth, is remarkable in his order of beings! It seems to indicate, that if memory of the past accompany us to another state of existence, we shall not be indulged with a consciousness of what takes place after our exit from the theatre of this life. HORACE no longer flatters Mæcenas for Mæcenas has no longer the ear of Augustus. VIRGIL weeps not for the loss of his few acres of marsh near Mantua. He has wisely preferred the arid rock of Pausilipo for his grave. OVID indites no more of his TRISTIA from the gloomy shores of Pontus. His exile has terminated, and he is restored to his beloved Capitol. His amorous effusions can no longer inflame the passions of his Millennian neighbours. He has undergone one of his own metamorphoses; and the glow of a corrupted and corrupting heart is changed into the icy coldness of Parian marble. Perseus and Juvenal have dropped the pen of satire. The vices which they scourged have fled from the Capitol—many of them to more favourable soils while some of them still linger among the seven hills. I would fain prolong my stay on this interesting mount; but TIME warns me to depart. Saluting the equestrian statue of Aurelian, we descend, with reluctance, the long flight of marble steps on the northern side of the hill, and bid adieu to the Capitol ! MODERN ROME---STREETS, HOUSES, INHABITANTS. We have scarcely quitted the marble stair-case, eyeing, on each side, the basaltic lions formed by Egyptian hands, when we find ourselves involved in a labyrinth of lanes, and among a people who seem to have few claims to consanguinity with their venerable, or, at least, venerated ancestors above! The wynds of modern Athens were never considered as patterns of cleanliness; but they might fairly challenge comparison with the streets at the very foot of the ancient Capitol! The first time I wandered through them was at night—and I confess I was exceedingly glad to get back to the CORSO from places which seemed equally calculated for wretched poverty, and the crimes to which it leads! The eye of the stranger is attracted by a notice on the corner, and often in many other parts of every street- "IMMONDEZZAIO." Not being an Italian scholar, I at first took this to be synonymous with what we see occasionally in the streets of London-" COMMIT NO NUISANCE." An interpreter beneath each notice, and which, it would be difficult to misunderstand, soon convinced me that I was quite mistaken—and that what I considered an injunction, was, in reality an invitation to “throw dirt into the street." I thought within myself that this reiterated recommendation of the police was somewhat unnecessary in Rome, and Italian cities generally; but here again, I soon discovered that I had drawn a false conclusion. Of two evils we are advised to choose the lesser ;-and if dirt must exist, it is better that it should be outside than inside of the houses. In the former locality, it stands a chance of diminution by rains, winds, suns-nay, even occasionally by the scavenger :—in the latter, it must accumulate to the destruction of life as well as comfort! IMMONDEZZAIO, therefore, is a salutary precept— but it only goes half way. When the police admonishes the Romans to throw the dirt into the streets, it should do its part of the duty, and compel the removal of that dirt from the offended eyes and olfactories of strangers. I say of strangers; for dirt can give no offence to the Romans themselves. Of the narrowness of the streets I have already spoken.* Foreigners have no right to object to this peculiarity of Italian towns. The inhabitants who have to stand the brunt of the Summer's suns, as well as the Winter's colds, are wise in building the houses high and the streets narrow, as affording them the surest and most effectual protection against the fierce solar beams, the suffocating sirocco, the chilling tramontane-and last, not least, the deadly MALARIA. Those, therefore, who inhabit the CORSO, the Via BABUINO, or the Strada di RIPETTA, pay dearly in Summer for the fresh air which they enjoy in Winter, as compared with that which is breathed by the Roman population in general. If a stranger were to walk through the streets of Rome, for the first time, and without previous reading, he would be often surprised, and sometimes puzzled. While sauntering along the CORSO, for example, he could not help asking himself the question, why is the best street of Rome (though far inferior to the Strand in London) studded with so many gloomy prisons? Or, how is it that a population of 130,000 souls should require so many strong places of incarceration for their bodies? After contemplating, with feelings of commiseration, one of these OLD BAILEYS, with its massive walls and irongrated windows, frosted or fringed with cobwebs, I ventured, though not without some inquisitorial apprehensions, to enter, in blissful ignorance, within its lofty portal. I wandered round a spacious court, and observed certain vestiges of man and animals, not very sightly or savoury-but to these I was somewhat reconciled by habit. A broad marble stair-case, in keeping with the court, invited my steps; and as I saw nothing to prevent a retreatnone of those awful words, “nulla vestigia retro," I ascended, and was soon met by the gaoler, who politely invited me to view the interior. I accepted the offer, and was agreeably surprised to exchange the rough and dirty marble * See page 72-3. stairs for lengthened halls, with floors so smooth and glossy, that I quickly measured my full length on the polished surface! I had often laughed at the idea of skates being exported to a hot climate ;-but I now discovered that they were as necessary in Rome as in Moscow. Fortunately there was no other spectator of my fallen state than the gaoler, (as I then considered him,) and he assisted me most kindly to the perpendicular posture. I need hardly say that the delusion soon vanished. I was conducted through gloomy but magnificent galleries and saloons, tenanted by the dead instead of the living -and presenting a new kind of Millennium-marble and pictorial! No living creature except the CICERONE met the eye, during the circuit of this vast mansion, which I had mistaken for a prison-and he had the emolument, if not the pleasure, of doing all the honours of his Lord and Master, at a period of the day, when the latter is invisible.* The taste which erected these dreary mansions in the form of prisons, is not Roman. They were constructed in the same taste during the incarnations of Vishnou and Seeva, on the plains of Hindostan, and have been imitated by every nation between the banks of the Ganges and the shores of the Atlantic. Specimens, though on a plebeian scale, are every year disinterred at Pompeii. The objects contemplated by the first constructors of these voluntary asylums, or domestic fortresses, were, doubtless, privacy and security. The forms were kept up and modified by habit, pride, and the annihilation of all wholesome equilibrium in the distribution of property. This INEQUILIBRIUM is strikingly illustrated in the streets of Rome. We see the most gorgeous palaces in actual contact-making, as it were, party-wall, with the most sordid abodes of poverty, or the work-shops of the meanest and most annoying artisans—as blacksmiths, pewterers, &c. Thus, between the palace and the hovel, there is little or no intermedium—in other words, there are but two great classes-the bloated patrician and the wealthless worker of the soil or its products. That there is a strong tendency to this state of things is certain, from its too prevalent existence in the world; but there is also a counteracting impulse or nisus in human nature, which, if suppressed in one form, will shew itself in some other. If the road be not left open for industry and talent to acquire property and rank, the lower orders must sink into abject pauperism, or ferment into dangerous rebellion. They have taken the former channel in most parts of fair Italy-but with the "march of intellect," they will probably run the latter, and more fearful course * I afterwards saw one of these regal prisons (for where there is a throne, there is, or ought to be, a king) in nocturnal splendour, and in full levee. The presentations were numerous, and the court of His Majesty was as crowded as any court need be! |