"And where are they now?”

"They are gone; but we cannot say whither. They set out soon after sun-rise."

At a late hour they had left the pavilion, and had retired to their toilet-chamber, a chamber of oak richly carved, that had once been an oratory, and afterwards, what was no less essential to a house of that antiquity, a place of resort for two or three ghosts of the family. But, having long lost its sanctity, it had now lost its terrors; and, gloomy as its aspect was, Violetta was soon sitting there alone. "Go," said she to her sister, when her mother withdrew for the night, and her sister was preparing to follow," Go, Clara. I will not be long" -and down she sat to a chapter of the Promessi Sposi.1

But she might well forget her promise, forgetting where she was. She was now under the wand of an enchanter; and she read and read till the clock struck three and the taper flickered in the socket. She started up as from a trance; she threw off her wreath of roses; she gathered her tresses into a net;2 and snatching a last look in the mirror, her eye-lids heavy with sleep, and the light glimmering and dying, she opened a wrong door, a door that had been left unlocked; and, stealing along on tiptoe, (how often may Innocence wear the semblance of Guilt!) she lay down as by her sleeping sister; and instantly, almost before the pillow on which she reclined her head had done sinking, her sleep was as the sleep of childhood.

When morning came, a murmur strange to her ear alarmed her.-What could it be?-Where was she ?-She looked not; she listened not; but like a fawn from the covert, up she sprung and was gone.

1 A Milanese story of the xviith century, by Alessandro Manzoni. 2 See the Hecuba of Euripides, v. 911, &c.

It was she then that he sought; it was she who, unconsciously, had taught him to love; and, ht and day, he pursued her, till in the Cathedral Perugia he discovered her at a solemn service, she knelt between her mother and her sister mong the rich and the poor.

From that hour did he endeavour to win her reard by every attention, every assiduity that Love ould dictate; nor did he cease till he had won it ad till she had consented to be his; but never did he secret escape from his lips; nor was it till some ears afterwards that he said to her, on an anniersary of their nuptials, "Violetta, it was a joyful ay to me, a day from which I date the happiness f my life; but, if marriages are written in heaven," -nd, as he spoke, he restored to her arm the braceEt which he had treasured up so long, "how strange are the circumstances by which they are sometimes rought about; for, if You had not lost yourself, Violetta, I might never have found you."

ROME.

AM in Rome! Oft as the morning-ray
Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry,
Whence this excess of joy? What has
befallen me?

And from within a thrilling voice replies,
Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;

And I spring up as girt to run a race!

Thou art in Rome! the City that so long Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;

U

The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (What but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by the river side?)
Grew into every thing; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way

O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandize,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
-But ever hand to hand and foot to foot,
Through nations numberless in battle-array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them All.

Thou art in Rome! the City, where the Gauls, Entering at sun-rise through her open gates, And, through her streets silent and desolate, Marching to slay, thought they saw Gods, not

men;

The City, that, by temperance, fortitude,
And love of glory, towered above the clouds,
Then fell—but, falling, kept the highest seat,
And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe,
Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild,
Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age,
Her empire undiminished.- -There, as though
Grandeur attracted Grandeur, are beheld
All things that strike, ennoble-from the depths
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece,
Her groves, her temples-all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the Forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flocked thither to abide eternally,

Within those silent chambers where they dwell,
In happy intercourse ?And I am there!
Ah, little thought I, when in school I sate,
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live

tread the Appian,1 once an avenue
monuments most glorious, palaces,

eir doors sealed up and silent as the night,
e dwellings of the illustrious dead-to turn
ward Tibur, and, beyond the City-gate,
ur out my unpremeditated verse

here on his mule I might have met so oft orace himself 2- or climb the Palatine, reaming of old Evander and his guest, reaming and lost on that proud eminence, ong while the seat of Rome, hereafter found ess than enough (so monstrous was the brood ugendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge

ne in his madness; 3 and inscribe my name,
[y name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf,
'hat shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,

Where his voice faltered and a mother wept
Tears of delight! 4

But what the narrow space Just underneath? In many a heap the ground Heaves, as if Ruin in a frantic mood

Had done his utmost. Here and there appears, As left to show his handy-work not ours,

An idle column, a half-buried arch,

A wall of some great temple.

-It was once,
And long, the centre of their Universe,5
The Forum-whence a mandate, eagle-winged,

The street of the tombs in Pompeii may serve to give us some idea of the Via Appia, that Regina Viarum, in its splendour. It is perhaps the most striking vestige of antiquity that remains to us.

2 And Augustus in his litter, coming at a still slower rate. He was borne along by slaves; and the gentle motion_allowed him to read, write, and employ himself as in his cabinet. Though Tivoli is only sixteen miles from the City, he was always two nights on the road, SUETONIUS,

J Nero.

At the words "Tu Marcellus eris." The story is so beautiful, that every reader must wish it to be true.

From the golden pillar in the Forum the ways ran to the gates, and from the gates to the extremities of the Empire.

Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost.
The very dust we tread, stirs as with life:
And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur.

We are come,

Are now where once the mightiest spirits met In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free, The noblest theatre on this side Heaven!

-Here the first Brutus stood, when o'er the

corse

Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud Burst like a God. Here, holding up the knife That ran with blood, the blood of his own child, Virginius called down vengeance.—But whence spoke

They who harangued the people; turning now To the twelve tables,1 now with lifted hands To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape In the unclouded azure shone far off,

And to the shepherd on the Alban mount Seemed like a star new-risen ?2 Where were ranged

In rough array as on their element,

The beaks of those old galleys, destined still 3
To brave the brunt of war-at last to know
A calm far worse, a silence as in death?
All spiritless; from that disastrous hour
When he, the bravest, gentlest of them all,*
Scorning the chains he could not hope to break,
Fell on his sword!

Along the Sacred Way

1 The laws of the twelve tables were inscribed on pillars of brass, and placed in the most conspicuous part of the Forum.-DION. HA 2 "Amplitudo tanta est, ut conspiciatur a Latiario Jove."-C. PLIN 3 The Rostra. 4 Marcus Junius Brutus.

5 It was in the Via Sacra that Horace, when musing along as usual, was so cruelly assailed; and how well has he described a animal that preys on its kind.-It was there also that Cicero wai