Romans round its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew;
its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattle
round the sharply-twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. The
coachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by,
preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer; and a
priest: the latter chaunting as he goes. It is the Dead Cart,
with the bodies of the poor, on their way to burial in the Sacred
Field outside the walls, where they will be thrown into the pit
that will be covered with a stone to-night, and sealed up for a
year.
But whether, in this ride, you pass by obelisks, or columns ancient
temples, theatres, houses, porticoes, or forums: it is strange to
see, how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blended
into some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose –
a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable – some use for which
it never was designed, and associated with which it cannot
otherwise than lamely assort. It is stranger still, to see how
many ruins of the old mythology: how many fragments of obsolete
legend and observance: have been incorporated into the worship of
Christian altars here; and how, in numberless respects, the false
faith and the true are fused into a monstrous union.
From one part of the city, looking out beyond the walls, a squat
and stunted pyramid (the burial-place of Caius Cestius) makes an
opaque triangle in the moonlight. But, to an English traveller, it
serves to mark the grave of Shelley too, whose ashes lie beneath a
little garden near it. Nearer still, almost within its shadow, lie
the bones of Keats, ‘whose name is writ in water,’ that shines
brightly in the landscape of a calm Italian night.
The Holy Week in Rome is supposed to offer great attractions to all
visitors; but, saving for the sights of Easter Sunday, I would
counsel those who go to Rome for its own interest, to avoid it at
that time. The ceremonies, in general, are of the most tedious and
wearisome kind; the heat and crowd at every one of them, painfully
oppressive; the noise, hubbub, and confusion, quite distracting.
We abandoned the pursuit of these shows, very early in the
proceedings, and betook ourselves to the Ruins again. But, we
plunged into the crowd for a share of the best of the sights; and
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what we saw, I will describe to you.
At the Sistine chapel, on the Wednesday, we saw very little, for by
the time we reached it (though we were early) the besieging crowd
had filled it to the door, and overflowed into the adjoining hall,
where they were struggling, and squeezing, and mutually
expostulating, and making great rushes every time a lady was
brought out faint, as if at least fifty people could be
accommodated in her vacant standing-room. Hanging in the doorway
of the chapel, was a heavy curtain, and this curtain, some twenty
people nearest to it, in their anxiety to hear the chaunting of the
Miserere, were continually plucking at, in opposition to each
other, that it might not fall down and stifle the sound of the
voices. The consequence was, that it occasioned the most
extraordinary confusion, and seemed to wind itself about the
unwary, like a Serpent. Now, a lady was wrapped up in it, and
couldn’t be unwound. Now, the voice of a stifling gentleman was
heard inside it, beseeching to be let out. Now, two muffled arms,
no man could say of which sex, struggled in it as in a sack. Now,
it was carried by a rush, bodily overhead into the chapel, like an
awning. Now, it came out the other way, and blinded one of the
Pope’s Swiss Guard, who had arrived, that moment, to set things to
rights.
Being seated at a little distance, among two or three of the Pope’s
gentlemen, who were very weary and counting the minutes – as
perhaps his Holiness was too – we had better opportunities of
observing this eccentric entertainment, than of hearing the