and with a very considerably quenched enthusiasm.
Immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter’s.
It looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedly
small, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the
Piazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns,
and its gushing fountains – so fresh, so broad, and free, and
beautiful – nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the
interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most of
all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to be
forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars
of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red
and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel:
which is before it: in the centre of the church: were like a
goldsmith’s shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish
pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the
building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very
strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many
English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many
English country churches when the congregation have been singing.
I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedral
of San Mark at Venice.
When we came out of the church again (we stood nearly an hour
staring up into the dome: and would not have ‘gone over’ the
Cathedral then, for any money), we said to the coachman, ‘Go to the
Coliseum.’ In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped at the gate,
and we went in.
It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: so
suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment –
actually in passing in – they who will, may have the whole great
pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces
staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood,
and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its
solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon
the stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in
his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight,
not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.
To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
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overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grass
growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on
its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the
seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its
chinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth,
and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to climb into its
upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the
triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; the
Roman Forum; the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the old
religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its
people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most
solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, in
its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full
and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one’s heart, as
it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. GOD be thanked: a
ruin!
As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain among
graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of
the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the
fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the
visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there
is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people
in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated
Coliseum to-morrow.
Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine