PROTESTANT CEMETERY.
"The spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access."
The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. "It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." So wrote Shelley, whose heart is contained in a tomb at the top left-hand corner of the new ground, his body having been burned upon the shore at Lerici, where it was thrown up by the sea. Passing into the old ground, "in the romantic and lovely cemetery under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the mossy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome" (Shelley), here, on the right of the entrance, "lies one whose name was writ in water," Keats desiring this to be engraved upon his tomb. A fellow-poet says, "You feel an interest here, a sympathy you were not prepared for; you are yourself in a foreign land, and they are for the most part your countrymen, Englishmen."
In returning from the Cemetery, nearly opposite the exit, a lane, Via S. Maria, leads up to the Aventine Hill. The square at the top is decorated with military trophies of the Knights of Malta. A door on the left leads to their Priory; it contains a key-hole;—look through it, 'tis worth your while.