MR. EDITOR,--Rome is a subject which is neither uninteresting nor alien to the present age."
"That's a fact, or you wouldn't be here writing it," remarked Buttons.
"In looking over the past, our view is too often hounded by the Middle Ages. We consider that period as the chaos of the modern world, when it lay covered with darkness, until the Reform came and said. 'Let there be light!"
"Hang it, Dick! be original or be nothing."
"Yet, if the life of the world began anywhere, it was in Rome. Assyria is nothing to me. Egypt is but a spectacle!"
"If you only had enough funds to carry you there you'd change your tune. But go on."
"But Rome arises before me as the parent of the latter time. By her the old battles between Freedom and Despotism were fought long ago, and the forms and principles of Liberty came forth, to pass, amid many vicissitudes, down to a new-born day."
"There! I'm coming to the point now!"
"About time, I imagine. The editor will get into despair."
"There is but one fitting approach to Rome. By any other road the majesty of the Old Capital is lost in the lesser grandeur of the Medieval City. Whoever goes there let him come up from Naples and enter by the Jerusalem Gate."