"Where'er we tread 'tis haunted holy ground,
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon."
Leaving this noble relic of the past, I presently stood before a solitary gate, known as "The Arch of Hadrian." It was, in fact, erected here by that Roman emperor in the second century after Christ, when Greece was but a province of the Cæsars. In Italy this would seem to us of great antiquity; but amid objects such as I had just beheld, it appeared comparatively modern. On one side of this portal is the inscription, "This is Athens, the old City of Theseus." On the other are the words, "This is the new City of Hadrian, not that of Theseus." In fact this gateway was a barrier, yet a connecting link, between the Grecian and the Roman Athens,—the cities of the conquered and the conqueror.
THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.