Corinne and Nevil recommenced their excursions, by visiting the most remarkable among the numerous churches of Rome. They are all adorned by magnificent antiquities; but these festal ornaments, torn from pagan temples, have here a strange, wild effect. Granite and porphyry pillars are so plentiful, that they are lavished as if almost valueless. At St. John Lateran, famed for the councils that have been held in it, so great is the quantity of marble columns, that many of them are covered with cement, to form pilasters; thus indifferent has this profusion of riches rendered its possessors. Some of these pillars belonged to the Tomb of Adrian, others to the Capitol; some still bear the forms of the geese which preserved the Romans; others have Gothic and even Arabesque embellishments. The urn of Agrippa contains the ashes of a pope. The dead of one generation give place to the dead of another, and tombs here as often change their occupants as the abodes of the living. Near St. John Lateran are the holy stairs, brought, it is said, from Jerusalem, and which no one ascends but on his knees; as Claudius, and even Cæsar, mounted those which led to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Beside St. John's is the front where Constantine is supposed to have been baptized. In the centre of this ground is an obelisk, perhaps the most ancient work of art in the world—contemporary with the Trojan war—so respected, even by the barbarous Cambyses, that he put a stop to the conflagration of a city in its honor; and, for its sake, a king pledged the life of his only son. The Romans brought it from the heart of Egypt by miracle. They turned the Nile from his course that it might be found, and carried to the sea. This obelisk is still covered with hieroglyphics, which have kept their secret for centuries, and defy the sages of to-day to decipher signs that might reveal the annals of India and of Egypt—the antiquities of antiquity! The wondrous charm of Rome consists not only in the real beauty of her monuments, but in the interest they excite; the material for thinking they suggest; the speculations which grow, every day, the stronger from each new study.
One of the most singular churches in Rome is St. Paul's: its exterior is that of an ill-built barn; yet it is bedecked within by eighty pillars of such exquisite material and proportion, that they are believed to have been transported from an Athenian temple, described by Pausanias. If Cicero said, in his day, "we are surrounded by vestiges of history," what would he say now? Columns, statues, and pictures are so prodigally crowded in the churches of modern Rome, that, in St. Agnes's, bas-reliefs, turned face downwards, serve to pave a staircase, no one troubling himself to ascertain what they might represent. How astonishing a spectacle were ancient Rome, had its treasures been left where they were found! The immortal city, nearly as it was of yore, were still before us: but could the men of our day dare to enter it? The palaces of the Roman lords are vast in the extreme, and often display much architectural grace; but their interiors are rarely arranged by good taste. They have none of those elegant apartments invented elsewhere for the perfect enjoyment of social life. Superb galleries, hung with the chefs-d'œuvres of the tenth Leo's age are abandoned to the gaze of strangers, by their lazy proprietors, who retire to their own obscure little chambers, dead to the pomp of their ancestors, as were they to the austere virtues of the Roman republic. The country-houses give one a still greater idea of solitude, and of their owners' carelessness amid the loveliest scenes of nature. One walks immense gardens, doubting if they have a master; the grass grows in every path, yet in these very alleys are the trees cut into shapes, after the fantastic mode that once reigned in France. Strange inconsistency! this neglect of essentials, and affectation in what is useless! Most Italian towns, indeed, surprise us with this mania, in a people who have constantly beneath their eyes such models of noble simplicity. They prefer glitter to convenience; and in every way betray the advantages and disadvantages of not habitually mixing with society. Their luxury is rather that of fancy than of comfort. Isolated among themselves, they dread not that spirit of ridicule, which, in truth, seldom penetrates the interior of Roman abodes. Contrasting this with what they appear from without, one might say that they were rather built to dazzle the peasantry than for the reception of friends.
After having shown Oswald the churches and the palaces, Corinne led him to the Villa Melini, whose lonely garden is ornamented solely by majestic trees. From thence is seen afar the chain of the Apennines, tinted by the transparent air, against which their outlines are defined most picturesquely. Oswald and Corinne rested for some time, to taste the charms of heaven and the tranquillity of nature. No one who has not dwelt in southern climes can form an idea of this stirless silence, unbroken by the lightest zephyr. The tenderest blades of herbage remain perfectly motionless; even the animals partake this noontide lassitude. You hear no hum of insects, no chirp of grasshoppers, no song of birds; nothing is agitated, all sleeps, till storm or passion waken that natural vehemence which impetuously rushes from this profound repose. The Roman garden possesses a great number of evergreens, that, during winter, add to the illusion which the mild air creates. The tufted tops of pines, so close to each other that they form a kind of plain in the air, have a charming effect from any eminence; trees of inferior stature are sheltered by this verdant arch. Only two palms are to be found in the Monks' Gardens: one is on a height; it may be seen from some distance always with pleasure. In returning towards the city, this image of a meridian more burning than that of Italy awakens a host of agreeable sensations.
"Do you not find," said Corinne, "that nature here gives birth to reveries elsewhere unknown? She is as intimate with the heart of man as if the Creator made her the interpretress between his creatures and himself."—"I feel all this," replied Oswald; "yet it may be but your melting influence which renders me so susceptible. You reveal to me emotions which exterior objects may create." I lived but in my heart; you have revived my imagination. But the magic of the universe, which you teach me to appreciate, will never offer me aught lovelier than your looks, more touching than your voice."—"May the feeling I kindle in your breast to-day," said Corinne, "last as long as my life; or, at least, may my life last no longer than your love!" They finished their tour of Rome by the Villa Borghese. In no Roman palace or garden are the splendors of nature and art collected so tastefully. Every kind of tree, superb waterfalls, with an incredible blending of statues, vases, and sarcophagi, here reanimate the mythology of the land. Naiads recline beside the streams, nymphs start from thickets worthy of such guests. Tombs repose beneath Elysian shades; Esculapius stands in the centre of an island; Venus appears gliding from a bower. Ovid and Virgil might wander here, and believe themselves still in the Augustan age. The great works of sculpture, which grace this scene, give it a charm forever new. Through its trees may be descried the city, St. Peter's, the Campagna, and those long arcades, ruins of aqueducts, which formerly conducted many a mountain stream into old Rome. There is everything that can mingle purity with pleasure, and promise perfect happiness: but if you ask why this delicious spot is not inhabited, you will be told, that the cattiva aria, or bad air, prevents its being occupied in summer. This enemy, each year, besieges Rome more and more closely—its most charming abodes are deserted perforce. Doubtless the want of trees is one cause; and therefore did the Romans dedicate their woods to goddesses, that they might be respected by the people: yet have numberless forests been felled in our own times. What can now be so sanctified that avarice will forbear its devastation? This malaria is the scourge of Rome, and often threatens its whole population; yet, perhaps, it adds to the effect produced by the lovely gardens to be found within the boundaries. Its malignant power is betrayed by no external sign: you respire an air that seems pure; the earth is fertile; a delicious freshness atones in the evening for the heat of the day; and all this is death!
"I love such invisible danger," said Oswald, "veiled as it is in delight. If death, as I believe, be but a call to happier life, why should not the perfume of flowers, the shade of fine trees, and the breath of eve be charged to remind us of our fate? Of course, government ought, in every way, to watch over human life; but nature has secrets which imagination only can penetrate; and I easily conceive that neither natives nor foreigners find anything to disgust them in the perils which belong to the sweetest seasons of the year."