FOOTNOTES:
[45] Originally printed by Leigh Hunt in his work on Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, 1828; afterwards included by Mrs. Shelley in her collection of Shelley’s Letters from Abroad.—Ed.
[46] Julian and Maddalo.
[47] Rosalind and Helen.
[48] The Cenci.
THE COLISEUM.
A FRAGMENT.[49]
At the hour of noon, on the feast of the Passover, an old man, accompanied by a girl, apparently his daughter, entered the Coliseum at Rome. They immediately passed through the Arena, and seeking a solitary chasm among the arches of the southern part of the ruin, selected a fallen column for their seat, and clasping each other’s hands, sate as in silent contemplation of the scene. But the eyes of the girl were fixed upon her father’s lips, and his countenance, sublime and sweet, but motionless as some Praxitelean image of the greatest of poets, filled the silent air with smiles, not reflected from external forms.