Their spoils here? Yes, and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep→ The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the cloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero ! CXIII. The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, The forum's champion, and the people's chiefHer new-born Numa thou-with reign, alas! too brief. CXV. Egeria! sweet creation of some heart (2) Who found a more than common votary there CXVI. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops; the face [kled, Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinReflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green wild margin now no more erase qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, 8 "he was strong in body, he 5 Τῷ τε γὰρ σώματι ἔῤῥωιο......... καὶ τῇ ψυχῇ ἤκμαζεν, · ὡς μήθ ̓ ὑπὸ γήρως ἀμβλύνεσθαι....... καὶ οὔτ ̓ ἐφθόνει, οὔτε εσθήρει τινά, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ πάντας τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἐτίμα καὶ ἐμεγάλυνες· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε ἐφοβεῖτό τινα αὑτῶν, οὔτε ἐμίσει...... διαβολαῖς τε ήκιστα ἐπίστευε, καὶ ὀργῇ ἥκιστα ἐδουλοῦτο τῶν τε χρημάτων τῶν ἀλλο τρίων ἴσα καὶ φόνων τῶν ἀδίκων ἀπείχετο..... φιλούμενός τε οὖν ἐπ' αὐτοῖς μᾶλλον ἡ τιμώμενος ἔχαιρε, καὶ τῷ τε δήμῳ μετ' ἐπιείκειας συνεγίνετο, καὶ τῇ γηρουσίᾳ σεμνοπρεπῶς ὡμέλει, ἀγαπητὸς μὲν πᾶσι, φοβερὸς δὲ μηδενὶ πλὴν πολεμίοις ὤν. Hist. Rom. lib. lxviii. cap. vi, vii; tom. ii. p. 1123, 1124, édit, Hamb. 1750. llere didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, The purity of heaven to earthly joys, And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? CXX. Alas! our young affections run to waste, was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good, and he advanced them; and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate ; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign ; he was equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had alfable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both ; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country.” (1) The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and inedited manuscripts, rela tive to this unhappy hero, will be seen in the Historical Illustrations of the iVth Canto. (2) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXVII. -E. And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps, as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. CXXI. Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art- A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, And to a thought such shape and image given, CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation:where, [seized? Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? CXXIII. Who loves, raves-'t is youth's frenzy-but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize-wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp awaySick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at firstBut all too late,-so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'t is the same, Each idle-and all ill-and none the worstFor all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. (1) "At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions, "I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices? This is not the way to defend Our life is a false nature-'t is not in This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Disease, death, bondage-all the woes we seeAnd worse, the woes we see not-which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. Yet let us ponder boldly-'t is a base (1) Our right of thought-our last and only place Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, the cause of truth. It was not thus that our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other: he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who | dares not, is a slave."-Preface, p. 14, 15, vol. i. 1805. A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant For which the palace of the present hour O Time! the beautifier of the dead, And only healer when the heart hath bled- [gift: Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And thou, who never yet of human wrong Had it but been from hands less dear-in this CXXXIII. It is not that I may not have incurr'd For my ancestral faults or mine the wound And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now (1) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXVIII. -E. (2) The following stanza was written as the 136th, but afterwards suppressed : "If to forgive be heaping coals of fire As God hath spoken-on the heads of foes, But in this page a record will I seek. That curse shall be forgiveness.-Have I not- As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain; But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. CXXXVIII. The seal is set.-Now welcome, thou dread power! And here the buzz of eager nations ran Mine should be a volcano and rise higher True they who stung were creeping things, but what Who sucks the slumberer's blood?-The eagle?-No: the bat," And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not ? What matters where we fall, to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres, where the chief actors rot. CXL. I see before me the Gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand-his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop'd head sinks gradually lowAnd through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him-he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. CXLI. He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; (1) He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay; There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-(?) All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire, And unavenged?-Arise, ye Goths! and glut your ire. CXLII. But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, rays On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmast arch, and gently pauses there; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland forest, which the grey walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; (4) When the light shines serene but doth not glare, Then in this magic circle raise the dead: [tread. Heroes have trod this spot-'t is on their dust ye CXLV. "While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; (5) "When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; "And when Rome falls-the world." From our own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call Ancient; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unalter'd all ; Rome and her ruin past redemption's skill, The world, the same wide den-of thieves, or what ye will. CXLVI. Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime- it the identical statue; but that statue was of bronze. The Gladiator was once in the Villa Ludovizi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo.*** (1) Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winkelmann's critieism, has been stoutly maintained; or whether it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively asserted; or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or barbarian shield-bearer, according to the opinion of his Italian editor; § it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which represented a (4) Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was particularly "wounded man dying, who perfectly expressed what there re-gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to wear mained of life in him." ** Montfaucon ++ and Maffei §§ thought By the Abate Bracci, Dissertazione sopra un Clipeo Votivo, etc. Preface, p. 7, who accounts for the cord round the neck, but not for the horn, which it does not appear the gladiators themselves ever used. Note [A] Storia delle Arti, tom. ii. p. 205. Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by OEdipus; or Cepreas, herald of Euritheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidae from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued till the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. See Storia delli etc. tom. ii. Arti, pag. 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, lib. ix. cap. ii. Staria, etc.. tom. ii. p. 207. Note [A]. Vulneratum deficientem fecit in quo possit intelligi quantum restat animæ " Plin. Nat. Hist, lib xxiv. cap. 8. ++ Antiq. tom. iii. par 2. tab. 155. $ Race. Stat. tab. 61. (2, 3) See Historical notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. XXIX. XXX.-E. a wreath of laurel on all occasions. lle was anxious, not to show that he was conqueror of the world, but to hide that be was bald. A stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed the motive, nor should we without the help of the historian. (5) This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as a proof that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth, century. A notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the Historical Illustrations, p. 263. (6) "Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated fires; though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so *** Mus. Capitol. tom. iii. p. 154. edit. 1755. Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes-glorious dome! Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods Shiver upon thee-sanctuary and home Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts! CXLVIII. There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light (2) What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sightTwo insulated phantoms of the brain: Is it not so; I see them full and plainAn old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar:-but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? CXLIX. Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life; Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves What may the fruit be yet?—I know not-Cain was Eve's. CL. But here youth offers to old age the food, well preserved as this rotunda. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a model in the Catholic church."-Forsyth's Italy, p. 157.-2d edit. (1) The Pantheon has been made a receptacle for the busts of modern great, or, at least, distinguished, men. The flood of light which once fell through the large orb above on the whole circle of divinities, now shines on a numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or two of whom have been almost deified by the veneration of their countrymen. For a notice of the Pantheon, see Historical Illustrations, p. 287. The starry fable of the milky way And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high, (3) Whose travell'd fantasy from the far Nile's But lo! the dome-the vast and wondrous dome,(4)! To which Diana's marvel was a cellChrist's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb! I have beheld the Ephesian's miracleIts columns strew the wilderness, and dwell The hyæna and the jackall in their shade; I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary, the while the usurping Moslem pray'd; CLIV. But thou, of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone-with nothing like to theeWorthiest of God, the holy and the true. Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook his former city, what could be, Of earthly structures, in his honour piled, Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.` (2) "There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on?" etc. This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of the Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the site, or pretended site, of that adventure, now shown at the church of St. Nicholas in Carcere. The difficulties attending the full belief of the tale are stated in Historical Illustrations, p. 295. (3) The castle of St. Angelo.-See Historical Illustrations. (4) This and the next six stanzas have a reference to the church of St. Peter. For a measurement of the comparative length of this basilica, and the other great churches of Europe, see the pavement of St. Peter's, and the Classical Tour through Italy, vol. ii. p. 125, et seq. chap. iv. |