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THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

JANUARY 1, 1834.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

HOME THOUGHTS ABROAD.- No. I.

“Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt."

I CAME to Rome from Naples. After a journey of a day and a night, in all the discomfort of a public carriage, the morning found us upon the Pontine Marshes, and I took advantage of our stopping to change horses to walk on and indulge myself with the sight of such traces and shadows of the great city which was our destination, as might be found in reality or imagination in

the scenes around me.

On both sides of me was the Marsh, flat and sullen, and laden with a heavy vapour. On the left it had no boundary but the horizon; on the right, the Latin mountains rose with considerable beauty of outline; and under them, upon the Marsh, there were herds of buffaloes, animals whose sinister expression of countenance was quite in keeping with the plain on the eye for miles; ending only in the concurrence of the double which they were feeding. The road lay straight onwards before row of uninteresting trees which lined it. I was full of expectation and impatience for the sight of Rome; yet there was nothing here of promise to excite or gladden the mind; and, as I gradually fell into a calmer state of mind than urged me to leave the carriage, the following words seemed to flit past my ears, and afforded matter for reflection :

Far sadder musing on the traveller falls

At sight of thee, O Rome!

Than when he views the rough, sea-beaten walls
Of Greece, thought's early home;

For thou wast of the hateful Four, whose doom
Burdens the Prophet's scroll;

But Greece was clean, till in her history's gloom
Her name and sword a Macedonian stole.

VOL. V.-Jun. 1834.

B

And next a mingled throng besets the breast,
Of bitter thoughts and sweet;

How shall I name thee-Light of the wide West,
Or heinous error-seat?

O Mother erst, close tracing Jesus' feet!

Do not thy titles glow

In those stern judgment-fires, which shall complete
Earth's strife with Heaven, and ope the eternal woe?

Let me think a while on the subject thus given me. It cannot be denied Rome is one of the four monsters of Daniel's vision. Do Christian travellers keep this enough in mind? I think not. They are full of classical thoughts when they come to Rome, and look about for the footsteps of the Gracchi, and Brutus, and the philosophic Marcus. This cannot be right in those who have scripture in their hands. St. Paul did not hang in admiration upon the elegancies of Athens, but was pained in spirit at the idolatry which they embellished. Surely we have no right to split our thoughts, and praise and blame in the same breath, as if, in our capacity of scholars, we might doat upon what, as Christians, we condemn. It is much to be feared, that, if we allow our thoughts to be engaged by two masters, and to be regulated by two standards, that of truth, as the least congenial to us, will become subservient to the other. As to the very instance before us, the inconsistency of well-principled men in indulging classical raptures, seems to me to arise from a vague, unsettled notion about the real use of the classics, and a confusion of view as to what is really classical in them. Let it be put down as a fundamental principle, that much of the classics is not classical; i. e. if by classical we mean the perfection of taste and refined beauty; and, if we mean any thing else by it, there is no reason why we should praise it at all. The old Romans, as such, were not classical in any praiseworthy sense. They were a cruel and crafty people; and, though they were a wonderful people, much more are the powers of evil wonderful, as being superhuman ; but this is no reason for admiring or talking much of them. What is classical in Rome is the exception to the Roman system; as in the case of the contemplative Virgil, who shunned the bustle of the city, who conversed with Nature, and is never less poetical than when his strains become political. But, were the Romans the most poetical people on earth, still, I say, St. Paul's pattern at Athens forbids us to praise them, since scripture has marked them out as accursed. What, indeed, could be a greater curse upon them, than that evil distinction-their being selected to be the instruments of God's wrath on the chosen people? Beasts and birds of prey are no pleasant objects; obscanique canes importunæque volueres. An executioner's office is no place of honour; and if this be so even where the criminal is of the commoner sort, much more was it a "bad eminence" to be the de

stroyer of God's elect; for it seems to place them in immediate contrast to Him who had loved and blessed them. "The abomination of desolation"-this is, in holy writ, the substitute for classical renown.

But further, Rome is put on a level with Babylon, in scripture; nay, it is worse than it. The vengeance has fallen on Babylon, and it is no more. On Rome, too, plagues have come; but it survives. What does this circumstance imply? that further judgments are in store? I fear it does. Rome, the mightiest monster, has as yet escaped on easier terms than Babylon. Surely it has not drunk out the Lord's cup of fury, nor expiated the curse! And then, again, the fearful Apocalypse occurs to my mind. Amid the obscurities of that holy book, one doctrine is clear enough-the ungodliness of Rome; and further, its destined destruction. That destruction has not yet overtaken it; therefore it is in store. I am approaching a doomed city.

In these reflections the day past, till we had passed the woods of La Riccia and Albano, when the Campagna opened upon our view, and inflicted still deeper and keener sensations of the fearful exhibition of God's providential dealings, to which we were hastening. An extensive plain, covered with huge fragments of ancient power; masses of brickwork, sepulchres, and, more striking than the rest, lines of aqueducts traversing it in various directions. These are the monuments of guilt and punishment; till the end come, they seem to cry, Discite justitiam moniti! For ten miles these ruins extend on this side of Rome; yet they are but one portion of the retinue of buildings which encircled the imperial city. On the side of Ostia, they were continued for as many as sixteen, to the sea-port town; and, in another direction, they are said to have reached for forty miles. At length we came up to the walls of Rome, and were admitted in through the gate of St. John; but not even then does the scene of desolation cease. Rome occupies now hardly a third of the space it once filled. It has, in a great measure, left the seven hills so famous in history, and is shrunk up into the Campus Martius, by the river. On the side of the Aventine and Coelian, it is especially forlorn. Several churches, one the magnificent St. John Lateran, stand at intervals, as records of the triumph of Christianity over heathenism; but they are solitary, and surrounded by portions of temples, arches, and baths, open waste spaces, and walled gardens.

There is very little beautiful or picturesque in the ruins of Rome. Neither the form nor the material of the buildings admits of it; and if a traveller has come thither with an excited imagination, which a gothic ruin raises in expectation and gratifies, he will be altogether disappointed. We must come to Rome not as mere classical readers, but as readers of scripture, if we

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