Nor asking more, on that delicious Bay,*
Parthenope's Domain-Virgilian haunt,
Illustrated with never-dying verse,t
And, by the Poet's laurel-shaded tomb ‡
Age after age to Pilgrims from all lands
Endeared.

And who-if not a man as cold
In heart as dull in brain-while pacing ground
Chosen by Rome's legendary Bards, high minds
Out of her early struggles well inspired

To localize heroic acts-could look

Upon the spots with undelighted eye,

Though even to their last syllable the Lays
And very names of those who gave them birth
Have perished?-Verily, to her utmost depth,
Imagination feels what Reason fears not

To recognize, the lasting virtue lodged
In those bold fictions that, by deeds assigned
To the Valerian, Fabian, Curian Race,
And others like in fame, created Powers
With attributes from History derived,

* The Bay of Naples. Neapolis (the new city) received its ancient name of Parthenope from one of the Sirens, whose body was said to have been washed ashore in that bay. Sil. 12, 33.-ED.

+ See Georgics, iv. 564.-ED.

Virgil died at Brundusium, but his remains were carried to his favourite residence, Naples, and were buried by the side of the road leading to Puteoli-the Via Puteolana. His tomb is still pointed out near Posilipo, -close to the sea, and about half way from Naples to Puteoli, the Scuola di Virgilio.

"The monument, now called the tomb of Virgil, is not on the road which passes through the tunnel of Posilipo; but if the Via Puteolana ascended the hill of Posilipo, as it may have done, the situation of the monument would agree very well with the description of Donatus."-(George Long, in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography.)

The inscription said to have been placed on the tomb was as follows: "Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces."

-ED.

By Poesy irradiate, and yet graced,
Through marvellous felicity of skill,

With something more propitious to high aims
Than either, pent within her separate sphere,
Can oft with justice claim.

And not disdaining

Union with those primeval energies

To virtue consecrate, stoop ye from your height.
Christian Traditions! at my Spirit's call
Descend, and, on the brow of ancient Rome

As she survives in ruin, manifest

Your glories mingled with the brightest hues
Of her memorial halo, fading, fading,
But never to be extinct while Earth endures.
O come, if undishonoured by the prayer,
From all her Sanctuaries Open for my feet
Ye Catacombs, give to mine eyes a glimpse
Of the Devout, as, 'mid your glooms convened
For safety, they of yore enclasped the Cross *
On knees that ceased from trembling, or intoned
Their orisons with voices half-suppressed,
But sometimes heard, or fancied to be heard,
Even at this hour.

And thou Mamertine prison,f

Into that vault receive me from whose depth

The catacombs were subterranean chambers and passages, usually cut out of the solid rock, and used as places of burial, or of refuge. The early Christians made use of the catacombs in the Appian way for worship, as well as for sepulchre.- ED.

The Carcer Mamertinus,-one of the most ancient Roman structures,overhung the Forum, as Livy tells us, "immanens foro," underneath the Capitoline hill. It still exists, and is entered from the sacristy of the church of S. Guiseppe de Falagnami, to the left of the arch of Severus. It was originally a well (the Tullianum of Livy), and afterwards a prison, in which Jugurtha was starved to death, and Catilline's accomplices perished. There are two chambers in the prison, one beneath the other; the lowermost containing, in its rock floor, a spring, which rises nearly to the surface. For the legend connected with it see the next note.-ED.

Issues, revealed in no presumptuous vision,
Albeit lifting human to divine,

A Saint, the Church's Rock, the mystic Keys
Grasped in his hand; and lo! with upright sword *
Prefiguring his own impendent doom,

The Apostle of the Gentiles; both prepared
To suffer pains with heathen scorn and hate
Inflicted;-blessèd Men, for so to Heaven
They follow their dear Lord!

Time flows-nor winds,

Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course,
But many a benefit borne upon his breast
For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone,
No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth
An angry arm that snatches good away,
Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream
Has to our generation brought and brings
Innumerable gains; yet we, who now
Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely
To a chilled age, most pitiably shut out
From that which is and actuates, by forms,
Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact
Minutely linked with diligence uninspired,
Unrectified, unguided, unsustained,

By godlike insight. To this fate is doomed.
Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be
Her conquests, in the world of sense made known.
So with the internal mind it fares; and so
With morals, trusting, in contempt or fear
Of vital principle's controlling law,

To her purblind guide Expediency; and so

According to the legend, St Peter, who was imprisoned in the Carcer Mamertinus under Nero, caused this spring to flow miraculously in order to baptize his jailors. Hence the building is called S. Pietro in Carcere.-ED.

Suffers religious faith.

*

Elate with view

Of what is won, we overlook or scorn

The best that should keep pace with it, and must,
Else more and more the general mind will droop,
Even as if bent on perishing. There lives
No faculty within us which the Soul

Can spare,* and humblest earthly Weal demands,
For dignity not placed beyond her reach,
Zealous co-operation of all means

Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire,
And liberate our hearts from low pursuits.
By gross Utilities enslaved we need
More of ennobling impulse from the past,
If to the future aught of good must come
Sounder and therefore holier than the ends
Which, in the giddiness of self-applause,
We covet as supreme. O grant the crown

That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous staff
From Knowledge-If the Muse, whom I have served
This day, be mistress of a single pearl

Fit to be placed in that pure diadem;

Then, not in vain, under these chesnut boughs
Reclined, shall I have yielded up my soul
To transports from the secondary founts
Flowing of time and place, and paid to both
Due homage: nor shall fruitlessly have striven,
By love of beauty moved, to enshrine in verse
Accordant meditations, which in times
Vexed and disordered, as our own, may shed
Influence, at least among a scattered few,

To soberness of mind and peace of heart

Compare "Despondency Corrected," Excursion, Book IV. (Vol. V.

p. 188)

"Within the soul a faculty abides," &c.

-ED.

Friendly; as here to my repose hath been

This flowering broom's dear neighbourhood;* the light
And murmur issuing from yon pendent flood,
And all the varied landscape. Let us now
Rise, and to-morrow greet magnificent Rome.†

II.

THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO AT ROME.

[SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT told me that, when he first visited Italy, pine-trees of this species abounded, but that on his return thither, which was more than thirty years after, they had disappeared from many places where he had been accustomed to admire them, and had become rare all over the country, especially in and about Rome. Several Roman villas have within these few years passed into the hands of foreigners, who, I observed with pleasure, have taken care to plant this tree, which in course of years will become a great ornament to the city and to the general landscape. May I venture to add here, that having ascended the Monte Mario, I could not resist the embracing the trunk of this interesting monument of my departed

* See the Fenwick note.-ED.

+ It would be ungenerous not to advert to the religious movement that, since the composition of these verses in 1837, has made itself felt, more or less strongly, throughout the English Church ;-a movement that takes, for its first principle, a devout deference to the voice of Christian antiquity. It is not my office to pass judgment on questions of theological detail; but my own repugnance to the spirit and system of Romanism has been so repeatedly and, I trust, feelingly expressed, that I shall not be suspected of a leaning that way, if I do not join in the grave charge, thrown out, perhaps in the heat of controversy, against the learned and pious men to whose labours I allude. I speak apart from controversy; but, with strong faith in the moral temper which would elevate the present by doing reverence to the past, I would draw cheerful auguries for the English Church from this movement, as likely to restore among us a tone of piety more earnest and real than that produced by the mere formalities of the understanding, refusing, in a degree which I cannot but lament, that its own temper and judgment shall be controlled by those of antiquity.-W. W., 1842.

The Monte Mario is to the north-west of Rome, beyond the Janiculus and the Vatican. The view from the summit embraces Rome, the Campagna, and the sea. It is capped by the villa Millini, in which the 'magnificent solitary pine-tree' of this sonnet still stands, amidst its cypress plantations.-ED.