From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn Part 14

One could preach a sermon over that grave, for in that form which is now but dust, was one of the most vigorous minds of our day, a man of prodigious force, an omnivorous reader, and a writer and lecturer on a great variety of subjects, who in his manifold forms of activity, did as much to influence the minds of his countrymen as any man of his time. He struck fierce blows, right and left, often doing more ill than good by his crude religious opinions, which he put forth as boldly as if they were the accepted faith of all mankind; but in his battle for Liberty rendering services which the American people will not willingly let die.

Mrs. Browning's epitaph is still briefer. There is a longer inscription on a tablet in the front of the house which was her home for so many years, placed there by the munic.i.p.al government of Florence. There, as one looks up to those CASA GUIDI WINDOWS, which she has given as a name to a volume of her poems, he may read that "In this house lived and died ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, who by her genius and her poetry made a golden link between England and Italy."

But on her tomb, which is of pure white marble, is only

E. B. B. OB. 1861.

But what need of more words to perpetuate a name that is on the lips of millions; or to speak of one who speaks for herself in the poetry she has made for nations; whose very voice thus lives in the air, like a strain of music, and goes floating down the ages, singing itself to immortality?

CHAPTER XXII.

OLD ROME AND NEW ROME.--RUINS AND RESURRECTION.

ROME, October 8th.

At last we are in Rome! We reached here a week ago, on what was to me a very sad anniversary, as on the first of October of last year I came from the country, bringing one who was never to return. Now, as then, the day was sadly beautiful--rich with the hues of autumn, when nature is gently dying, a day suited to quiet thoughts and tender memories.

It was late in the afternoon when we found ourselves racing along the banks of the Tiber--"the yellow Tiber" it was indeed, as its waters were turbid enough--and just as the sun was setting we shot across the Campagna, and when the lamps were lighted were rattling through the streets of the Eternal City.

To a stranger coming here there is a double interest; for there are two cities to be studied--old Rome and new Rome--the Rome of Julius Caesar, and the Rome of Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel. In point of historical interest there is no comparison, as the glory of the ancient far surpa.s.ses that of the modern city. And it is the former which first engages our attention.

How strange it seemed to awake in the morning and feel that we were really in the city that once ruled the world! Yes, we are on the very spot. Around us are the Seven Hills. We go to the top of the Capitol and count them all. We look down to the river bank where Romulus and Remus were cast ash.o.r.e, like Moses in the bulrushes, left to die, and where, according to the old legend, they were suckled by a wolf; and where Romulus, when grown to man's estate, began to build a city.

Antiquarians still trace the line of his ancient wall. On the Capitol Hill is the Tarpeian Rock, from which traitors were hurled. And under the hill, buried in the earth, one still sees the ma.s.sive arch of the Cloaca Maxima, the great sewer, built by the Tarquins, through which all the waste of Rome has flowed into the Tiber for twenty-five hundred years; and there are the pillars of the ancient bridge--so they tell us--held by a hero who must have been a Hercules, of whom and his deed Macaulay writes in his "Lays of Ancient Rome" how, long after, in the traditions of the people,

"Still was the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge, In the brave days of old."

Looking around the horizon every summit recalls historical memories.

There are the Sabine Hills, where lived the tribe from which the early Romans (who were at first, like some of our border settlements, wholly a community of men,) helped themselves to wives. Yonder, to the south, are the Alban Hills; and there, in what seems the hollow of a mountain, Hannibal encamped with his army, looking down upon Rome. In the same direction lies the Appian Way, lined for miles with tombs of the ill.u.s.trious dead. Along that way often came the legions returning from distant conquests, "bringing many captives home to Rome," with camels and elephants bearing the spoils of Africa and the East.

These recollections increase in interest as we come down to the time of the Caesars. This is the culminating point of Roman history, as then the empire reached its highest point of power and glory. Julius Caesar is the greatest character of ancient Rome, as soldier and ruler, the leader of armies, and the man whose very presence awed the Roman Senate. Such was the magic of his name that it was said peculiar omens and portents accompanied his death. As Shakespeare has it:

"In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mighty Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."

It was therefore with an interest that no other name could inspire, that we saw in the Capitol a statue, which is said to be the most faithful existing representation of that imperial man; and in the Strada Palace the statue of Pompey, which is believed to be the very one at the base of which "great Caesar fell."[6]

With Caesar ended the ancient Republic, and began the Empire. It was then that Rome attained her widest dominion, and the city its greatest splendor. She was the mistress of the whole world, from Egypt to Britain, ruling on all sides of the Mediterranean, along the sh.o.r.es of Europe, Asia, and Africa. And then the whole earth contributed to the magnificence of the Eternal City. It was the boast of Augustus, that "he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble." Under him and his successors were reared those palaces and temples, the very ruins of which are still the wonder and admiration of the world.

The knowledge of these ruins has been greatly increased by recent excavations. Till within a few years Rome was a buried city, almost as much as Pompeii. The debris of centuries had filled up her streets and squares, till the earth lay more than twenty feet deep in the Forum, choking up temples and triumphal arches; and even the lower part of the Coliseum had been submerged in the general wreck and ruin. In every part of the city could be seen the upper portions of buildings, the frieze on the capitals of columns, that were half under ground, and that, like Milton's lion, seemed pawing to be free.

But the work of clearing away this rubbish was so vast that it had been neglected from century to century. But during the occupation by the French troops, that Government expended large sums in uncovering these ruins, and the work has since been continued by Victor Emmanuel, until now, as the result of twenty years continuous labor, a buried city has been brought to light. The Forum has been cleared away, so that we may walk on its pavement, amid its broken columns, and see the very tribune from which Cicero addressed the Roman people. But beside this Central Forum, there were half a dozen others--such as the Forum of Julius Caesar, and of Augustus, and of Nerva, and of Trajan, where still stands that marvellous Column in bronze (covered with figures in bas-relief, to represent the conquest of the Dacians), which has been copied in the Column of the Place Vendome in Paris. All of these Forums were parts of one whole. What is now covered by streets and houses, was an open s.p.a.ce, extending from the Capitol as far as the Coliseum in one direction, and the Column of Trajan in another, surrounded by temples and basilicas, and columns and triumphal arches, and overlooked by the palaces of the Caesars. This whole area was the centre of Rome, where its heart beat, when it contained two millions of people; where the people came together to discuss public affairs, or to witness triumphal processions returning from the wars. Here the Roman legions came with mighty tread along the Via Sacra, winding their way up to the Capitoline Hill to lay their trophies at the feet of the Senate.

Perhaps the best idea of the splendor and magnificence of ancient Rome may be gained from exploring the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars.

They are of vast extent, covering all the slopes of the Palatine Hill.

Here great excavations have been made. The walk seems endless through what has been laid open. The walls are built like a fortress, as if to last forever, and decorated with every resource of art known to that age, with sculptures and ceilings richly painted, like those uncovered in the houses of Pompeii. These buildings have been stripped of everything that was movable--the statues being transported to the galleries of the Vatican. The same fate has overtaken all the great structures of ancient Rome. They have been divested of their ornaments and decoration, of gilding and bas-reliefs and statues, and in some cases have been quite dismantled. The Coliseum, it is well known, was used in the Middle Ages as a quarry for many proud n.o.ble families, and out of it were built some of the greatest palaces in Rome. Nothing saved the Pantheon but its conversion from a heathen temple into a Christian church. Hundreds and thousands of columns of porphyry and alabaster and costly marbles, which now adorn the churches of Rome, were taken from the ruins of temples and palaces.

But though thus stripped of every ornament, ancient Rome is still magnificent in her ruins. One may wander for days about the palaces of the Caesars, walking through the libraries and theatres, under the arches and over the very tessellated pavement where those proud emperors walked nearly two thousand years ago. He should ascend to the highest point of the ruins to take in their full extent, and there he will see, looking out upon the Campagna, a long line of arches reaching many miles, over which water was brought from the distant hills for the Golden House of Nero.

Perhaps the most ma.s.sive ruin which has been lately uncovered, is that of the Baths of Caracalla, which give an idea of the luxury and splendor of ancient Rome, as quite unequalled in modern times.

But, of course, the one structure which interests most of all, is the Coliseum: and here recent excavations have made fresh discoveries. The whole area has been dug down many feet, and shows a vast system of pa.s.sages _underground_; not only those through which wild beasts were let into the arena, but conduits for water, by which the whole amphitheatre could be flooded and turned into a lake large enough for Roman galleys to sail in; and here naval battles were fought with all the fury of a conflict between actual enemies, to the delight of Roman emperor and people, who shouted applause, when blood flowed freely on the decks, and dyed the waters below.

There is one reflection that often recurs to me, as I wander among these ruins--what it is of all the works of man that really _lives_.

Not architecture (the palaces of the Caesars are but heaps of ruins); but the Roman _laws_ remain, incorporated with the legislation of every civilized country on the globe; while Virgil and Cicero, the poet and the orator, are the delight of all who know the Latin tongue.

Thus men pa.s.s away, their very monuments may perish, but their thoughts, their wisdom, their learning and their genius remain, a perpetual inheritance to mankind.

After Imperial Rome comes Christian Rome. Many of the stories of the first Christian centuries are fables and legends. Historical truth is so overlaid with a ma.s.s of traditions, that one is ready to reject the whole. When they show you here the stone on which they gravely tell you that Abraham bound Isaac for the sacrifice; and another on which Mary sat when she brought Christ into the temple; and the staircase from Pilate's house, the Scala Santa, up which every day and hour pilgrims may be seen going on their knees; and a stone showing the very prints of the Saviour's feet when he appeared to Peter--one is apt to turn away in disgust. But the general fact of the early planting of Christianity here, we know from the new Testament itself.

Ecclesiastical historians are not agreed whether Peter was ever in Rome (although he is claimed as the first Pope), but that Paul was here we know from his epistles, and from the Book of Acts, in which we have the particulars of his "appealing to Caesar," and his voyages to Italy, and his shipwreck on the island of Malta, his landing at Puteoli, and going "towards Rome," where he lived two years in "his own hired house," "preaching and teaching, no man forbidding him."

Several of his epistles were written from Rome. It is therefore quite probable that he was confined, according to the tradition, in the Mamertine Prison under the Capitol, and one cannot descend without deep emotion into that dark, rocky dungeon, far underground, where the Great Apostle was once a prisoner, and from which he was led forth to die. He is said to have been beheaded without the walls. On the road they point out a spot (still marked by a rude figure by the roadside of two men embracing), where it is said Paul and Peter met and fell on each other's neck on the morning of the last day--Paul going to be beheaded, and Peter into the city to be crucified, which at his own request was with his head downwards, for he would not be crucified in the same posture as his Lord, whom he had once denied. On the spot where Paul is said to have suffered now rises one of the grandest churches in the world, second in Rome only to St. Peter's.

So the persecutions of the early Christians by successive emperors are matters of authentic history. Knowing this, we visit as a sacred place the scene of their martyrdom, and shudder at seeing on the walls the different modes of torture by which it was sought to break their allegiance to the faith; we think of them in the Coliseum, where they were thrown to the lions; and still more in the Catacombs, to which they fled for refuge, where they worshipped, and (as Pliny wrote) "sang hymns to Christ as to a G.o.d," and where still rest their bones, with many a rude inscription, testifying of their faith and hope.

It is a sad reflection that the Christian Church, once established in Rome, should afterwards itself turn persecutor. But unfortunately it too became intoxicated with power, and could brook no resistance to its will. The Inquisition was for centuries a recognized inst.i.tution of the Papacy--an appointed means for guarding the purity of the faith. The building devoted to the service of that tribunal stands to this day, close by the Church of St. Peter, and I believe there is still a Papal officer who bears the dread t.i.tle of "Grand Inquisitor."

But fortunately his office no longer inspires terror, for it is at last reduced to the punishment of ecclesiastical offences by ecclesiastical discipline, instead of the arm of flesh, on which it once leaned. But the old building is at once "a prison and a palace"; the cells are still there, though happily unoccupied. But in the castle of St. Angelo there is a Chamber of Torture, which has not always been merely for exhibition, where a Pope Clement (what a mockery in the name!) had Beatrice Cenci put to the torture, and forced to confess a crime of which she was not guilty. But we are not so unjust as to impute all these cruelties of a former and a darker time to the Catholic Church of the present day. Those were ages of intolerance and of persecution. But none can deny that the Church has always been fiercely intolerant. There is no doubt that the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew was the occasion of great rejoicings at Rome. The b.l.o.o.d.y persecution of the Waldenses found no rebuke from him who claimed to be the vicegerent of Christ; a persecution which called forth from Milton that sublime prayer:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, Whose bones lie scattered upon the Alpine mountains cold!

Amid such bitter recollections it is good to remember also the message of Cromwell to the Pope, that "if favor were not shown to the people of G.o.d, the thunder of English cannon should be heard in the castle of St. Angelo."

It seems as if it were a just retribution for those crimes of a former age that the Pope in these last days has had to walk so long in the Valley of Humiliation. Not for centuries has a Pontiff had to endure such repeated blows. The reign of Pius IX. has been longer than that of any of his predecessors; some may think it glorious, but it has witnessed at once the most daring a.s.sumption and its signal punishment--a claim of infallibility, which belongs to G.o.d alone--followed by a bitter humiliation as if G.o.d would cast this idol down to the ground. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence, that just as the dogma of Infallibility was proclaimed, Louis Napoleon rushed into war, as the result of which France, the chief supporter of the Papacy (which for twenty years had kept an army in Rome to hold the Pope on his throne), was stricken down, and the first place in Europe taken by a Protestant power. Germany had already humbled the other great Catholic power of Europe, to the confusion and dismay of the Pope and his councillors. A gentleman who has resided for many years in Rome, tells me that on the very day that the battle of Sadowa was fought, Cardinal Antonelli told a friend of his to "come around to his house that night to get the news; that he expected to hear of one of the greatest victories ever won for the Church," so confidently did he and his master the Pope antic.i.p.ate the triumph of Austria. The gentleman went. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and no tidings came. It was midnight, and still no news of victory. Before morning the issue was known, that the Austrian army was destroyed. Cardinal Antonelli did not come forth to proclaim the tidings. He shut himself up, said my informant, and was not seen for three weeks!

And so it has come to pa.s.s--whether by accident or design, whether by the violence of man or by the will of G.o.d--that the Pope has been gradually stripped of that power and prestige which once so acted upon the imaginations of men, that, like Caesar, "his bend did awe the world," and has come to be merely the bishop, or archbishop, of that portion of Christendom which submits to the Catholic Church.

I find the Rome of to-day divided into two camps. The Vatican is set over against the Quirinal. The Pope rules in one, and Victor Emmanuel in the other; and neither of these two sovereigns has anything to do with the other.

It would take long to discuss the present political state of Rome or of Italy. Apart from the right or wrong of this question, it is evident that the sympathies of the Italian people are on the side of Victor Emmanuel. The Roman people have had a long experience of a government of priests, and they do not like it. It seems as if the world was entering on a new era, and the Papacy, infallible and immutable as it is, must change too--it must "move on" or be overwhelmed.

FOOTNOTE:

[6]

"E'en at the base of Pompey's statue, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN.

ROME, October 15th.

It is a great loss to travellers who come to Rome to see the sights, that the Pope has shut himself up in the Vatican. In the good old times, when he was not only a spiritual, but a civil potentate--not only Pope, but King--he used to ride about a great deal to take a survey of his dominions. One might meet him of an afternoon taking an airing on the Pincian Hill, or on some of the roads leading out of Rome. He always appeared in a magnificent state carriage, of red trimmed with gold, with six horses richly caparisoned, and outriders going before, and the Swiss guards following after. [What would poor old Peter have said, if he had met his successor coming along in such mighty pomp?] The Cardinals too, arrayed in scarlet, had their red carriages and their fine liveries, and their horses pranced up and down the Corso. Thus Rome was very gay. The processions too were endless, and they were glorious to behold. It was indeed a grand sight to see the Pope and all his Cardinals, in their scarlet dresses, sweeping into St. Peter's and kneeling together in the nave, while the muskets of the Swiss guards rang on the pavement, in token of the might of arms which then attended the spiritual power.

But now, alas! all this is ended. The spoiler has entered into the holy place, and the Holy Father appears no more in the streets. Since that fatal day when the Italian troops marched into Rome--the 20th of September, 1870--he has not put his foot in a carriage, nor shown himself to the Roman people. The Cardinals, who live in different parts of the city, are obliged to go about; but they have laid aside all their fine raiment and glittering equipage, and appear only in solemn black, as if they were all undertakers, attending the funeral of the Papacy. The Pope has shut himself up closely in the Vatican. He is, indeed, just as free to go abroad as ever. There is nothing to prevent his riding about Rome as usual. But no, the dear old man will have it that he is restrained of his liberty, and calls himself "a prisoner!" To be sure he is not exactly in a guard-house, or in a cell, such as those in the Inquisition just across the square of St.

Peter, where heretics used to be accommodated with rather close quarters. His "prison" is a large one--a palace, with hundreds of richly furnished apartments, where he is surrounded with luxury and splendor, and where pilgrims flock to him from all parts of the earth.

It is a princely retreat for one in his old age, and a grand theatre on which to a.s.sume the role of martyr. Almost anybody would be willing to play the part of prisoner, if by this means he might attract the attention and sympathy of the whole civilized world.[7]