their size and shape, but quaint and oddly rigged, making a very good
fore-or back-ground, according as one looks at the picture. The
Marmorata is at the foot of the Aventine, the most lonely and unvisited
of the Seven Hills. From among the vegetable-gardens and cypress-groves
which clothe its long flank rise large, formless piles, whose
foundations are as old as the Eternal City, and whose superstructures
are the wreck of temples of the kingly and republican periods, and
palaces and villas of imperial times, and haughty feudal abodes, only to
be distinguished from one another by the antiquary amid their
indiscriminate ruin and the tangle of wild-briers and fern, ivy and
trailers with which they are overgrown. On the summit no trace of
ancient Rome is to be seen. There are no dwellings of men on this
deserted ground: a few small and very early Christian churches have
replaced the temples which once stood here, to be in their turn
neglected and forsaken: they stand forlornly apart, separated by
vineyards and high blank walls. On the brow of the hill is the esplanade
of a modern fort, and within its quiet precincts are the church and
priory of the Knights of Malta--nothing but a chapel and small villa as
abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between
two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the
coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were
aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride
and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white
and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of St. Peter's, which is
at the farthest end of the city, two miles at the least as the crow
flies. When the gate was opened we entered a sweet little garden full of
violets, traversed by an alley of old ilex trees, through which appeared
the noble dome, and which led from the gate to a terrace overhanging the
Tiber--I will not venture to guess how far below--more like two than one
hundred feet; perhaps still farther. On the edge of the terrace was an