it an offence against beauty and poetry, I do not see why a Londoner,
who himself lives in a well-kept town, should join with any of my
fellow-barbarians in hypocritically deploring the modern spirit which
has so happily invaded the Eternal City. The Londoner should rather
entreat us not to be humbugs and should invite us to join him in
rejoicing that the death-rate of Rome, once the highest in the civilized
world, is now almost the lowest. But the language of Shakespeare and
Milton is too often internationally employed in deploring the modernity
which has housed us aliens there in such perfect comfort and safety. One
must confine one's self to instances, and one may take that of the
Ludovisi Quarter, as it is called, where I dwelt in so much peace and
pleasure except when I was reminded that it was formed by plotting the
lovely Villa Ludovisi in house lots and building it up in attractive
hotels and apartment-houses. Even then I did not suffer so keenly as
some younger people, who had never seen the villa, seemed to do, though
there are still villas to burn in and about Rome, and they could not
really miss the Ludovisi. It was a pretty place, but not beyond praise,
and the quarter also is pretty, though also not beyond praise. The villa
was for the pleasure and pride of one family, but it signified, even in
its beauty, nothing but patrician splendor, which is a poor thing at
best; and the quarter is now for the pleasure and pride of great numbers
of tourists, mostly of that plutocracy from which a final democracy is
inevitably to evolve itself. I could see no cause to beat the breast in
this; and in humbler instances, even to very humble, I could not find
that things were nearly as bad in Rome as they have been painted.

There is no doubt but at one time, directly after the coming of the
capital, Rome was badly overbuilt. There is no doubt, also, that Rome
has grown up to these rash provisions for her growth, and that she now
"stuffs out her vacant garments with her form" pretty fully. One must