My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

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СКАЧАТЬ things which would outweigh a year of fatigue and pain. I know of no greater or more sincere tribute to the perfections of the Sistine choir, and the genius of Allegri and Palestrina, than the patience with which so many people submit to be packed, like herring in a box, into that small chapel. But old and gouty as I am, I would gladly undergo all the discomforts of that time to hear those sounds once more.

      I hear some people complain of the beggars, and wonder why Rome, with her splendid system of charities for the relief of every form of suffering, permits mendicancy. For myself, I am not inclined to complain either of the beggars or of the merciful government, which refuses to look upon them as offenders against its laws. On the contrary, it appears to me rather creditable than otherwise to Rome, that she is so far behind the age, as not to class poverty with crime among social evils. I have a sincere respect for this feature of the Catholic Church; this regard for the poor as her most precious inheritance, and this unwillingness that her children should think that, because she has organized a vast system of benevolence, they are absolved of the duty of private charity. In this wisdom, which thus provides for the exercise of kindly feelings in alms-giving, may be found one of the most attractive characteristics of the Roman Church. This, no less than the austere religious orders which she has founded, shows in what sense she receives the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." And the same kind spirit of equality may be seen in her churches and cathedrals, where rich and poor kneel upon the same pavement, before their common God and Saviour, and in her cloisters, and universities, and schools, where social distinctions cannot enter.

      When I walk through the cloisters of these venerable institutions of learning, or gaze upon the ancient city from Monte Mario, or the Janiculum, it seems to me that never until now did I appreciate the world's indebtedness to Rome. Dislike it as we may, we cannot disguise the fact, that to her every Christian nation owes, in a great measure, its civilization, its literature, and its religion. The endless empire which Virgil's muse foretold, is still hers; and, as one of her ancient Christian poets said, those lands which were not conquered by her victorious arms are held in willing obedience by her religion. When I think how all our modern civilization, our art, letters, and jurisprudence, sprang originally from Rome, it appears to me that a narrow religious prejudice has prevented our forming a due estimate of her services to humanity. To some, the glories of the ancient empire, the memory of the days when her sovereignty extended from Britain to the Ganges, and her capital counted its inhabitants by millions, seem to render all her later history insignificant and dull; but to my mind the moral dignity and power of Christian Rome is as superior to her old military omnipotence as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive. The ancient emperors, with all their power, could not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For me, Rome's most enduring glories are the memories of the times when her great missionary orders civilized and evangelized the countries which her arms had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined the world with their virtues; when her pontiffs, single-handed, turned back barbarian invasions, or mitigated the severities of the feudal age, or protected the people by laying their ban upon the tyrants who oppressed them, or defended the sanctity of marriage, and the rights of helpless women against divorce-seeking monarchs and conquerors. These things are the true fulfilment of the glowing prophecy of Rome's greatness, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchises, when Æneas visits the Elysian Fields, and hears from his old father that the mission of the government he is about to found is to rule the world by moral power, to make peace between opposing nations, to spare the subject, and to subdue the proud:

      "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

      Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,

      Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

      ROME TO MARSEILLES

      The weather was fearfully hot the day of my departure from Rome. The sun was staring down, without winking, upon that wonderful old city, as if he loved the sight. The yellow current of old Father Tiber seemed yellower than ever in the glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in the morning had seemed like airs from heaven, before noon had become most uncomfortably like a blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di Spagna was like Tadmor in the wilderness. Not a single English tourist, with his well-read Murray under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage driver broke the stillness of the place with his polyglot solicitations to ride. The great staircase of Trinità de' Monti seemed an impossibility; to have climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun would have been poor entertainment for man or beast. The squares of the city were like furnaces, and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless the narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at the gates and in the public places looked as if they couldn't help it. Now and then a Capuchin monk, in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted cord, toiled along on some errand of benevolence, and made one marvel at his endurance. Occasionally a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking as if he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his dignity and power for a single day of virtuous liberty in linen pantaloons.

      Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there were no buyers, and the shopkeepers slumbered at their counters. The cafés were shrouded in their long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company by their well-wet pavement. A few old Romans found energy enough to call for an occasional ice or lemonade, and talked in the intervals about Pammerstone, and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed down into the Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred the foliage that clothes that mighty ruin. Even the birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena would have perilled life as surely as in those old days when the first Roman Christians there confessed their faith. On such a day, one's parting visits must necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre, and walked along the dusty Via Sacra, pausing a moment to ponder on the scene of Cicero's triumphs, and of so many centuries of thrilling history, and coming to the conclusion that, if it were such a day as that when Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter, the blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in front of the Pantheon, usually so thronged and lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright vegetables had either all been sold, or had refused to grow in such a heat. But the Pantheon itself was unchanged. There it stood, in all its severe grandeur, majestic as in the days of the Cæsars, the embodiment of heathenism, the exponent of the worship of the old, inexorable gods, – of justice without mercy, and power without love. Its interior seemed cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that stupendous pile of masonry, – and I gathered new strength from my short visit. It was a fine thought in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested to our minds by this practice are very striking. When we see that the images of the old revengeful and impure divinities have given place to those of the humble and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that the Saviour of the world stretches out His arms upon the cross, in the place from which the haughty Jupiter once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at once to a conclusion more irresistible than any that the mere force of language could produce. One of our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed this same idea in graceful verse: —

      "The goddess of the woods and fields,

      The healthful huntress undefiled,

      Now with her fabled brother yields

      To sinless Mary and her Child."

      But I must hurry on towards St. Peter's. There are three places in Rome which every one visits as soon as possible after he arrives, and as short a time as may be before his departure – the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and St. Peter's. The narrow streets between the Pantheon and the Bridge of St. Angelo were endurable, because they were shady. It was necessary to be careful, however, and not trip over any of the numerous Roman legs whose proprietors were stretched out upon the pavement in various picturesque postures, sleeping away the long hours of that scorching day. At last the bridge is reached Bernini's frightful statues, which deform its balustrades, seem to be writhing under the influence of the sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronica's napkin СКАЧАТЬ