Types of the justice, peace, and liberty,

That were to bless them, when their chains were

riven.

On to the Capitol the pageant mov'd,

While many a Shade of other times, that still
Around that grave of grandeur sighing rov'd,
Hung o'er their footsteps up the Sacred Hill,
And heard its mournful echoes, as the last
High-minded heirs of the Republic pass'd.

'Twas then that thou, their Tribune *, (name, which brought

Dreams of lost glory to each patriot's thought,)
Didst, with a spirit Rome in vain shall seek
To wake up in her sons again, thus speak :-

le premier, qui était de couleur rouge, et plus grand que les autres. On y voyait des caractères d'or avec une femme assise sur deux lions, tenant d'une main le globe du monde, et de l'autre une Palme pour représenter la ville de Rome. C'était le Gonfalon de la Liberté. Le second, à fonds blanc, avec un St. Paul tenant de la droite une Epée nue et de la gauche la couronne de Justice, était porté par Etienne Magnacuccia, notaire apostolique. Dans le troisième, St. Pierre avait en main les clefs de la Concorde et de la Paix. Tout cela insinuait le dessein de Rienzi, qui était de rétablir la liberté la justice et la paix."-DU CERCEAU, liv. ii.

* Rienzi.

"Romans, look round you—on this sacred place "There once stood shrines, and gods, and godlike

men.

"What see you now? what solitary trace

"Is left of all, that made ROME's glory then? "The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft "Ev'n of its name—and nothing now remains "But the deep memory of that glory, left

"To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains! "But shall this be?-our sun and sky the same,

"Treading the very soil our fathers trode,"What withering curse hath fall'n on soul and frame,

"What visitation hath there come from God, "To blast our strength, and rot us into slaves, "Here, on our great forefathers' glorious graves? "It cannot be-rise up, ye Mighty Dead,

"If we, the living, are too weak to crush "These tyrant priests, that o'er your empire tread, "Till all but Romans at Rome's tameness blush!

"Happy, PALMYRA, in thy desert domes, "Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss; "And thou, whose pillars are but silent homes "For the stork's brood, superb PERSEPOLIS !

"Thrice happy both, that your extinguish'd race "Have left no embers-no half-living trace"No slaves, to crawl around the once proud spot, "Till past renown in present shame's forgot. "While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks, "If lone and lifeless through a desert hurl'd, "Would wear more true magnificence than decks "The' assembled thrones of all the' existing world"ROME, ROME alone, is haunted, stain'd and curst, "Through every spot her princely TIBER laves, By living human things- the deadliest, worst, "This earth engenders — tyrants and their slaves! -oh shame!—we, who have ponder'd

And we

o'er

"The patriot's lesson and the poet's lay *;

The fine Canzone of Petrarch, beginning " Spirto gentil," is supposed, by Voltaire and others, to have been addressed to Rienzi; but there is much more evidence of its having been written, as Ginguené asserts, to the young Stephen Colonna, on his being created a Senator of Rome. That Petrarch, however, was filled with high and patriotic hopes by the first measures of this extraordinary man, appears from one of his letters, quoted by Du Cerceau, where he says," Pour tout dire, en un mot, j'atteste, non comme lecteur, mais comme témoin oculaire, qu'il nous a ramené le justice, la paix, la bonne foi, la sécurité, et tous les autres vestiges de l'âge d'or."

"Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore, "Tracking our country's glories all the way— "Ev'n we have tamely, basely kiss'd the ground "Before that Papal Power, - that Ghost of Her, "The World's Imperial Mistress-sitting, crown'd "And ghastly, on her mouldering sepulchre !*

"But this is past:-too long have lordly priests "And priestly lords led us, with all our pride Withering about us -like devoted beasts,

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66

Dragg'd to the shrine, with faded garlands tied. ""Tis o'er-the dawn of our deliverance breaks!

Up from his sleep of centuries awakes

"The Genius of the Old Republic, free "As first he stood, in chainless majesty,

"And sends his voice through ages yet to come, "Proclaiming ROME, ROME, ROME, Eternal ROME!"

This image is borrowed from Hobbes, whose words are, as near as I can recollect: :-"For what is the Papacy, but the Ghost of the old Roman Empire, sitting crowned on the grave thereof?"

EXTRACT XIV.

Rome.

Fragment of a Dream. The great Painters supposed to be Ma

gicians.

The Beginnings of the Art.-Gildings on the Glories and Draperies. — Improvements under Giotto, &c.

Studied by all

The first Dawn of the true Style in Masaccio. · the great Artists who followed him. — Leonardo da Vinci, with whom commenced the Golden Age of Painting.— His Knowledge of Mathematics and of Music.—His female Heads all like each other. Triangular Faces.-Portraits of Mona Lisa, &c. - Picture of Vanity and Modesty. — His chef-d'œuvre, the Last Supper.- Faded and almost effaced.

FILL'D with the wonders I had seen,

In Rome's stupendous shrines and halls, I felt the veil of sleep, serene,

Come o'er the memory of each scene,

As twilight o'er the landscape falls.
Nor was it slumber, sound and deep,
But such as suits a poet's rest
That sort of thin, transparent sleep,

Through which his day-dreams shine the best.