“At length I behold Rome,” said Dupaty. “I behold that theatre, where human nature has been all that it can ever be, has performed every thing it can perform, has displayed all the virtues, exhibited all the vices, brought forth the sublimest heroes, and the most execrable monsters, has been elevated to a Brutus, degraded to a Nero, and re-ascended to a Marcus Aurelius.” “Even those who have not read at all,” says Dr. Burton, “know, perhaps, more of the Romans than of any other nation[194] which has figured in the world. If we prefer modern history to ancient, we still find Rome in every page; and if we look with composure upon an event so antiquated as the fall of the Roman empire, we cannot, as Englishmen, or as protestants, contemplate with indifference the sacred empire which Rome erected over the minds and consciences of men. Without making any invidious allusion, it may be said that this second empire has nearly passed away; so that, in both points of view, we have former recollections to excite our curiosity.” “Neither the superb structures,” says Sir John Hobhouse, “nor the happy climate, have made Rome the country of every man, and ‘the city of the soul.’ The education, which has qualified the traveller of every nation for that citizenship, prepares enjoyments for him at Rome, independent of the city and inhabitants about him, and of all the allurements of site and climate. He will already people the banks of the Tiber with the shades of Pompey, Constantine, and Belisarius, and other heroes. The first footsteps within the venerable walls will have shown him the name and magnificence of Augustus, and the three long narrow streets, branching from the obelisk in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo, like the theatre of Palladio, will have imposed upon his fancy with an air of antiquity congenial to the soil. Even the mendicants of the country asking alms in Latin prayers, and the vineyard gates of the suburbs, inscribed with the ancient language, may be allowed to contribute to the agreeable delusion.” “What,” says Chateaubriand, gazing on the ruins of Rome by moonlight, “what was doing here eighteen centuries ago, at a like hour of night? Not only has ancient Italy vanished, but the Italy of the middle ages is also gone. Nevertheless, the traces of both are plainly marked at Rome. If this modern city vaunts her St. Peter’s, ancient Rome opposes her Pantheon and all her ruins; if the one marshals from the Capitol her consuls and emperors, the other arrays her long succession of pontiffs. The Tiber divides the rival glories; seated in the same dust, pagan Rome sinks faster and faster into decay, and Christian Rome is gradually re-descending into the catacombs whence she issued.”