Who has entered the aged city of Rome and not felt the power of its thrilling associations? How the doors of history swing open before the traveller, and how sublime the panorama which unfolds to his view! How swiftly pass the scenes of pomp and the parades of heroes! It cannot be described. It must be felt to be understood. It requires no very active imagination to see again the strong walls, the towers, the gates, the majestic temples, and the superb Capitol rising over all. To be able to walk its paved streets, and wend about its Corinthian porches, and through its marvellous arches; to rush with the crowds of Romans to a seat in the Coliseum; to march in the triumphal processions, and to listen to the echo of Cicero’s voice among the pillars of the Forum, is no very difficult dream, when the same buildings which saw and heard those things are yet before you. One can stand in the shadows of ancient ruins, when the moon gives light enough to see the outline, but not sufficient to show the scars which the ages have given them, and witness again the gatherings of the Roman people, and make out the forms of Cincinnatus, of Scipio, of Marius, of Cæsar, of Cicero, of Augustus, or of Constantine, as their lumbering chariots jolt over the pavements and around the palace walls. The Tiber, which rolls on its ceaseless course, and which saw the faces of Livy, Horace, and Virgil, moves by the Tarpeian Rock, and the Campus Martius, with the same eddying playfulness as it exhibited then. New glories gild the clouds, and new temples adorn the adjacent plains. Jupiter gives way to Jehovah, priests of Janus and Venus stand aside for monks and friars to fill their office. The Coliseum crumbles, as St. Paul’s lifts its grand façades. Capitolinus falls and St. Peter’s fills the bow of heaven. Marvels of ancient art grow dusty with the ages, while new forms, so divinely conceived, so incomparably wrought, and so immaculate in modesty and matchless in color, spring into being at the call of the later civilization. All is interesting, exciting, glorious! One walks the streets in dreams, lulled by the musical cadences of the rippling native language. Words cannot convey the feelings awakened by that new sense, which discerns and interprets the ancient and modern associations of Rome. The traveller feels as if he were a companion of the great and powerful, of the refined and good, who have walked those streets before him, and ever after the words they spoke, and the books they wrote, have a fresh and unabating interest. [Illustration: THE ARENA OF THE COLISEUM.]