LETTER WRITER, _by J. Pennell_ 510 PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_ 513 ON THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_ 533 IN THE CORSO: CHURCH DOORS, _by J. Pennell_ 542 MODERN DEGRADATION OF A PALACE, _by J. Pennell_ 552 FOUNTAIN OF TREVI, _by J. Pennell_ 581 A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP, _by J. Pennell_ 600 BOOK I. HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW. [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM.] BOOK I. HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW. CHAPTER I. ROME IN THE FOURTH CENTURY. There is no place in the world of which it is less necessary to attempt description (or of which so many descriptions have been attempted) than the once capital of that world, the supreme and eternal city, the seat of empire, the home of the conqueror, the greatest human centre of power and influence which our race has ever known. Its history is unique and its position. Twice over in circumstances and by means as different as can be imagined it has conquered and held subject the world. All that was known to man in their age gave tribute and acknowledgment to the Cæsars; and an ever-widening circle, taking in countries and races unknown to the Cæsars, have looked to the spiritual sovereigns who succeeded them as to the first and highest of authorities on earth. The reader knows, or at least is assisted on all hands to have some idea and conception of the classical city--to be citizens of which was the aim of the whole world's ambition, and whose institutions and laws, and even its architecture and domestic customs, were the only rule of civilisation--with its noble and grandiose edifices, its splendid streets, the magnificence and largeness of its life; while on the other hand most people are able to form some idea of what was the Rome of the Popes, the superb yet squalid mediæval city with its great palaces and its dens of poverty, and that conjunction of exuberance and want which does not strike the eye while the bulk of a population remains in a state of slavery. But there is a period between, which has not attracted much attention from English writers, and which the reader passes by as a time in which there is little desirable to dwell upon, though it is in reality the moment of transition when the old is about to be replaced by the new, and when already the energy and enthusiasm of a new influence is making its appearance among the tragic dregs and abysses of the past. An ancient civilisation dying in the impotence of luxury and wealth from which all active power or influence over the world had departed, and a new and profound internal revolt, breaking up its false calm from within, before the raging forces of another rising power had yet begun to thunder at its gates without--form however a spectacle full of interest, especially when