Moved this world at their pleasure. Ere they came, The Apocalypse; and he of elder time, Who in an awful vision of the night Saw the Four Kingdoms. Distant as they were, CAIUS CESTIUS. WHEN I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up and down before the tomb of CAIUS CESTIUS. The Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of the little monuments are erected to the young: young men of promise, cut off when on their travels, full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or children borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave. It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the Pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are for the most part your countrymen. They call upon you in your mother-tongue-in English-in words unknown to a native, known only to yourself: and the tomb of CESTIUS, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger, among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer. 1 An allusion to the saying of Archimedes, "Give me a place to stand upon, and I will move the earth." 2 An allusion to the prophecies concerning Antichrist. See the interpretations of Mede, Newton, Clarke, &c; not to mention those of Dante and Petrarch. "Tis over; and her lovely cheek is now Her place is empty, and another comes) In anguish, in the ghastliness of death: 'Tis over; and the rite, Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head- So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes, Still in her father's house; and lo, a cell Narrow and dark, nought thro' the gloom discerned, And the grey habit lying by to shroud When on her knees she fell, Entering the solemn place of consecration, 1 That she might say, flinging them from her, "Thus, And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt, He at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth It was at such a moment, when contemplating the young and the beautiful, that Tasso conceived his sonnets, beginning "Vergine pia," and "Vergine bella." Those to whom he addressed them have long been forgotten; though they were as much perhaps to be loved, and as much also to be pitied. ('Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,' That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love To the black pall, the requiem. All in turn Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, Peace to thy slumbers ! 1 Her back was at that time turned to the people; but in his countenance might be read all that was passing. The Cardinal who officiated was a venerable old man, evidently unused to the service, and much affected by it. THERE is an Insect that, when Evening comes, Small though he be and scarce distinguishable, Like Evening clad in soberest livery, Unsheaths his wings and thro' the woods and glades 1 He is of the beetle tribe. 2 "For, in that upper clime, effulgence comes |