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are still in a very good condition, so that it is quite easy to see what they represent. In order that there shall be no mistake, the names of some of the persons are painted beneath them. Of course all the windows are blocked up now, and the man who takes us down carries a light; but on certain days this ancient church is illuminated with many candles, and then it is crowded with visitors. Below this church are the remains of Roman buildings of the time of the emperors, on the foundations of which the old Christian edifice was built. rooms have been excavated here, and a stair-way leads down to them, but they are very wet and unpleasant. Still below these are great walls belonging to a building of the time of the Roman republic. This edifice was of massive stone, and on its walls were erected the later Roman buildings, which are of brick. When that lower edifice, now like the ground-floor of a three-story cellar, was in use, it was, of course, on the surface of the ground. There are, no doubt, many persons now living in Rome who have beneath them the residence of some gentleman of the Middle Ages, under which, perhaps, is the home of a Roman family of the time of the Cæsars; and this may have been built upon the foundations of another Roman house, which was considered a good place to live in some five or six hundred years before. It must be a very satisfactory thing, when one is going to build a house, to find beneath the ground some good substantial walls which will make excellent foundations. It very often happens that these remains of ancient buildings are built of larger stones, and are firmer and more solid than the houses which are erected upon them. There is another side, however, to this matter, and the remains of old buildings are frequently very much in the way of those who wish to erect new houses, for it does not always occur that the ancient walls are in the right places, or of a suitable kind, to serve as foundations for the modern building. Then they have to be dug up and taken out, which is a great labor. There is a handsome American church in Rome; for as great numbers of our country people visit that city every winter, and a good many live there, it is considered desirable for us to have a church of our own. This was built in a place which used to be one of the most populous parts of ancient Rome, and the work was made very expensive by the difficulty of getting rid of portions of walls, arches, rooms, and vaults which these Romans had left behind them, never thinking that in the course of ages there might be such people as Americans who would wish to build a church here.

I may remark here that wherever we go in Europe, we shall find ourselves called Americans, although this term would apply just as well to

Canadians, Mexicans, or the inhabitants of Nicaragua. The fact is, that the name of our country can not very well be applied to its citizens. To speak of us properly, we should be called UnitedStates-of-Americans, but this is too long a title, and in Europe the term Americans is generally applied to the people of the United States, and to no others. It is not well to have too much name. I used to own a dog whose whole name was Fax Mentis Incendium Gloria, but I always called him "Fax."

I have said that Rome offers wonderful attractions and advantages to artists, but we shall find that it offers just as much to those who love art, but are not artists. The city is crowded, so to speak, with collections of painting and statuary, among which are to be found some of the greatest works of the kind in the world. When we begin to visit the principal galleries, some of which are in private palaces, and some in public buildings, we shall think that they exist everywhere in the city. You have probably read in Mrs. Clement's valuable series of papers on art, in this magazine, descriptions of the most important works of art to be found in Rome. These we shall go to see, and take a great deal more pleasure in looking at them because we already know something about them. Our first art expedition will be made to the Vatican, because that is so grand and interesting a building in itself; and because it contains the most important art treasures in Rome. Among these are the famous Sistine Chapel, which owes its reputation to the wonderful frescoes by Michael Angelo; the Stanze, or rooms, of Raphael, which contain a great many frescoes by this great master; Raphael's Loggia, a long gallery with a glass front, the ceiling of which is adorned with frescoes, which are sometimes called Raphael's Bible, as they consist of scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Then, there is the gallery of pictures, most of them by great masters; and the department of sculpture, consisting of many halls and galleries filled with an almost endless collection of statues, sarcophagi, bas-reliefs, and other works of the greatest ancient sculptors.

To visit these collections, which alone are worth a trip to Europe, we must have printed permits, which are very easily obtained.

To reach the Sistine Chapel, the Picture Galleries, and Raphael's Rooms, we must present ourselves at the bronze gates, the principal entrance to the Vatican, situated to the right of the great square in front of St. Peter's. The Vatican, with its galleries and grounds, together with St. Peter's and some other buildings, belongs exclusively to the Pope, who exercises here a sovereignty entirely

distinct and separate from that of the King of Italy, who now includes the rest of Rome in his dominions. The Pope has his own soldiers, who are not very many, and who generally act as guards to the various parts of the Vatican. Behind the bronze doors, which are enormous barred gates, we shall see some of these soldiers, one of whom will ask us for our permossos, or permits. I am sure you never beheld military gentlemen like them before. They are called the Swiss Guard, and are dressed in a uniform of flowing tunic and breeches, formed of broad perpendicular stripes of black, red, and yellow, long stockings striped in black and yellow; and on state occasions they wear brass helmets with heavy white plumes, and carry halberds, or pikes with ax-heads at the ends. The officers' dress, of the same design, is of bright silk, and they make a dazzling appearance. These men appear as if they belonged to the Middle Ages and had nothing to do with our modern times; and they very properly seem so, for their uniform was designed by Michael Angelo, not long after the discovery of America, and their costume has never been changed. It used to be the custom of many of the potentates of Europe

to have personal guards composed of Swiss soldiers, as they were considered more honest and trustworthy than any others. In Walter Scott's "Quentin Durward" you will learn a great deal about the Swiss guards of France. In Paris the porter at the doors of great houses is still often called "The Swiss," although he is almost always a Frenchman. And these guards of the Pope are now Italians, but they still retain the old name.

Rome is full of the greatest things in the world, and I believe that the marble staircase of the Vatican which now extends itself before us, straight on and up in a gentle slope to such a distance that the people at the top seemed dwarfed, as if they were at the end of some long avenue of trees, if not the greatest straight flight of steps in the world, is certainly one of them. It is called the Scala Regia, or Royal Stair-way; and up it we go. The steps are not very high, but very broad, which is the case in most of the Roman palaces, and this makes the ascent easier; but when we come to the top we shall find that the business of going upstairs is by no means at an end. When we have found stairway after stair-way, and have gone up and up and up to the various places we have come to see, we

As I have said before, the entrance to the sculpture galleries is reached by going around St. Peter's Church. There are many of these galleries filled with the great works of Greece and Rome, and here we shall find the originals of many worldfamous statues with which we are all familiar from engravings and casts, such as the Apollo Belvidere, the Laocoön, and the beautiful Mercury, formerly known as Antinous. The magnificent marble halls, the mosaic pavements, and the grand collection of sculpture to be seen here will be a delight and surprise to us, no matter how much we may have read or heard about them before.

In this part of the building there is also the vast library of the Vatican, in which there are a great many interesting things to be seen besides books, such as superb and costly presents made to different popes by European sovereigns.

Although we are in the Pope's house, we shall not see him, for the public is not allowed to enter his private apartments and beautiful grounds.

Gladiator, or, as it should be called, the Dying Gaul; and the Faun of Praxiteles, a beautiful statue of a youth, which is well known to all of us who have read Hawthorne's story of "The Marble Faun." In this Capitoline Museum and in a building opposite, called the Conservatori, there are a great many antique statues and sculptures, and among them, in the last-named building, is one which I am sure my young companions will find very interesting. It is the tombstone of a boy named Q. Sulpicius Maximus, who died at the age of eleven and a half, in consequence of having worked too hard at school. I do not believe that many of the ST. NICHOLAS young people are likely to die from this cause, but if any of them should feel inclined to study too hard and play too little, they might get some useful hints from this tombstone. Young Q. Sulpicius was engaged in a competition with fifty-two other scholars in writing Greek verses, and succeeded in excelling them all. It would, however, have been better for him personally if he had not done so well, for his efforts killed him, and

may read quotations from his Greek verses, which are inscribed upon the marble, and gaze upon the statuette of the boy himself, no doubt a very good portrait.

In the central square of the Capitol, which is surrounded on three sides by buildings, stands a very large bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, once Emperor of Rome, mounted on a spirited horse. This is the only equestrian statue which has been preserved in a perfect condition out of the many that decorated ancient Rome. Michael Angelo, who designed the buildings which at present stand on this hill, was very fond of this statue, and especially admired the horse. One day, while he was studying it, he forgot that it was not alive, and wishing to see it in another position, he cried out, "Cam!" which means, go on. After looking at this horse for some time, one might easily imagine that a shout or a touch of a whip would make it jump.

A long inclined plane, covered with an asphalt pavement, leads down to the street below; and near the top of this incline is a large iron cage, in which some live wolves are always kept. This is in memory of the ancient wolf who was good enough to take care of Romulus and Remus when there was nobody else to do it. This wolf is still considered as a Roman emblem; pictures and carvings of it are seen on many buildings and public places, and it is even stamped on pats of butter. It is a great pity, from an artistic point of view, that some more graceful creature did not adopt the little babies who afterward founded the city. Not far from here, on the Palatine Hill, is still shown a cave which is said to be the identical den in which the old wolf established her little orphan asylum. In the course of our rambles we shall pass this, and those who choose may go in.

In nearly all the palaces and villas of the nobles in and about Rome, there are collections of paintings and sculptures, some of them very large and filling many halls and rooms. We shall try to visit as many of these as we can, for nearly every one of them contains some famous pieces of antique sculpture or some of the great paintings of the masters of the Middle Ages. In one of these, the Spada palace, there stands, in an outer hall, a tall statue of the Roman general Pompey, which is believed to be the very statue at the feet of which Julius Cæsar was assassinated by Brutus and the other conspirators. In the Rospigliosi gallery is Guido's famous Aurora, which is a fresco covering nearly all the ceiling of a large room. We all are familiar with engravings and copies of this picture, but we shall find it rather difficult to look as long as we wish at the original without making our necks ache by bending our heads backward as we gaze at the ceiling. To obviate this obstacle to the

enjoyment of the picture, a looking-glass is fixed upon a table in such a way that visitors can look down into it and see the perfect reflection of the beautiful fresco above their heads. Many of the churches, too, contain famous works, and among these we shall certainly not omit San Pietro in Vincoli, where sits Michael Angelo's majestic and awful statue of Moses. No end of statues; no end of paintings; no end of grand palaces full of the works of ancient and modern artists, shall we see while we are in Rome. The great difficulty will be not to allow our desire to enjoy beautiful things to tire us out. Visitors often overtax their strength; but we shall be prudent and not work too hard in the pursuit of pleasure.

The burying-places of Rome are among its most curious sights. We have seen one of these, the tomb of Hadrian, which was an enormous edifice built for the last resting-place of one man and a few of his family; and now we shall visit a small building which contained the remains of quite a congregation of people. This is situated near one of the city gates, in a place now occupied by vineyards, and is called a columbarium. It is a small square house of stone, the greater part underground, and contains but one room, into which we descend by a very steep and very narrow flight of stairs. The ancient Romans very often burned the bodies of deceased persons, and in this place they kept the little urns, or caskets, which contained the ashes. All around the four walls of the room, and in a large square pillar of masonry in the center, are little recesses, like pigeon-holes, and this resemblance is the reason for the name, columbarium, meaning pigeon-house. These holes are each about a foot square, and deep enough to hold from two to four of the earthen pots or stone boxes in which the ashes were kept; and this building contained six hundred of these urns. Each pigeonhole was owned by a family, whose name we can see inscribed on a marble tablet over the opening. Sometimes it is stated who is buried inside; and on some of them various particulars are given, such as when and how the little vaults were bought. It is very curious and interesting to walk about this room and read the names and ages of persons who were thus conveniently buried some eighteen centuries ago. Many of the jars and boxes still remain, and some of them contain fragments and cinders. There are other columbaria in Rome, but this is the best, and the only one we need visit.

Just outside the Porta Maggiore, one of the principal gates of the city, is a very odd specimen of a burial-place which we all shall wish to see. It is the tomb of a baker, built by himself in the days of the Roman republic, some time before the beginning of the Christian era. It is a stone edi

fice, as large as a little house, and constructed in the form of a baker's oven. This ancient maker of bread, whose name was Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, was probably a very good baker, and he did not wish this fact forgotten after his death. All around his tomb are small sculptured figures representing bakers attending to different parts of their business, some grinding grain, others kneading, and making up loaves of bread, and others baking it. There is also on it an inscription in Latin, stating that this is the monument of the said Eurysaces, and that he was not only a purveyor of bread, but a city official. In order that no one should miss seeing this inscription, it is repeated on several sides of the monument. The desire for fame on the part of the builder of this oven-tomb has surely been gratified, for his monument has stood about two thousand years, and I have no doubt that the good baker is still inside of it.

The Roman catacombs are very famous, and we all know that they are a vast collection of subterranean passages and apartments running in many directions under-ground, some far under the others, and forming labyrinths in which any one would certainly be lost who should venture into them without a guide. These are situated in the vast plain, which surrounds Rome, and is called the Campagna; and some of these catacombs are said to extend so far that parts of them are under the city. They were the burial-places of the early Christians, and in them they also used to hold religious services, when they were so persecuted that they could not worship openly. We shall visit the catacombs of Callistus, which is the largest one; and to reach it we go out over the famous Appian Way, a great military road built by the Romans, where for part of the distance our carriage wheels roll over the very stones on which the Roman chariots used to be driven; and as these chariots had no springs, their occupants must have been greatly jolted, although the road is even now as good as many modern paved streets. There is a line of heavy curbstones on each side, and the narrowness of the road and the marks of the ancient wheels upon the stones show how much wider are our modern vehicles than were the chariots of old. A drive out on this Appian Way must have been a melancholy pleasure to the ancient Romans, for it was lined on each side by miles of tombs, many of them very handsome edifices like small castles, and temples, with pillars and statuary. Remains of these tombs are still seen on each side of the road, and portions of some of them are in good preservation; and on marble slabs, and over little porticoes, we can read the names of many persons who were buried here. We can go out for miles on this road, which was made three

hundred years before Christ, and we shall find the Campagna very interesting, with its vast expanse of green pastures, on which we see herds of the fine Roman oxen, with their enormous horns, sometimes nearly a yard long; herdsmen wandering about with their flocks of sheep and goats at their heels; gentle hills covered with wild flowers; and over all, stretching far away, long lines of stone arches, the remains of ancient Roman aqueducts, some of which are in so good condition that they are still used to bring water to the city.

But the catacombs we are to visit are but little more than a mile from the city walls, and we soon reach them. At a small building we find guides, who give each one of us a lighted taper. Then we form in line, and go down a long flight of stone steps to the doleful depths of this under-ground labyrinth. We find ourselves at first in a long passage a little higher than our heads and so narrow that we can touch each side of it by stretching out our arms. It is simply dug out of the soft rock and earth, and in each of its walls are cavities, one above the other, in which once rested the bodies of the early Christians. Some of these were in marble boxes, or sarcophagi, and others more rudely buried. But very few of them are here now. Many of the sculptured marbles have been taken to the Roman Museums, and thousands of the bones of the early Christians have been carried away as relics, and buried in churches all over Europe. In a line, each holding his pale light, we follow our guides through the long passages of this dreary place. Occasionally, as I have said, are little chambers and chapels, but the catacombs consist for the most part of these narrow earth corridors, absolutely pitch-dark, and turning and winding in every imaginable way. It is necessary that those at the end of our line should not lag behind, for if they were to lose sight of the main body they would never, of themselves, be able to find it again. One passage looks just like another, and there are so many of them to the right and the left, that it would be impossible for an inexperienced person to know when he should go ahead and when he should turn. But we all keep together, and after a long underground walk, we at last come out into the daylight, in a spot at some distance from that where we went in. We have gone through but a small part of these great catacombs; but it has been quite enough.

There are other kinds of burial-places in Rome, but we shall visit no more of them, though they give us ideas in regard to the manners and customs of by-gone people which we could get in no other way.

In the busy and lively streets of modern Rome