We descended the hill to the Coliseum, and passing under the Arch of Constantine, walked along the ancient triumphal way, at the foot of the Palatine Hill, which is entirely covered with the ruins of the Caesars’ Palace.  A road, rounding its southern base towards the Tiber, brought us to the Temple of Vesta—­a beautiful little relic which has been singularly spared by the devastations that have overthrown so many mightier fabrics.  It is of circular form, surrounded by nineteen Corinthian columns, thirty-six feet in height; a clumsy tiled roof now takes the place of the elegant cornice which once gave the crowning charm to its perfect proportions.  Close at hand are the remains of the temple of Fortuna Virilis, of which some Ionic pillars alone are left, and the house of Cola di Rienzi—­the last Tribune of Rome.

As we approached the walls, the sepulchre of Caius Cestius came in sight—­a single solid pyramid, one hundred feet in height.  The walls are built against it, and the light apex rises far above the massive gate beside it, which was erected by Belisarius.  But there were other tombs at hand, for which we had more sympathy than that of the forgotten Roman, and we turned away to look for the graves of Shelley and Keats.

They lie in the Protestant burying ground, on the side of a mound that slopes gently up to the old wall of Rome, beside the pyramid of Cestius.  The meadow around is still verdant and sown thick with daisies, and the soft green of the Italian pine mingles with the dark cypress above the slumberers.  Huge aloes grow in the shade, and the sweet bay and bushes of rosemary make the air fresh and fragrant.  There is a solemn, mournful beauty about the place, green and lonely as it is, beside the tottering walls of ancient Rome, that takes away the gloomy associations of death, and makes one wish to lie there, too, when his thread shall be spun to the end.

We found first the simple head-stone of Keats, alone, in the grassy meadow.  Its inscription states that on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart, at the malice of his enemies, be desired these words to be written on his tombstone:  “Here lies one whose name was written in water.”  Not far from him reposes the son of Shelley.

Shelley himself lies at the top of the shaded slope, in a lonely spot by the wall, surrounded by tall cypresses.  A little hedge of rose and bay surrounds his grave, which bears the simple inscription—­

    “PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY; Cor Cordium.”

      “Nothing of him that doth fade,
      But doth suffer a sea-change
      Into something rich and strange.”

Glorious, but misguided Shelley!  He sleeps calmly now in that silent nook, and the air around his grave is filled with sighs from those who mourn that the bright, erratic star should have been blotted out ere it reached the zenith of its mounting fame.  I plucked a leaf from the fragrant bay, as a token of his fame, and a sprig of cypress from the bough that bent lowest over his grave; and passing between tombs shaded with blooming roses or covered with unwithered garlands, left the lovely spot.