Some of these pillars were in the tomb of Adrian, others at the Capitol; these latter still bear on their capitals the figures of the geese which saved the Roman people.  Some of these pillars support Gothic, and others Arabian ornaments.  The urn of Agrippa conceals the ashes of a Pope; for even the dead have yielded place to other dead, and the tombs have almost as often changed their masters as the abodes of the living.

Near St John Lateran is the holy stair-case, transported, it is said, from Jerusalem to Rome.  It may only be ascended kneeling.  Caesar himself, and Claudius also, mounted on their knees the stair-case which conducted to the Temple of the Capitoline Jove.  On one side of St John Lateran is the font where it is said that Constantine was baptised.—­In the middle of the square is seen an obelisk, which is perhaps the most ancient monument in the world—­an obelisk cotemporary with the Trojan war!—­an obelisk which the barbarous Cambyses respected so much that in honour of it he put a stop to the conflagration of a city!—­an obelisk for which a king pledged the life of his only son!—­The Romans have, miraculously, brought this pillar to Italy from the lowest part of Egypt.—­They turned the Nile from its course in order that it might seek it, and transport it to the sea.  This obelisk is still covered with hieroglyphics which have preserved their secret during so many ages, and which to this day defy the most learned researches.  The Indians, the Egyptians, the antiquity of antiquity, might perhaps be revealed to us by these signs.—­The wonderful charm of Rome is not only the real beauty of its monuments; but the interest which it inspires by exciting thought; and this kind of interest increases every day with each new study.

One of the most singular churches of Rome, is that of St Paul:  its exterior is like a badly built barn, and the interior is ornamented with eighty pillars of so fine a marble and so exquisite a make, that one would believe they belonged to an Athenian temple described by Pausanias.  Cicero said—­We are surrounded by the vestiges of history,—­if he said so then, what shall we say now?

The pillars, the statues, the bas-reliefs of ancient Rome, are so lavished in the churches of the modern city, that there is one (St Agnes) where bas-reliefs, turned, serve for the steps of a stair-case, without any one having taken the trouble to examine what they represented.  What an astonishing aspect would ancient Rome offer now, if the marble pillars and the statues had been left in the same place where they were found!  The ancient city would still have remained standing almost entire—­but would the men of our day dare to walk in it?