At length, however, he happened to cast up his eyes, as if appealing to heaven, and they encountered mine peeping down upon him from above.  He stood fixed and motionless for two seconds, staring at me, and then snatching up his portfolio and his hat, ran off and disappeared.  I met the same man afterwards walking along the Via Felice, and could not help smiling as he passed:  he smiled too, but pulled his hat over his face and turned away.

I discovered to-day (and it is no slight pleasure to make a discovery for one’s self), the passage which formed the communication between the Coliseum and the Palace of the Caesars, and in which the Emperor Commodus was assassinated.  I recognized it by its situation, and the mosaic pavement described by Nibby.  If I had time I might moralize here, and make an eloquent tirade a la Eustace about imperial monsters and so forth,—­but in fact I did think while I stood in the damp and gloomy corridor, that it was a fitting death for Commodus to die by the giddy playfulness of a child, and the machinations of an abandoned woman.  It was not a favourable time or hour to contemplate the Coliseum—­the sunshine was too resplendent—­

    It was a garish, broad, and peering day,
    Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears;
    And every little corner, nook, and hole,
    Was penetrated by the insolent light.

We are told that five thousand animals were slain in the amphitheatre on its dedication—­how dreadful!  The mutual massacres of the gladiators inspire less horror than this disgusting butchery!  To what a pitch must the depraved appetite for blood and death have risen among the corrupted and ferocious populace, before such a sight could be endured!

* * * * *

15.—­We drove to-day to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Appian Way, to the Fountain of Egeria, and the tomb of the Scipios near the Porta Cappena.

I wish the tomb of Cecilia Metella had been that of Cornelia or Valeria.  There may be little in a name, but how much there is in association!  What this massy fabric wanted in classical fame Lord Byron has lately supplied in poetical interest.  The same may be said of the Fountain of Egeria, to which he has devoted some of the most exquisite stanzas in his poem, and has certainly invested it with a charm it could not have possessed before.  The woods and groves which once surrounded it, have been all cut down, and the scenery round it is waste and bleak; but the fountain itself is pretty, overgrown with ivy, moss, and the graceful capillaire plant (capello di venere) drooping from the walls, and the stream is as pure as crystal.  L**, who was with us, took up a stone to break off a piece of the statue, and maimed, defaced, and wretched as it is, I could not help thinking it a profanation to the place, and stopped his hand, calling him a barbarous Vandyke:  he looked so awkwardly alarmed and puzzled by the