Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/211

Rh young friend, and closed the evening with the reading of Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh, a cardinal book for the energetic, poetical life of the language and feeling.

We have to-day made an excursion to the newly-discovered church of St. Alexander and its catacombs, seven miles out of Rome on the old Nomenta road. Commendatore Visconti, Baron Raimund, and various other learned antiquarians, were of the party.

We crossed the Anio, a lively little river, which falls into the Tiber, and saluted on its banks, the hill Sacco, where the plebeian population of Rome assembled for the first time, to the number of two thousand, and protested against the exclusive power of the Patricians, and also demanded a voice in the government of the state. Now the contest is about spiritual rights and liberties. And the contest must be still continued until—the great peace; but it has increased and still increases in significance.

The ruins of the church of St. Alexander lie deeply buried in the earth, but they exhibit a remarkably beautiful and careful style of architecture. The altar, the broken columns, the walls, and the exquisitely laid mosaic floors, with roses of purple-tinted porphyry—symbols of the blood of the martyrs, stand forth as from a grave. The catacombs contained some interesting fragments of inscriptions; amongst others the following:

“Sylvia! thou who livest in peace, pray for Sylvanello and Alessandro!”

In the funereal chapels, the marks may still be seen of the lamps, and also of the small cups which held the blood of the martyrs.