Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/171

 commanded by the first of men, now marching to the adjoining fields, to decide, in one day, the fate of Rome, then mistress of the world.

But his feelings cannot be described; nor can this weak pen delineate a hundredth part of the admirable remains of this once incomparable structure; in the examining of which, he had spent more than four hours, without going half over the buildings. Heli, whose complaisance was at its utmost stretch, and who had exhibited several marks of impatience; for what was statues or pillars to him, broken and destroyed by time, and the depredations of vulgar uninformed souls. Fragments like these were to him contemptuous ruins; and he admired, at the ignorance and superstition of Ferdinand, in making them objects of such consequence.

"Well," said he, he a tone of fretfulness, "do you design to pass the day here; or are you inclined to walk in the grove?"

The other perfectly comprehended the spirit of the question, and replied very com-