The second street,--that on the right,--is the Via Ripetta, which leads off in the direction of St Peter's and the Vatican. It takes one nigh the tomb of Augustus, now converted into a hippodrome; the Pantheon, whose pristine beauty remains undefaced after twenty centuries; the Collegio Romano; and, towards the foot of the Capitol, the Ghetto,--a series of mean streets, occupied by the Jews. The third street,--that on the left,--is the Via Babuino. It traverses the more aristocratic quarter of Rome,--if we can use such a phrase in reference to a city whose nobles are lodging-house keepers, and live--
running on by the Piazza di Spagna, which the English so much frequent, to the Quirinal, the Pope's summer palace, and the form of Trajan, whose column, after the many copies which have been made of it, still stands unrivalled and unapproached in beauty.
"And though the passions of man's fretful race Have never ceased to eddy round its base, Not injured more by touch of meddling hands Than a lone obelisk 'mid Nubian sands."
On the Corso there is considerable bustle. The little buying and selling that is done in Rome is transacted here. Half the population that one sees in the Corso are priests and French soldiers. The population of Rome is not much above an hundred thousand; its ecclesiastical persons, however, are close on six thousand. Let us imagine, if we can, the state of things were the ecclesiastics of all denominations in Scotland to be doubled, and the whole body to be collected into one city of the size of Edinburgh! Such is the state of Rome. The great majority of these men have no duty to do, beyond the dreary and monotonous task of the daily lesson in the breviary. They have no sermons to write and preach; they do not visit the sick; they have no books or newspapers; they have no family duties to perform. With the exception of the Jesuits, who are much employed in the confessional, the whole fraternity of regulars and seculars, white, black, brown, and gray, live on the best, and literally do nothing. But, of course, six thousand heads cannot be idle. The amount of mischief that must be continually brewing in Rome,--the wars that shake convents,--the gossip and scandal that pollute society,--the intrigues that destroy families,--may be more easily imagined than told. Were the secret history of that city for but one short week to be written, what an astounding document it would be! and what a curious commentary on that mark of a "true Church," _unity_! Well were it for the world were the plots hatched in Rome felt only within its walls.