"For myself, I must say that I know nothing to compare with a pilgrimage among the antique churches scattered over the Esquiline, the Coelian, and the Aventine Hills. They stand apart, each in its solitude, amid gardens, and vineyards, and heaps of nameless ruins;--here a group of cypresses, there a lofty pine or solitary palm; the tutelary saint, perhaps some Sant' Achilleo, or Santa Bibiana, whom we never heard of before,--an altar rich in precious marbles,--columns of porphyry,--the old frescoes dropping from the walls,--the everlasting colossal mosaics looking down so solemn, so dim, so spectral;--these grow upon us, until at each succeeding visit they themselves, and the associations by which they are surrounded, become a part of our daily life, and may be said to hallow that daily life when considered in a right spirit. True, what is most sacred, what is most poetical, is often desecrated to the fancy by the intrusion of those prosaic realities which easily strike prosaic minds; by disgust at the foolish fabrications which those who recite them do not believe, by lying inscriptions, by tawdry pictures, by tasteless and even profane restorations;--by much that saddens, much that offends, much that disappoints;--but then so much remains! So much to awaken, to elevate, to touch the heart; so much that will not pass away from the memory, so much that makes a part of our after-life."--_Mrs. Jameson._
We may pass under the Arch of Constantine, or through the pleasant sunny walks known as the _Parco di San Gregorio_,--planted by the French during their first occupation of Rome, but which may almost be regarded as a remnant of the sacred grove of the Camenæ which once occupied this site.
The further gate of the Parco opens on a small triangular piazza, whence a broad flight of steps lead up to the _Church of S. Gregorio_, to the English pilgrim one of the most interesting spots in Rome, for it was at the head of these steps that St. Augustine took his last farewell of Gregory the Great, and, kneeling on this green-sward below, the first missionaries of England received the parting blessing of the great pontiff, as he stood on the height in the gateway. As we enter the portico (built 1633, by Card. Scipio Borghese,) we see on either side two world-famous inscriptions.