But whether, in this ride, you pass by obelisks, or columns ancient
temples, theatres, houses, porticoes, or forums: it is strange to
see, how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blended
into some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose--
a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable--some use for which
it never was designed, and associated with which it cannot
otherwise than lamely assort. It is stranger still, to see how
many ruins of the old mythology: how many fragments of obsolete
legend and observance: have been incorporated into the worship of
Christian altars here; and how, in numberless respects, the false
faith and the true are fused into a monstrous union.
From one part of the city, looking out beyond the walls, a squat
and stunted pyramid (the burial-place of Caius Cestius) makes an
opaque triangle in the moonlight. But, to an English traveller, it
serves to mark the grave of Shelley too, whose ashes lie beneath a
little garden near it. Nearer still, almost within its shadow, lie
the bones of Keats, 'whose name is writ in water,' that shines
brightly in the landscape of a calm Italian night.
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