LELIA. 351 



In vain Boccacio's garden here was tried ; 

 Triumphant Death their every art defied. 



What horrid scenes the crowded city shows, 315 



When through its streets the plague- stream fiercely flows, 

 That, like the scorching lava, finds fresh power 

 In every victim which it may devour ; 

 That on and on its ravage spreads around, 



And strews with human wrecks the tainted ground ! 320 



When love and charity are lost in fear, 

 And man may die unwept by pity's tear ; 

 When human sympathies are driven away ; 

 When hope is lost, and man forgets to pay ; 



When death triumphant stalks, and in his path 3*25 



No barrier finds to check his awful wrath ! 



END OF CANTO I. 



41 The Atrium was the hall in which the Romans placed the statues of their an- 

 cestors, and where they received their clients ; and where in general they performed 

 the more important domestic offices. 



165 The Romans, generally speaking, were very strict in their religious observances. 

 In their prayers they commonly appealed to their gods in succession ; and were 

 exceedingly precise in giving them their proper names and titles. Livy gives the 

 following as a common prayer : " Jane, Jupiter, Mars Pater, Quirini, Bellona, 

 Lares, Divi Novensiles, Dii Indigetes, Divi quorum est potestas nostrorum hostium- 

 que, Deique Manes, vos precor," &c. &c. They had also great faith in the number 

 three; and, when invoking the aid of any particular god, they prayed to him three 

 times, believing that by this means they were certain to procure attention. Thus 

 Horace says to Diana '* Qua? laborantes utero puellas, ter vocata audis." In their 

 funeral rites they called the dead three times by name, bidding him eternally 

 farewell, and wishing that the earth might lie light upon him. 



215 The Romans, in addressing Mars, generally styled him Mars Pater, from the 

 circumstance that in their mythology he was called the father of Romulus : on this 

 account he was treated with peculiar veneration ; as a proof of which, as well as of 

 the warlike genius of the people, two of the months in the earliest Roman calendar 

 were dedicated to Mars. 



219 The Romans erected statues to the heroes whose constancy and courage made 

 them fie objects for being deified ; thus statues were erected to Pollux, to Hercules, 

 &c. The faces of these statues it was the custom to paint with vermilion; and hence 

 the expression, 'glowing face.' Horace in his third ode applies to Augustus, to whom 

 the senate had decreed divine honors, the words ' purpureum ore,' in reference 

 doubtless to this custom. 



237 Voluntary imprecations and invocations were very common amongst the 

 ancients, of which many examples might be quoted. 



282 One of the best features in the character of the Romans, was the jealous care 

 they exercised in educating their children. Their nurseries were temples into 

 which no impure thing was allowed to enter ; so strict were they in this respect, that 

 whenever the parents left their home, they were in the habit of sealing the doors of 

 the apartments in which their children were placed, lest during their absence im- 

 proper persons might approach them. The 'grata sigilla pudico' are repeatedly 

 mentioned by Roman writers. 



303 The ravages committed by plagues in ancient times, have been fearfully, 

 though beautifully, portrayed by Thucydides, in his account of the pestilence which 

 desolated Athens during the Peloponnesian war. Diodorus Siculus, Manilius, Lu- 

 cretius, and others, have also given graphic details of the fearful havoc made by 

 epidemic and contagious diseases. 



311 " Nee locus artis erat medicae ; nee vota valebant : 



Cesserat officium morbis, et funera deerant 

 Mortibus et lacrymze." Manil.lib. i. ver, 886. 



