country. Let those, then, whose health has been impaired, avoid those human, or rather inhuman sharks, who prey upon their victims by means of advertising baits, and let them intrust themselves when sick to the hands of some educated medical man, and, if possible, to one who is a scholar, a gentleman, and a christian. Happily many such are to be found. SUBTERRANEAN ROME. FIRST PAPER. Or the multitudes that throng the streets of Rome, mingling in the revelry of the carnival, or gazing with awe upon the colossal ruins of departed greatness, very few think of a city beneath their feet, by which not only a great part of the city is undermined, but whose ramifications stretch far out into the adjoining Campagna. If we may believe the Roman ciceroni, who, however, are not altogether trustworthy in the matter, the galleries and passages of this city extend for twenty miles. Certain it is that the excavations of the far-famed Roman catacombs-for to these we refer-are of vast and unknown extent. Seroux d'Agincourt, who devoted several years to exploring their dark and interminable recesses, describes an adventure which illustrates their immensity. It happened in that branch which reaches from the church of St. Agnes to the river. "These catacombs," he says, "had long been closed, and I had them opened in hopes of finding monuments. My undertaking was unsuccessful, and it involved me in extreme peril. My guides, as well as myself, were lost for more than an hour. We had the utmost difficulty in keeping our lights from being extinguished, and seemed on the point of ending our lives there. The same accident happened to my old friend M. Robert; and my draughtsman, M. Machiavelli, was once exposed to the same danger. Montfaucon, in his Diarium Italicum,' relates a similar acciIdent to another Frenchman and himself. We made our escape from the catacombs at last, by discovering one of the openings which served for the purpose of letting down bodies in the first ages of Christianity." These holes for the lowering of bodies and the admission of light and air are numerous; and, together with chasms where the superincumbent soil has given way and fallen in, are dangerous pitfalls to the incautious horseman. The catacombs of Rome originated, we may mention, in excavations for building material. The imperial city stands upon a soil of volcanic origin, which has extensive beds of travertin and other rocks, so soft as to be easily worked, and yet hard enough for the architect's purpose. Layers of sand likewise occur, which is greatly valued from its cohesive properties when made into mortar. With the very earliest ages of the city the work of excavating these beds and layers began, and materials for the greater part of the buildings on the surface were thus procured from the quarries beneath. This continued for many centuries, until the soil under and around the city has been burrowed into a network of galleries and passages, which are sometimes two or three deep, each of them being generally about eight feet high by four or five wide. These dark and dreary caverns were once populous, but not with the living. Beneath imperial Rome was a necropolis-a city of the dead. Slaves, poor strangers, and others, who from any cause were excluded from family sepulchres, were buried here; and here, too, the Christians brought their dead. The bodies of the martyrs, mangled in the amphitheatre, mutilated by the sword, burnt at the stake, here found rest, till the avarice of Papal Rome invaded the sanctity of the tomb, and drag. ged thence, ruthlessly and indiscriminately, crumb. ling skeletons and rotten grave-clothes, to replenish her coffers by their sale as relics. There exists, we may observe, at Rome, a society of twenty-four persons who are called Cavatori delle Catacombe, whose sole business it is to explore the catacombs and supply the demand for the remains of martyrs and saints. By a whimsical arrangement, they are paid out of the fees received from the sale of indulgences for marriage within the prohibited degrees. It is their connexion with the early and persecuted church, however, which invests the catacombs with their deepest interest. They afforded a refuge for the Christians when living, and a place of sepulture when dead. Either by the conversion to the new faith of some of the quarrymen who worked in these subterranean recesses, or by the consignment to these sepulchral vaults of some of the enslaved Christians (many of whom we know to have been condemned to work in the quarries), the persecuted church gained free access to the spot. Sheltered far underground, the melody of their hymns could not reach the upper air. Superstitious terrors rendered their enemies loth to follow them into this abode of death; and, if pursued, faithful guides acquainted with the intricacies of the place enabled them to baffle pursuit in the dark and tortuous passages. Some, indeed, of the galle ries seemed to have been blocked up by artificial means, so as to render the more distant ramifications almost inaccessible; and sheltered in them, some of the early Christians, for a series of years, eluded the pursuit of their sanguinary persecutors. Hippolytus, a Christian fugitive, was thus for a long time hidden, being supplied with food by the children of his sister Paulina, who, with her hus band Adrian, though heathens, were yet faithful and kind to their relative. The unconverted state of the latter, living in the darkness of heathenism, preyed upon Hippolytus' mind; and gratitude for their kindness, as well as affection for their chil dren, who were the messengers of their bounty, rendered him growingly anxious that they should come to the knowledge of the truth. He therefore concerted a plan with his fellow fugitives for the detention of the children when they next came. The parents were thus compelled to seek them in the catacombs, where, after many efforts, they themselves at length yielded to the arguments and entreaties of their brother, and were baptized by Stephen, Bishop of Rome, who had long been a resident in the subterranean hiding-place. Being eventually discovered and seized, they all received the crown of martyrdom together. Dr. Maitland, in his very valuable and interesting volume, "The Church in the Catacombs," seems to deny this; but the very passage he quotes from Horace is sufficient to prove it. ་ Dark and intricate as these recesses were, they did not always afford a secure retreat. Guiseppe Sanchez asserts that, in the catacombs which he describes, several hundreds took refuge from the Diocletian persecution, and being pursued were put to death on the spot. Three bishops of Rome, Xystus, Stephen, and Caius, are also said to have suffered martyrdom there; the last, after residence in them for eight years. For the purposes of worship, several passages into vaulted chambers were enlarged, and we can still discover indications of the religious assemblies, in fonts for the administration of baptism, slabs of stone on which the eucharistie bread and wine were placed, and sacred symbols inscribed upon the walls. How inexpressibly affecting must have been the meetings for worship here! cut off by a frightful abyss from the abodes of living men-surrounded by the dead-the torch dispelling for a little space the sepulchral gloom which encircled the band of worshippers, with a wall of darkness so dense as to seem solid-while the silence of the grave is broken at intervals by hymns of joy and triumph, and by the words, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoso believeth in me shall never die." Suddenly the tramp of men and the clatter of arms are heard sounding along the vaulted aisles. In an instant the torch is extinguished, a few suppressed whispers are heard, and the guides have led the faithful band beyond the reach of danger. Or, perhaps, there has been treachery, and every avenue has been occupied by the soldiers. Driven like frighted deer from point to point, the toils close around them; and young children, timid virgins, brave young men, and aged pastors, are alike cut down with ruthless cruelty! A Christianity that endured perils like these joyfully, must have been-in most cases at least-a real, not a nominal thing. The name of cemetery, derived from a Greek word meaning a bed-chamber or sleeping-place, has been given to the excavations we have described, in consequence of their having been the spot where the Christians interred their dead. The idea that death itself was, to the true Christian, but "a falling asleep," was thus brought to mind by the very name given to the body's final resting spot. Numerous inscriptions have been discovered, marking the graves of the members of the primitive church; and these little mementos, unimportant as they may have appeared at the time, furnish very important historical evidence as to the state of feeling prevalent among the poor and illiterate Christians in early times. Dr. Maitland, adverting to this subject, admirably says: "The fathers of the church live in their voluminous works; the lower orders are only represented by these simple records, from which, with scarcely an exception, sorrow and complaint are banished; the boast of suffering, or an appeal to the revengeful passions, is nowhere to be found. One expresses hope, another faith, a third charity. The genius of primitive christianity, to believe, to love, and to suffer,' has never been better illustrated. These sermons in stones' are addressed to the heart, not to the head-to the feelings rather than to the taste." These inscriptions are sometimes so rude in execution, so ungrammatical in construction, i and so incorrect in spelling, as to render it difficult to determine their meaning; but this rather increases than diminishes their value, since it proves them to be the natural and spontaneous utterances of illiterate believers. The graves are niches cut in the rocky walls, one above another, in which the bodies were deposited, and then closed with slabs in the manner shown in the annexed cut. These occur generally in three tiers, and the total number of interments must have been immense. M. d'Agincourt speaks of them as forming millions. Many of these graves have been opened, but on most of them time, as might have been expected, has done its devastating work. "It would be difficult," says the French writer just named, "to form an exact idea of the remains of a human body reduced so nearly to annihilation. A little white dust showed where the head, the bones of the shoulder, thighs, knees, and ankles had been. This dust showed the direction of the bones, but it was not a body, not even a skeleton, that we saw; they were vestiges, hardly to be traced, and at a breath the whole disappeared." Some idea of the inscriptions referred to may be gathered from the accompanying cut. The epitaph, when translated, runs thus: "Valeria sleeps in peace." This association of the terms "sleep" and "peace" is a very common one in these inscriptions. We constantly meet with such phrases as these: "Porcella sleeps here in peace;" Zoticus is here gone to sleep" "The dormitory of Elpis." If we were to translate the name of the deceased in the last inscription, we should have the very suggestive phrase--the dormitory of hope! 66 Many of the epitaphs are very touching from their simple pathos. The following is in Greek, and therefore probably inscribed over a convert of that nation: "Dear Tuché, sweet soul, my daughter Tuché." What a depth of silent affection is unveiled in these few words! The language shows the bereaved parent not to have been a native of Rome, but a stranger there. Perhaps with his daughter he had fled thither, having forsaken all, and now that she was taken from him he was left alone. And yet not alone, if he was a true follower of the Saviour; for, reader, he gives his followers his choicest consolations in the hour of sorrow and affliction. Here is another inscription over a daughter's tomb, of a different character: "To Faustina, my fearless girl, who lived xx1 years." From the epithet-fortissima-we may conjecture that she had braved perils in "ministering to the necessities of the saints" when concealed in the catacombs, or had professed a good profession before many hostile witnesses. The following, copied by Dr. Maitland, is affixed to the tomb, and records the death of a martyr who seems to have been surprised by the persecutors whilst on his knees: "Alexander is not dead, but lives above the stars, and his body rests in this tomb. He died under the Emperor Antonine, who, though he foresaw that much benefit would result from his services, returned evil for good. For while on his knees and about to worship the true God, he was led away to execution. Oh, sad times! in which we are not safe, even in caverns, whilst we offer worship and prayers! What more miserable than such a life? or what more miserable than death in which they cannot be buried by their friends and parents ? but at last they sparkle in heaven." The symbols given in the foregoing inscription are of very common occurrence throughout the catacombs. The first is a monogram, in which a cross is combined with the Greek initials of the word Christ, and was used to intimate that the deceased had "fallen asleep in Christ." The second represents a palm branch, the badge of victory, and has a very obvious reference to the passage in the Apocalypse, where the redeemed are described "with palms in their hands." The meaning of the third is obscure, but probably it is a censer, and contains an allusion to the act in which Alexander was engaged when arrested. A great variety of other symbols are found; the enumeration and exposition of which would protract this paper to an undue length. man family, had learnt to speak Latin; so that Two reflections are forced upon the Again: what a comforting view is given us of the power of Christian faith, when we reflect that it cheered and supported these poor sufferers in their dark and gloomy habitation, at a time, too, when they were in daily peril of death! Happy will it be for us if our faith is as pure and abiding as theirs. We leave the accompanying epitaph to speak for itself. Through the long vista of centuries we seem in it to hear, as it were, a voice from the tomb, telling us of nature's anguish in the hour of bereavement, softened and alleviated by Christian consolation. Olly sweet est. San Severus borne'd way by an get's On the VIID Taes Ja A GROAT'S-WORTH OF RAIL THERE are few pleasanter modes of spending a leisure hour on a fine summer's day, supposing the object we have in view is a little change of scene and a breath of fresh air, than by taking a ride on the Blackwall Extension Railway. This little line, which appears to be a great favourite with the public, has been opened about two years; its course describes a curve bending from the north round to We have space for only two more epitaphs. "In the east, and embracing about one-fourth of the the time of the Emperor Adrian, Marius, a circumference of the metropolis. To the stranger, young military officer, who had lived long to whom the somewhat singular aspect of the enough when, with his blood, he gave up suburbs of our overgrown capital must present his life for Christ. At length he rested some matters of interest, it presents a good and in peace. The well deserving set up this facile opportunity of viewing them to advantage. with tears and in fear." We shall constitute ourselves his guide and com The next is selected partly as a touch-panion for the occasion; and, setting out from the ing instance of fidelity in a Christian female ser- city station in Fenchurch-street, shall endeavour to vant, and partly on account of a peculiarity in point out such objects as, in the flying glimpses we the inscription itself; the words are chiefly Latin, can catch of them as we are whirled along, seem but most of the letters Greek. The cause of this most worthy of attention. incongruity probably was, that she being, as her name shows, a Greek, had learnt to write her own language, and subsequently, from living in a Ro The fare from any one station on the whole line to any other, be the distance either a single mile or the whole ten, is a uniform rate of fourpence, and return tickets are issued along the whole | Jack's, and might perhaps be traced to a fact route for sixpence each; these are second-class which there is no disputing, namely, that a good fares, those of the first-class being a third higher. many who are born at Stepney, in after life belong Having paid your money at the foot of the stairs, to the sea. The word "Stepney" is a corruption you surrender your ticket as soon as you have got of "Stebenhythe," the ancient name of the place, it, and mount to the platform, where, as the trains which is of considerable antiquity. In the old run regularly every quarter of an hour, you have church, a rather curious structure, whose original never long to wait. A train has just come in on design has been destroyed by modern innovation, the opposite side, and a troop of passengers burst- lies Richard Pace, who was in his day vicar of the ing from the open doors of every carriage, are parish, and the friend and correspondent of the defiling rapidly towards the exit from the station, great Erasmus. A later notoriety who there also where they disappear with a most business-like sleeps at peace was the Rev. John Entinck, of rapidity. While you are looking around, the boarding-school celebrity, the author of all those porter admonishes you to take your seat, which dogs-eared dictionaries and spelling-books in sheepyou have scarcely done, when slam goes the door skin which bothered us so when we were boys. and off we roll, at a gentle pace at first, into a very He has some notable companions in death; among dim and dusky region of brick walls, roofed in others the father of Strype the historian, and the with tiles, pierced here and there with a window, wife of Oakey the regicide. The burying-ground which affords but a sort of rushlight glimmer into has long been famous for its curious epitaphs. the darkness. But the darkness runs rapidly away This is all about Stepney for the present. We in the rear as our speed increases, and forth we have set down a score of passengers and taken in leap into the sunshine, and away we scour over the as many more, and are already puffing away tored heads of a vast level wilderness of houses, wards the next station. Yonder to the right a every one of which seems turning round to look at branch of the railway leads off through Shadwell us as we steam along. We are about thirty feet and Poplar to Blackwall, and at Stepney station above the level of the ground; the foreground of passengers to Blackwall from the north of London our landscape is rugged with roofing of every have to alight and change carriages. From Stepney practicable shape, and populous with chimneys, all to Bow the distance is but a very few minutes; engaged in one complex and stately minuet: some we have left the city behind us and are now are very young and very short, shining in new red fairly in the suburbs; a glimpse of the river is jackets and cocked hats, and others are very old obtained on the right as we rattle along, and conand exceeding tall, and addicted to smoking worse siderable indications of the forest of shipping that than any German; but all are dancing to the crowds its surface are seen above the buildings and music of our locomotive's pipe to an astonishingly warehouses that line the shore. As we sweep quick time, and whirling off apparently towards St. round, however, these all get behind us; we dePaul's. If you cast a glance below, you may enjoy scend gradually from our altitudes and get a little the privilege, if you deem it such, of a momentary nearer the common earth; the close colony of view of the domestic economy of a thousand fami- bricks is now exchanged for something not unlike lies, but it is a question whether you will be much a rural village; houses, it is true, there are in the wiser for the inquisition, unless indeed you plenty, but many of them have gardens in front possess extraordinary facilities for observation. and trees before their doors and fields not far off. For instance, down here at the right, about even Now we are bowling across Bow Common, and with the rails upon which we are spinning along, now we are skirting an angle of the Tower Hamyou see a figure at a window doing something. Is lets Cemetery. The landscape opens as we proit a man shaving himself? is it Captain Blowhard ceed, but shuts up again as we stop at the Bow putting on his coat? is it his industrious wife station for a second exchange of passengers. ironing out his linen for next Sunday ? is it Mrs. Suds hanging out Mr. Suds' garments to dry? is some neighbour, gaping with open mouth upon the train dashing by even with his nose? You don't know; it may be any or all of these, but you can't tell which; and all you derive from your 1 privilege of observation is, the conviction that you have seen somebody doing something, you don't know what. Lift your eyes a little and look further abroad: the thousand spires of London are fast retreating on the left, and to the right the masts and rigging of tall ships shoot up above the roofs and chimney tops; here and there a vision green trees, and brown water, and a man sculling a boat in a whitey-brown canal, varies the scene. We slacken speed; whee-e-et! goes the whistle, and in a moment or two more we are stopping at Stepney. We shall not stay here long, but long enough to recall to mind some reminis cences that should not be buried in oblivion. There is a notion prevailing among sailors that those who are born at sea belong to Stepney parish. This, however, is a mere hallucination of Poor 1 it of Bow, or Stratford-le-Bow, derives its two names from a ford over the river Lea, near one of the Roman highways in the neighbourhood, and from a bridge built over the stream with bows or arches by Matilda, queen of Henry 1. The place, it would seem, enjoyed a sort of notoriety in Chaucer's time, for he says of his prioress :-- "And Frensch sche spok ful faire and fetysly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe." It was formerly populous with bakers, who, up to the time of Henry the Eighth, supplied London with bread. It was the fashion with our ancestors in "the good old times," to make pic-nic excursions to Bow, and to feast on the cream and cakes for which the place was as famous as it appears to be barren in historical or literary associations. But we are in motion again, and hurrying fast on our route to Hackney. Soon after leaving Bow, we pass under the Eastern Counties Railway, and find ourselves rolling on gaily in the open country. To the right we have a view of the verdant meadows on the banks of the river Lea, where old Isaac Walton, two hundred years ago, loved to | ponds, its cheesecakes, its custards, and its cow. wander, angle in hand, and make acquaintance with his friends the fishes, with a view of promoting them to his frying-pan. On the left are teagardens, and nursery-grounds, and bowling-greens, and fruitful orchards, and rope-walks, and children playing in the fields; and now we are skirting the eastern boundary of Victoria-park, and already the square tower of Hackney old church rises in the distance. A few minutes more, and Hackney, with its trim gardens, neat residences, and plenteous foliage, lies at our feet as we stop for a few moments opposite the square walls of the timeworn church-tower. keepers. If among this list of notabilities those standing first may be said to have declined, the last-mentioned at least have kept their place, since within a few stones' throws of the spot whence our engine is snorting to get free, some thousand or so of milch cows, comfortably stalled and fed, are doing their best to supply the metropolis with their indispensable fluid. At a distance hardly greater, though in an opposite direction, stands Canonbury Tower, supposed to have been built by Sir John Spencer towards the end of the sixteenth century. In the time of Goldsmith, it was let out in apartments, and Newbery, the bookseller, having lodgings there, lent them for a hiding-place to poor Goldy, who was flying from his creditors, and who there, under the pressure of want, wrote his "Ode to the Passions," resided in Islington during the latter part of his life. Alexander Cruden, the author of the "Concordance," was found dead on his knees in the posture of prayer in a house in Camden-passage. John Nicholls, who conducted the "Gentleman's Magazine" for half a century, was born in Islington, and lived in Highburyplace, almost close to the present railway station; and Charles Lamb first assumed the dignity of a housekeeper in Colebrooke-row. Hackney, which gave a name to hackney-coaches, has survived its own etymology, and nothing now is known of the derivation of the name it bears. Though now by no means a fashionable locality, it" Vicar of Wakefield." Collins, the author of the was once the residence of many noble families. Near two centuries ago, its presbyterian chapel was famous throughout the land; the celebrated Matthew Henry, the biblical commentator, succeeded men of scarcely less note in their time, and preached at this chapel for many years; most of his literary labours were wrought here. A notorious character of very different repute, the usurer John Ward, who was satirized by Pope, also lived here, and the site of his house still bears the name of Ward's corner. Strype, the historian, was lecturer here for thirty-five years, and died here in 1737, in his ninety-fourth year. In Hackney the great Dr. South was born, the parliamentary general, Fairfax, was married, and Owen Rowe, the regicide, was buried. We learn from the current literature of the last century that Hackney was then celebrated for its nursery-gardens, whither the fashionables of the time were accustomed to resort; and for its ladies' boarding-schools, where they had their daughters educated. Thus a sanguine author is in the "Tatler" represented as saying: "For the publication of this discourse, I wait only for subscriptions from the under-graduates of each university and the young ladies in the boarding-schools at Hackney," etc. From Hackney, as the locomotive begins again to cough, we move on to Kingsland. Perhaps this short ride is the most picturesque part of the whole route, forming as it does a series of pictures, half pure landscape, half suburban views, such as Patrick Naysmith delighted to paint. Soon, however, they are shut out of view by the steep banks of a cutting; we feel our pace sensibly retarding, and now we stop once more at Kingsland, of which we have nothing particular to say, and whence, having dropped two passengers and picked up one, we are off again directly to Highbury and Islington. The railway runs nearly the whole of this distance between high banks, which, with the blue sky and the electric wires of the telegraph, form the whole of the prospect. We arrive at Islington underground, and, burrowing beneath the foundations of the "Cock" Tavern, stop at the Highbury station, where we shall get rid of most of our companions in the journey. While they are getting out and clearing off, we may glance, with the mind's eye at least, at "merry Islington." Islington, once called Iseldon or Yseldon, has been famous for many things in its time-for its statesmen, its authors, its artists, its ducking Leaving Islington, our underground way lies for some distance between solid walls of brick spanned with numerous bridges, from which in a minute or two we emerge upon a level, affording us a view of Pentonville Model Prison, backed by fields and trees, and Highgate-hill, crowned with its solitary church spire, in the distance. In a minute more we are upon a viaduct crossing the Caledonian-road, where we stop for a moment at another station, after which we dash on, and flying at rather a giddy height over the Great Northern line, which here burrows under Copenhagen-fields, proceed on to the Camden-road station, where we drop our passengers for Camden Town. This delightfully situated suburb of London owes its name, although indirectly, to Camden, the author of the "Britannia," whose descendants are, or were, the owners of most of the landed property in the district. The erection of Camden Town commenced in 1791; at that time it stood alone, far from the smoke and din of London; at the present moment it is as effectually joined to the metropolis as though Temple Bar were its neighbour. From Camden Town to Hampstead-road is but a short viaduct route, through a very favourable sample of the London suburb, across long lines of genteel streets varied with retired gardens and snug villas. At Hampstead-road our journey ends; there the railway joins the North-Western line, and affords to travellers journeying from Birming ham, Liverpool, and the north of the island, and bound for any of the places through which we have passed, the convenience of proceeding at once to their homes without incurring the expense or delay of coach-hire from Euston-square. It is not to be wondered at that the advantages of such a line of route as we have above described should be pretty generally appreciated, and that, in summer time especially, multitudes should avail themselves of this little railway as a means of transport. It brings Gravesend-whither so many Londoners |