So men of genius have roved amid the awful ruins till the ideal presence has fondly built up the city anew, and have become Romans in the Rome of two thousand years past.

POMPONOIUS LETUS, who devoted his life to this study, was constantly seen wandering amidst the vestiges of this "throne of the world." There, in many a reverie, as his eye rested on the mutilated arch and the broken column, abstracted and immovable, he dropped tears in the ideal presence of Rome and of the Romans.[A] Another enthusiast of this class was BOSIUS, who sought beneath Rome for another Rome, in those catacombs built by the early Christians for their asylum and their sepulchre.

His work of "Roma Sotteranea" is the production of a subterraneous life, passed in fervent and perilous labours.

Taking with him a hermit's meal for the week, this new Pliny often descended into the bowels of the earth, by lamp-light, clearing away the sand and ruins till a tomb broke forth, or an inscription became legible.

Accompanied by some friend whom his enthusiasm had inspired with his own sympathy, here he dictated his notes, tracing the mouldering sculpture, and catching the fading picture.