Where we stand reigned Nero,--here were his tessellated floors; here, "Mighty in the heaven, a second heaven," hung the vault of his ivory roofs; here, arch upon arch, pillar on pillar, glittered to the world the golden palace of its master,--the Golden House of Nero.

How the lizard watches us with his bright, timorous eye! We disturb his reign.

Gather that wild flower: the Golden House is vanished, but the wild flower may have kin to those which the stranger's hand scattered over the tyrant's grave; see, over this soil, the grave of Rome, Nature strews the wild flowers still! In the midst of this desolation is an old building of the middle ages.
Here dwells a singular recluse.

In the season of the malaria the native peasant flies the rank vegetation round; but he, a stranger and a foreigner, no associates, no companions, except books and instruments of science.

He is often seen wandering over the grass-grown hills, or sauntering through the streets of the new city, not with the absent brow and incurious air of students, but with observant piercing eyes that seem to dive into the hearts of the passers-by.