ROME.
The perusal of the title to this chapter will, we fear, excite emotions
of apprehension, rather than of curiosity, in the breasts of experienced
readers. They will doubtless imagine that it is portentous of long
rhapsodies on those wonders of antiquity, the description of which has
long become absolutely nauseous to them by incessant iteration. They
will foresee wailings over the Palace of the Caesars, and meditations
among the arches of the Colosseum, loading a long series of weary
paragraphs to the very chapter's end; and, considerately anxious to
spare their attention a task from which it recoils, they will
unanimously hurry past the dreaded desert of conventional reflection, to
alight on the first oasis that may present itself, whether it be formed
by a new division of the story, or suddenly indicated by the appearance
of a dialogue. Animated, therefore, by apprehensions such as these, we
hasten to assure them that in no instance will the localities of our
story trench upon the limits of the well-worn Forum, or mount the arches
of the exhausted Colosseum.
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