NEPI.

Oh whither art thou fled, Saturnian age?
Roll round again, majestic years!

To break the sceptre of tyrannic rage,

From Woe's wan cheek to wipe the bitter tears.

Ye years, again roll round!

Hark, from afar what desolating sound,

While echoes load the sighing gales,

With dire presage the throbbing heart assails!

BEATTIE.

THE romantic little town of Nepi challenges the respect of the traveller, more for its rank in the melancholy pages of early ecclesiastical history than for any thing remarkable in its antiquarian remains. Its castle is a picturesque object, but not historically interesting. The cathedral, however, is one of the most ancient churches in Europe, and an inscription on one of its entrances purports that it was erected in the middle of the second century. It may perhaps be reasonably doubted whether the church in its present form arose at that period, but there appears little reason for doubting the general assertion of the inscription respecting the early foundation of a religious edifice on this spot, and at a time when the ground was still reeking with the blood of lately slaughtered martyrs. If, according to the inscription, the church

was built in the year 150, and numbers of the townspeople fell either shortly before or immediately after that event, we may suppose the martyrdoms to have taken place in one of those casual and local risings against the Christians with which even the reign of the virtuous and almost Christian Antoninus Pius was unfortunately stained. Supposing this to be the case, the sylvan and varied scenery about Nepi may be regarded with a degree of interest certainly not inferior to that inspired by the annals of Rome and its neighbouring states, when struggling for their existence as a people, but under circumstances far less untoward than those of the early Christians. All the sympathies of our nature awake at the recital of sufferings borne long and patiently in the defence of elevated principles, and it is natural that they should be felt with double force when the people for whom they are awakened are very far inferior in strength and numbers to those with whom they contend, and when for some slight sacrifice of truth or virtue they might at once purchase an exemption from persecution and its consequent miseries. It was soon after the time specified by the inscription on the door of the cathedral at Nepi that the Christians had to endure several of the fiercest attacks that ever desolated the infant church. The reign of Marcus Antoninus deluged both the east and the west with Christian blood; and, from the enormities perpetrated in the provinces at some distance from Rome, it is not difficult to estimate the sufferings which must have been endured by that portion of the persecuted people who resided within the very view of

the imperial capital. "Audacious sycophants," says one of the boldest and most eloquent of their advocates to the Emperor-"audacious sycophants, and men who covet the possessions of others, take advantage of your proclamations openly to rob and spoil the innocent by night and by day. If this be done through your order, let it stand good; for a just emperor cannot act unjustly, and we will cheerfully submit to the honor of such a death; this only we humbly crave of your majesty, that, after an impartial examination of us and our accusers, you would justly decide whether we deserve death and punishment or life and protection. But, if these edicts be not the effect of your personal judgment, edicts which ought not to be enacted even against barbarian enemies, in that case we entreat you not to despise us while thus unjustly oppressed." need scarcely be added that this sober and powerful appeal to the Emperor's justice was countervailed by the prejudiced representations given him by the pagan governors of the towns in which the Christians had places of worship; and it was doubtlessly at the instigation of some bigoted and interested magistrate that the unfortunate inhabitants of Nepi, whether under the reign of Antoninus Pius or his successor, paid for their devotion in raising a church in the town by pouring out their blood on its steps.

It

Nepi does not hold any conspicuous figure in history; but, unfortunately for it, in the year 1798 the ancient scenes of sanguinary persecution were renewed, and the aisles of the cathedral were stained, as in the second century, with the blood of Christians

engaged in worship. The soldiers of, we will not say republican, but of infidel France, seemed at that period desirous of emulating the fame of pagan prætors in their revengeful hatred towards all who could remind them of the religion they had cast off, and Nepi felt almost more than any other town the dire effects of their apostasy.

The traveller, with the recollections of these scenes in his mind, will wander among the delightful environs of the town with an interest peculiar to the place; and its green solitudes, now secure and tranquil, will inspire him with thoughts strikingly in contrast with the wild passions which have so often desolated the fair face of nature, and retarded the progress of civilization.