THE FORUM. The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, BYRON. Porta est, ait, ista Palati Hic Stator, hoc primum condita Roma loco est. OVID. THE associations connected with childhood and early youth are infinitely more powerful than any that are formed in maturer years. How various and interesting are the recollections which the name of ROME excites, connected as they are with the happy studies of our earlier days! Montaigne has described, in his own inimitable style of simplicity and sincerity, the revival of his youthful enthusiasm on visiting the ruins of Rome. "I was acquainted," says he, "with the affairs of Rome long before I knew any thing of those of my own family. I had the Capitol and its whole figure in my mind when the Louvre was quite unknown to me, and had heard of the Tiber before the Seine. My thoughts have run more on the condition and fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio than of any of my own countrymen. Finding myself useless to this age, I recur to that other, and am so taken with it, that this old Rome, in its free, just, and flourishing state (for neither am I delighted with its |