and hats decorated with shells, and each bearing a long staff. One of them was recognized as the same we had passed on the road, in climbing the heights of Monte Somma. She was probably journeying from the shrine of Loretto to Rome. But the Pantheon has some associations of a more elevated character, than such gross superstition can impart. Here were the tombs of many of the most distinguished men of modern Rome, most of which have been removed, for what reason I know not. Those of Annibal Caracci and RAPHAEL are still left, consisting of plain tablets on the wall, by the side of one of the altars. The latter died in April, 1520, at the age of 37. His epitaph is brief, comprised in the two following lines: "Ille hic est Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci, which may be thus translated:-"Here lies that Raphael, during whose life nature feared a rival, and at his death, that she also might expire." If any name could justify such hyperbole, it is that of an artist, who in his brief and brilliant career, in an age deemed by us comparatively barbarous, filled the galleries of Italy with pictures, which it may be said with truth nothing but the hand of nature herself can surpass. On the tablet below is another inscription, less extravagant in idea, and more classically expressed-" Cujus spirantes prope imagines"-" whose images almost breathe”— a compliment as just, as it is poetical. The eye searches in vain for the precise limits of the old Campus Martius, which extended from the bases of the Capitoline, Quirinal, and Pincian Hills, to the left bank of the Tiber, and is now covered by one of the most populous districts of the modern city. It is intersected by the Corso, and we sleep every night on the borders of the Martial Field, to dream over the scenes of other ages. Near its northern and ancient boundary, (for in the time of Nero it was extended to the Milvian Bridge,) stands the mausoleum of Augustus and his family. It is an obtruncated Rotunda perhaps a hundred feet in diameter, and has actually been converted into an amphitheatre, for the exhibition of bullbaiting, and fire-works. It is interesting merely from its associations, and remarkable for a very perfect echo and whispering gallery--a curiosity which seems to have escaped the indefatigable researches of book-makers. In one of my several visits, I repeated the pathetic elegy of Virgil on the young Marcellus, which melted Octavia into tears and made the fortune of the poet. Echo seemed enamoured of the verse, and sent back, in garrulous reverberations from her profaned retreat, the name of the Roman boy, whose ashes sleep below. We must not omit the apochryphal hills of Mons Marius, the Vaticanus, and the old Janiculum, which range along the right bank of the Tiber from the north-east to the southwest, in the order they are mentioned, adding much to the bold outlines of the city. The first of these eminences is a solitude, with the exception of a white villa or two seated upon its brow. On the summit of the second, stands its name-sake, the Vatican, consisting of that miracle of architecture, the church of St. Peter, and the monstrous Palace of the Popes, covering more acres than the corse of the giant Tityus, and expelling from its gloomy dominions every trace of those sylvan charms, which once responded in echoes to the lyric Muse.* But let us not pause at present to look even at the peerless dome, which may always be regarded as the most elevated and conspicuous object, within the circumference of the Campagna di Roma. My readers will have enough of it hereafter. The Janiculum is a large and bold bill, thinly peopled, covered with extensive, woody gardens, and studded with palaces. It may be as well to mention here by way of episode, and for the sake of disposing of other localities with all convenient despatch, that I have twice navigated the channel of the Tiber-the first time as far as the bridge of St. Angelo, and a second time from the Ripetta to Ripa Grande, the whole extent of the city. The current within these limits is contracted to the width of about two hundred feet, (little more than half its width at the Milvian Bridge,) and so rapid as to become turbulent, resembling both in the complexion of its waters and its whirlpools an American river during the floods of spring. So strong were its boilings and vortices, as sensibly to affect our row-boat, of the ordinary_size, which at some points became almost unmanageable. There cannot be the least doubt, that the bed of the river, besides being confined to half its breadth, by entrenching upon its shores, has been as much elevated and choked by ruins, as the other parts of the city, and even more; for the armies of barbarous invaders were in the habit of wantonly throwing into the Tiber such spoils of the arts, as they were unable to bear away. For myself, I could not but fancy, that every rebound of the water from the bottom to the surface was sent up by same statue or fragment of a column--perhaps by the colossal head of a Hercules, or the torso of a Neptune. Should the course of the river ever be changed and its bed examined, a project by no means impracticable, treasures of inestimable value would no doubt be brought to light. From the Ri The shores of the Tiber have no quays. petta, where there is a little port and a ferry, to the bridge of St. Angelo, the right bank called Tratevere, (corresponding with the Transtiberim of the Romans,) is woody, rural, and picturesque; but all the rest of the way, on both sides, with few exceptions, the houses rise out of the water, leaving no passage along the margin. This arrangement brings the rear of the buildings to the river, and as they are uniformly shattered, gloomy, and dirty, the borders appear bleak and ruinous. St. Angelo (the ancient Pons Ælius) is the upper bridge within the walls of the city. It was originally built by the Emperor Adrian, and repaired by Pope Clement IX. who added the high balustrades and ranges of statues, which give it rather an imposing appearance. As it is the great thoroughfare to St. Peter's, and as perhaps one third of the population of the city is beyond the river, the passage is constantly crowded. Close to the northern end of the bridge, and on the right bank of the Tiber, is the tomb of Adrian, or the castle of St. Angelo. It is an enormous round tower, seated upon an eminence, two stories high, and crowned with a bronze angel volant, which forms a conspicuous object at a distance. This aerial spirit is said to be intended for the archangel Michael, whom St. Gregory saw in a vision, and was admo. nished that a pestilence, then raging in the city, should be stayed. St. Angelo has from time immemorial been the Citadel of Rome, on the possession of which hung the fate of the city. It has been taken and retaken perhaps a thousand times, notwithstanding the flaming sword of its guardian. The interior contains nothing worth seeing, if the Pope had the courtesy to admit strangers. In the conversion of a tomb into a castle, the dust of Adrian seems to have been entirely forgotten. Just below St. Angelo, the Tiber strikes against the basin of Mount Janiculum, and thence makes a bold sweep to the left, passing under the Ponte Sisto, repaired by Pope Sixtus V. but remarkable neither for its beauty nor its associations. An extended terrace and the Farnese gardens, on the right bank, furnish a temporary relief to the eye. The Tiber is here divided into two nearly equal branches by the small island of Esculapius, connected with the shores by bridges, (the Pons Fabricius and the Pons Cestius,) and thickly covered with old buildings. The nucleus of this island is said to have been formed of sheaves of grain, which Tarquin the Proud had reaped on the Campus Martius, and which the Roman people threw into the river, contending that it was unlawful to eat bread that grew on a plain dedicated to the tutelary god of the city. On the lower extremity of the island stood the temple of Esculapius, now the church and convent of St. Bartholomew. The story of this temple is briefly as follows: during a pestilence at Rome, the Sibylline books enjoined the necessity of sending to Epidaurus to the god of medicine. The serpent, which under the name of Esculapius was brought home in the ship with the embassy, swam ashore to this spot where the shrine was erected. Traces of the vessel and of the emblematic serpent are still visible on the foundations of the edifice. But we derived more pleasure from the little orange grove planted round the cloisters of the Convent, than from the obscure fragments of the temple. A little below the island of Esculapius are the ruins of the old Pons Palatinus, now very appropriately denominated the Ponte Rotto, or broken bridge. Half of it was swept away by the floods of the Tiber, in the 16th century, and the remaining part is yet standing, extending out from the foot of Mount Janiculum, and with its rotary fish-nets always in motion,* forming a dreary but picturesque object. On the left bank, within a few rods of this bridge, a group of * The modern Romans fish by water. Their scoop-nets are converted into the floats of a large wheel, resembling the arms of a wind-mill, which are kept in motion by the current of the Tiber, while the fishermen look on, or sleep in the sun. If a straggler happens to be caught in the toils, the wheel is thrown out of gear, and the net emptied of its contents. Fishing in this way seems to be the most indolent of all employments. interesting remains attract the attention of the traveller. The first is the Cloaca Maxima, constructed in the time of the elder Tarquin. It is a stupendous arch, sixteen feet wide and thirty in height. At the time of our several visits, only about four or five feet of it were above the level of the water, where it disgorges its accumulated filth into the Tiber. Some fifty yards from its mouth, a section of it has been laid open, where its construction may be examined, though it is filled with mud as high as the turning of the arch. It is built of tremendous blocks of stone laid without cement. The masonry is coarse but substantial, like the character of the old Romans in the age, when its eternal foundations were planted. A stream sufficiently large to turn a paper-mill gurgles through the obstructed passage, and at this point is joined by the silver waters of the Argentaria, a copious fountain coming in from the direction of the Aventine, at which tradition says the steeds of Castor and Pollux once drank. The Emperor of Austria, in his late visit to Rome, also took a sip. Indeed the crystal stream, contrasted with the impurities in which it is soon lost, offers many temptations to the spectator. In the vicinity of this opening in the Cloaca Maxima, are the remains of the four-fronted Arch of Janus, constructed of huge blocks of Greek marble, in rather a rude state, and supposed to have been a part of an Exchange, or Market, several of which were in this quarter, between the Forum and the Tiber. The small triumphal arch of Severus, at the distance of a few paces, resembles the one already described, erected in honour of the same Emperor. Returning to the bank of the river, the visitant finds, near the end of the Ponte Rotto, the ruins of the temple of Fortuna Virilis, consisting of several fluted Ionic pillers and a cornice, now woven into a little church. Here also is the house in which Pontius Pilate is said to have lived, before his departure for transalpine Gaul. But this must be a hoax, as the building is comparatively modern. The cicerone, however, reckons it as one of his strong points. Not far hence are likewise the fragments of the temple of Modesty, incorporated into a modern church, one of whose officers took us into the gallery, to see the capitals of ancient pillars. The shrine is as rich as ever, exhibiting its mosaic pavement, composed of porphyry and other costly materials. A colossal stone mask, four or five feet in diameter, and supposed to have belonged to a fountain, |