of twelve or fifteen miles, the Mediterranean bathes the solitary shores, and so similar is the complexion of the two expanses, that it is difficult to distinguish the precise boundary between land and sea.

Such are the remote features of this great panorama. The aspect of the Campagna has already been described. It is a belt of utter solitude, twelve miles in breadth in the narrowest part, and completely encircles Rome. Two or three strag

gling churches, forming the very outposts of the city, are but a few miles from the gates. Dark ruins are scattered over the waste in shapeless masses, fast sinking into the grave of empire. On one side are seen wrecks of tombs, which skirted the Appian Way; on another side, the spectator traces the windings of the Tiber through its lonely borders, from the walls of the city to the sea. The eternal silence, which broods over this region, once rural, populous and gay, sends a chill to the heart:

"Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent."

But the gloomiest features in the picture have not yet been portrayed. The high dark ramparts, visible in their whole circumference of about sixteen miles, enclose an area which exhibits a chaos of desolate ruins and modern splendour. As the former image predominates in the mind, the latter by contrast only serves to render it the more hideous. More than half the space within the walls is not occupied at all by buildings. These waste places, once covered by golden palaces and temples of the gods, are now strewed with rubbish, or converted into gardens and patches of cultivation, the soil of which is enriched by the dust of an empire. A luxuriant growth of foliage and flowers often mantles these ruins, exhibiting the eternal vigour of nature, when compared with the transient works of art.

Three of the Seven Hills of Rome, the Palatine, the Aventine, and Cælian, are almost entirely destitute of buildings of any kind. Of the other four, the Esquiline is partially, and the Capitoline, Viminal, and Quirinal are fully occupied by the modern city. They are all, as my readers probably need not be told, on the left bank of the Tiber: the Aventine, the Palatine, and Capitoline are near the river -the others are at the distance of perhaps half a mile from the margin. None of them have that prominence, which the

traveller might rationally expect to find, and which they in fact once had. The cause is obvious. While the ruins of the city, piled stratum above stratum, have elevated its level twenty, thirty, and sometimes even forty feet above the ancient pavement, no addition has been made to the height of the hills. On the contrary, a portion of their summits, loosened by tillage and swept down by rains, forms a part of the heterogeneous strata, on which modern Rome is seated.

The Aventine is one of the largest and highest of the group. It rises boldly from the immediate bank of the Tiber, near the ancient port, at the lower extremity of the city. There is barely room for the road between the margin of the river, and the cliffs, which have an air of rugged, stern, and solitary grandeur. The verdant summit of this hill, the aerial tomb of Remus, and where once rose fanes to Juno, Diana, Victory, Liberty, and other divinities, is now as much the haunt of birds,* as it was in the days of the soothsayers, and old Hercules might find better pasturage for his cattle, than he did in the age of Cacus.†

But of all the Roman Hills, the Palatine is infinitely the most interesting, both from its associations and its present picturesque appearance. Here was the cradle of empire; here rose the first humble walls; here was established the Court, from the thatched cottage of old Romulus to the Golden Palace of Nero; here stood the shrine consecrated to Apollo and the Muses; here Cicero lived and Horace sung! The Palatine mount is immediately under the eye of the spectator, as he stands upon the tower on the Capitoline. We have rambled over it again and again. It is the very image of desolation. Nearly its whole circumference is girt with a series of subterranean baths, sweeping round in a dark line, under the brow of the hill, and opening into its sides, like gloomy caverns.

On the cliffs, at the south-western extremity, stand all that remains of the Palace of the Cæsars and the splendid Temple of Apollo, consisting of a few damp and dreary

*The Aventine derives its name from the word aves, (birds) by which it used to be much frequented.

Virgil lays the scene of this fable on the Aventine Mount, and there is a cave half way up the side, which is still called the Den of Cacus. A hermit, instead of a robber, now keeps the key. We made at least half a dozen attempts to find him at his little hut by the side of the road, but without success.

arches, still exhibiting traces of fresco ceilings. Of the palace, which once covered the whole hill, the composition floor of the terrace is in good preservation, bordering upon the cliff, where Nero used to sit at his window, and drop his handkerchief, as a signal for the games to begin, in the Circus Maximus,* below. Of the temple, nothing save its foundations is left. Fragments of its Corinthian capitals and friezes of Parian marble are strewed under a grove of ilex on the brow of the hill, mantled by the matted grass and the leaves of the acanthus, whence the order derives its origin. The region in the vicinity of these two buildings is thickly overgrown with wild shrubbery, in which persons are effectually concealed, as they ramble along the foot-paths. The solitude is absolutely appalling. Some memorials of Nero's crimes are yet preserved. A bath is shown in which the veins of Seneca were pricked by the order of the Emperor; and by turning the eye to the left, it rests on the old tower, upon which he is said to have fiddled, while Rome was burning. His Golden House extended from the Palace of the Cæsars, to the Cælian and Esquiline Hills, a distance of half a mile or more!

The summit and central part of the Palatine is not so dreary. It is occupied by an extensive garden, or rather vineyard, belonging to a Neapolitan Prince, and denominated the Orti Farnesiani. The soil is rich, covered with a luxuriant crop of artichokes and other vegetables, overshadowed by the vine. In the midst of the field, are the remains of the subterranean baths of Livia, into which the visitant descends through a tangled copse, as into the cave of a Sybil, with a hag for a pioneer, bearing a brimstone torch to show the frescos. There are but two or three modern buildings on the whole Mount, and these are in such situations, as not to break in upon its solitude. In a word, it has so far reverted to the wildness of nature, that Pales, the goddess of flocks, to whom it was originally consecrated, and from whom it derives its name, might again resume the crook and ascend her sylvan throne. It is a truth, which

* Between the Aventine and Palatine Hills. The outlines are yet visible. It was large enough to hold 150,000 spectators.

†The lines of Tibullus, descriptive of the rural charms of this hill, in its original state of pastoral simplicity, are so beautiful that I cannot forbear another quotation in Latin, having no translation of the poet :

some of my readers might be inclined to doubt, that I have repeatedly reclined in the shade of the ilex, upon the brow of this hill, and looked down upon shepherds sleeping upon the grass, while their flocks were quietly grazing in the Forum.

The Forum, the Roman Forum!-It spreads at my feet. Could any mortal recognize the place, once surrounded by splendid porticos and temples of the gods; where stood the Curia, the Comitium, the Tribunal, and the Rostrum ; where the Commons applauded as Tully spoke! Like the Palatine Mount and the Capitoline Hill, between which it lies cradled, the centre of Roman power and of Roman liberty is shorn of its glories, and the cattle again low, as they did in the days of Evander, where senates once deliberated and gave law to the world! The Forum is now called Il Campo Vaccino-an appellation so mean as scarcely to admit of a decent translation. But what is the vulgarity of its name, (Anglice cow-yard,) compared with the vile uses to which it is degraded? At the time of our first visit it was covered with carts, from which the teams of oxen were unharnessed and quietly ruminating as they reclined in pairs. Near one corner of the slight and rude wooden fence, which encloses the central portion, a cobbler was seated upon the fragment of a Grecian column, busy at his work in the open air; and by his side, an old woman, a descendant perchance of Cornelia or Lucretia, sat knitting, thus furnishing, like her illustrious ancestors, a public example of female industry and domestic virtue ! On other occasions I have seen, as already mentioned, some modern Corydon and Alexis tending thair sheep, upon the small patches of verdure, which skirt the modern excavations. The bleating of flocks and the tinkling of little bells, rising to the lonely brow of the Palatine, formed an image in the highest degree melancholy and affecting. Objects even too disgusting for description, defile the Campo Vaccino. Swarms of lizards literally cover the ground, and the rats and mice have become so im"Romulus æternæ nondum formaverat urbis Mœnia, consorti non habitanda Remo. Sed tunc pascebant herbosa Palatia vaccæ, Et stabant humiles in Jovis arce casæ. Lacte madens illic suberat Pan ilicis umbræ, Et facta agresti lignea falce Pales; Pendebatque vagi pastoris in arbore votum Garrula silvestri fistula sacra Deo,"

pudent by a long and undisputed possession, as to sally forth from their homes into open day, in presence of the spectators, shaking the rank weeds above them, as they chase each other in their gambols.

Can this be the Forum? Yea verily it is the Roman Forum; for beneath us, triumphal arches and porticos and insulated columns, piercing strata of rubbish heaped upon the old pavement to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, rear their Grecian capitals and shattered cornices above the scene of desolation, coming like tell-tale messengers from the world below. Nearest the base of the Capitoline, åre three columns of the temple of Jupiter Tonans, erected by Augustus as a votive fane, for having been preserved from a bolt of the Thunderer, which fell near his head. The fragment of a beautiful frieze bears the sculptured image of the implements used in the sacrifice of victims-the axe, the knife, and the goblet. At the distance of a few paces, stand eight splendid Ionic pillars, forming the porch to the temple of Concord-that temple, in which Cicero convened the Senate, for the suppression of the conspiracy of Cataline, and where the bursts of his eloquence overwhelmed the traitor, preserving for a period the liberties of the Republic. The entablature of the portico is nearly perfect, and bears the simple yet impressive inscription—“ Senatus populusque Romanus incendio consumptum restituit”—the Senate and Roman People restored it, when consumed by flames.

At the base of the Capitoline Hill, and across the street, which yet ascends to the summit, rises the splendid triumphal arch of the Emperor Septimius Severus. It was erected at the beginning of the third century, and is nearly entire, consisting of four fluted columns, of the Corinthian and Ionic orders, capped by a heavy architrave ornamented with a profusion of bas-relief, and loaded on both sides with long Latin inscriptions, which few will have the patience to decipher, out of compliment to a warlike, but ambitious and merciless tyrant. Even the expenses of this proud monument were probably wrung by oppression from the Roman people, and contributed to the very scene of desolation in the midst of which it now rises. The pathway which the flatterers of the imperial usurper strewed with flowers, and which he pursued in his triumphal ascent to the Capitol, on returning from his conquests of the North and East, is now choked with hideous ruins. Within a few feet of the arch stands a solitary