procession of Posidonians poured into the sacred pile to worship, with mystic rites, at the shrine of the awful divinity of the sea!

Ferns and wild grasses cluster round the fane
Where in the old time sacrifice was paid
To Ocean's god. Still laughs the sapphire sky,
Still murmurs on the shore the lapsing tide,
Still blooms the violet beneath the stone,
And still Albano looms against the sky-
Like a dim giant, lonely, grand, and strong.
But now no more the laugh of lively Greeks,
Or the stern voices of Rome's warriors,
Are borne upon the breeze, which idly goes
About the courts of Pæstum's ancient pile.

Commerce, and Wealth, and Power-all these have passed,
But Art endures, immortal and sublime!

AUTHORITIES.-Eustace, A Classical Tour through Italy; Notes on Naples; Guistiniani, Dizionario Geografico; Handbook to South Italy; Wilkins, Antiquities of Magna Græcia.

IV.

Tiboli.

THE TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL.

HOSE of our young readers who may have conquered enough of the intri

cacies of Latin to warrant their being promoted to the study of Horace, will remember the numerous allusions in his exquisite lyrics to the woods and waters of Tivoli. No place to him so sweet as the source of the resounding Albunea, the banks of the headlong Anio, the rich dense groves of Tibur, and its orchards, fair and fruitful, watered by many a shifting stream.

'Quàm domus Albuneæ resonantis,

Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomarià rivis.”—(Lib. i. 7, 10.)

He often composed his verses while rambling among the bowers and grassy depths of the neighbouring valleys; and it was in this poetical fairyland, this Italian Arcady, that he desired to spend his declining years:—

Sooth to say, it is a spot of wondrous loveliness, where Nature has apparently exhausted her wealth of colour and purest grace of outline.

Tivoli has associations, moreover, of surpassing interest. The ancient Tibur, a city of the Sycani, and founded nearly five centuries before Rome, it long maintained a proud front against its haughty rival, until conquered by the great Camillus. Here Syphax, King of Numidia, died B.C. 202. He can scarcely have regretted the arid wastes of his African realm among those luxuriant groves. The illustrious Zenobia-one of the truly great women of history-spent here the last years of her chequered life, surrounded with all the pomp of Oriental magnificence. Here resided, in the palmy days of the Empire, Rome's statesmen, nobles, and men of letters. During the wars of the Goths, Tibur was occupied by the troops of Belisarius. It was afterwards betrayed into the hands of Totila, who made its streets and highways run with blood. Totila, repulsed in his attempt upon Rome, retired to Tibur, and rebuilt the town and citadel, which, in the eighth century, lost its ancient name, and was thenceforward known by its modern appella

tion of Tivoli. When Rome broke out into riot after the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa as Emperor, he and Pope Adrian IV.-the Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear-found here a secure and pleasant asylum. Tivoli, at this epoch, would seem to have been an imperial city independent of Rome, and to have been a source of contention between the Pontiffs and the German Emperors. Having been seized by Frederick II. in 1241, it became the head-quarters of the Ghibelline faction, until their leader, Sinibaldo dei Fieschi, was elected to the throne of the Holy See, as Pope Innocent IV. One other association must suffice us: In the fourteenth century, and during the expedition of Cola di Rienzi against Palestrina, it was honoured by the presence of Rome's last great Tribune.

Modern Tivoli is built on the vine-clad slopes of Monte Ripoli, at an elevation of 830 feet above the sea-level. On the other side of the valley, and through the limestone rocks of Monte Catillo, dashes the rapid Anio, pouring its waters in a foamy vaporous mass down a precipice of nearly 320 feet. In the neighbourhood are numerous picturesque villas, picturesquely situated; but apart from the charms which Nature has bestowed on this enchanting spot, its principal interest centres in the Temple of Vesta-erron