its course is still characterised by the

"Leni fluit agmine Thybris."

It is deep and muddy, and (which report had led us to expect) neither a large nor a beautiful stream. Yet we almost fancied its winding course possessed some beauty, as our eye eagerly pursued its wandering, sweeping round the base of the pine-crowned height of Monte Mario. But there is a charm attached to it beyond all that the prodigality of nature could have lavished upon it. It is the Tiber, -the yellow* Tiber-an epithet it still merits from the colour of its waters, after two thousand years have passed away; and it was not without a complication of feelings, which it would be vain to ana lyze, that we crossed for the first time its classic tide.

We passed under a sort of arch as we entered upon the Ponte Molle, anciently called the Pons Milvius, from M. Emilius Scaurus, by whom it was originally built.

Immediately on crossing the bridge, we entered what was anciently the Campus Martius; and at the extremity of a strait line of road, bordered by high walls, about a mile and a half in length, we saw the Porta del Popolo.

Its name recalls the Republic and the Roman

* Yellow is an exceedingly undescriptive translation of that tawny colour, that mixture of red, brown, grey, and yellow, which should answer to the "flavus" here; but I may not deviate from the established phrase, nor do I know a better.

people, but it is only the substitute for the ancient Porta Flaminia, the northern entrance of Rome.

It was in vain that our Itinerario told us this gate was the work of Michael Angelo, but a work unworthy of his genius; we could stop neither to admire nor criticise it-we could only gaze on it with a species of veneration; for though modern, it was the gate of Rome !

We drove under it, and beheld in the centre of a noble piazza, an Egyptian obelisk of granite, which seemed almost to pierce the skies. This noble monument, the imperishable memorial of an older world, meets the stranger's eye on his entrance into this city of ages, as if to remind him of the fallen greatness of Imperial Rome.

A convent attached to a church adjoining the gate, and just beginning to be rebuilt, speaks to him equally intelligibly of the existing debasement of Papal Rome.

On the right are some barracks, which, as they are for Papal, not Prætorian guards, and, moreover, are the work of the modern French, not the ancient Romans-we looked at, you may be sure, with sovereign contempt,.

On the left, rises from the Piazza del Popolo the abrupt steep of the Pincian hill (the Collis Hortulorum) once covered with the villas and gardens of Roman citizens, now, in all we saw of it, uncultivated and uninhabited.

Opposite to us, the Corso, narrow, but handsome, opens its direct road into the city, guarded by two twin churches, not unlike porter's lodges,

which are remarkable for nothing except their oval domes.

Ón either side of the Corso, a street diverges in slanting lines into different parts of Rome.

We had abundance of leisure for the examina tion of every object, while the custom-house offi, cers were carrying on their customary wrangling examination of passports.

Bribery won't do at Rome-(I mean at the gates) -a lascia passare is necessary, which we should have written from Florence, to desire the banker to leave at the gate for us. As we had not taken this precaution, two of the Doganieri mounted the box, and thus, in their custody, we were conveyed down the Corso, in what seemed to me to be a very igno minious manner, to be searched at the custom-house, as if we had been smugglers. A magnificent portico of eleven fluted Corinthian columns of marble, once the temple of Marcus Aurelius, and near the proud triumphal pillar that still stands in commemoration of his victories and his virtues, now serves the ignoble purpose of a Dogana.

We were obliged to get out, in order that the seats in the inside of the carriage might be searched, and thus, perforce, the first place we entered in Rome was one of its ancient temples. It seemed for a long time probable that it would also prove the last, for Rome was overflowing. We drove about for more than two hours, and found every hotel full of Inglesi. The lucky departure of one family of them, however, at length enabled us to take possession of their newly vacated apartments,

which are indeed most comfortable. You cannot conceive, without having travelled vetturino from Siena to Rome, and lodged in the holes we have done, how delightful is the sensation of being in a habitable hotel, how acceptable the idea of a good dinner, and how transporting the prospect of sleeping in a clean bed. But that luxurious idea, with the certainty of not being obliged to get up at four in the morning, is at this moment too tempting to bé resisted; so, good night!

LETTER VII.

WEEKS have elapsed since my arrival in Rome, and nothing have I seen of it except the four walls of my chamber. I might as well have been in the Hebrides. I wrote to you, impatient for the morning that I might behold Rome; it came, and found me so ill, that, though I got up and went out in a kind of desperation, violent and rapidly-increasing fever compelled me almost immediately to return, and confined me to bed, till it seemed dubious when, if ever, I should rise again. The fever on my mind increased that on my body. Visions of ancient ruins haunted my perturbed imagination. The Coliseum, such as I had seen it in the cork modėl, was continually before my eyes. I grew worse and worse, till at last the highly-agreeable probability forced itself upon my contemplation, of dying in Rome, without having seen St Peter's, or the Coliseum, which, you must allow, would have been a great aggravation of such a misfortune. But thanks to Heaven, and Dr, who was luckily here, I am still alive, and hope yet to see the "Eternal City" before I die. I had very nearly