Further to the south appear the dark sides of Monte Algido, covered with untrodden woods, the noted haunt of banditti; the graceful height of Frascati, where stood the famed Tusculan villa of Cicero, now spotted with the white villas of the modern patrician Romans, embosomed in groves of pine; and the last and loftiest of that beautiful chain of woody hills that bound the southern horizon-Monte Cavo, the ancient Alban Mount, rises from the plain against the clear blue sky, with the town of Albano on the little declivity at its western base. Its summit, once crowned with the Temple of Jupiter Latialis, is now occupied by a convent of mendicant friars; and where the Feria Latine were held-where the conquerors of the world wound in triumph up the steep, to pay their homage to the god and father of the Latin tribesa few black crosses mark the path to the abode of superstition, and daring banditti infest its deep woods, or lurk in its hidden caves.

There, too, near its base, was the ancient seat of Alba, the Trojan town, the mother of Rome.

To the east, far above the range of the Sabine hills, rise the peaked summits of the distant Appenines, glittering in all the snows of winter.

I turned from Rome-from its towers, its palaces, and even its ruins-to the classic mountains that bounded the blue horizon, and felt, that however the frail and transient structures of man may change or fall, the eternal features of nature are for ever the same; that if the temples and mouldering fabrics at my feet, were not those on which the im

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mortal spirits of the dead had lived and acted,—at least, their eyes, like mine, had rested on the same hills, beheld the same wide extended plain beaming in its noon-tide beauty, and watched the wanderings of the same stream, as it slowly bears its lonely and desolate course to the ocean. Their feet, too, had sought that now abandoned shore, where, in their blissful retreat, Rome's greatest philosophers did not disdain "to count the ceaseless billow.' "* It is this which gives enchantment to the scene, and stirs our hearts within us, as we fondly linger over every object consecrated by the memory of the mighty spirits who have passed away, and cling to every wreck of the times that are fled for ever. It is this which gives to Rome, and to its classic scenes, that powerful and undefinable charm which seizes on every mind of sensibility, and makes their remembrance live within the heart whilst life and feeling animate it; and even in distant regions, and through long succeeding years, be fondly cherished

there.

For this was the theatre of the world in its spring of youth and vigour. It was the school of man, where he passed from infancy to maturity. That season has gone by-His strength has decayedHe has fallen into old age.-Nor time itself, nor fate, can make another Rome. The Phoenix shall never rise from its ashes,-" Rome is no more!"

* Vide Cicero's Lettters. It was also a favourite recreation of Scipio's to gather shells and pebbles as he wandered with Lælius on the sea-shore.

LETTER XI.

THE VATICAN.

I HAVE seen the Vatican! But how shall I express the delight, the admiration, the overpowering astonishment which filled my mind! How describe the extent and the splendour of that almost interminable succession of lengthening galleries and marble halls, whose pictured roofs, mosaic pavements, majestic columns, and murmuring fountains, far surpass even the gorgeous dreams of Eastern magnificence, and are peopled with such breathing forms of beauty and of grace, as sometimes deign to visit the rapt fancy of the poet, and seem to have descended here from happier worlds!

Rome has become the heir of time. Her rich inheritance is the accumulated creations of gifted genius, the best legacy that departed ages have bequeathed to the world, and here they are concentered in the treasury of the fine arts, the temple of taste, the consecrated scat of the muses!-You think I rave: But it is not mere ordinary grandeur or costly magnificence that has transported me thus. The splendour of palaces may be rivalled, and the

magnitude of temples imitated; but the labour and wealth of the united world would fail to produce another Vatican;-for its beauty is inimitable, and its treasures unpurchaseable.

It will, I perceive, be some time before my mind can be calmed and sobered down to the investigation or enjoyment of these miracles of art,—or, as I know you will say, before I recover my senses. At present I am in a delirium of admiration, and revel among this inexhaustible store of treasures, intoxicated with the sight-as a miser, on the sudden acquisition of unexpected wealth, at first only glotes over the glittering heaps, and has not for some time composure enough to examine his riches.

Its ceilings richly painted in fresco-its pictured pavements of ancient mosaic-its magnificent gates of bronze-its polished columns of ancient porphyry, the splendid spoils of the ruins of Imperial Rome, its endless accumulation of Grecian marbles, Egyptian granites, and Oriental alabasters, the very names of which are unknown in Transalpine lands,—its bewildering extent, and prodigality of magnificence, but, above all, its amazing treasures of sculpture,-have so confused my senses, that I can scarcely believe in its reality, and am almost ready to ask myself, if it is not all a dream? But I will endeavour to give you some account of what I have seen, and leave you to judge whether it is not enough to turn wiser heads than mine.

I had heard from my cradle of St Peter's: It had been my imaginary standard of all that was greatest and most wonderful in the works of man. But of

the Vatican-except of its now dormant thunders— I knew nothing, and it stood in my fancy only as the gloomy and hateful residence of a bigotted and imperious Pontiff. The gallery of Florence was consecrated to my mind as the chosen repository of the choicest monuments of ancient art, of revived taste, and classic elegance. But I had scarcely heard of the existence of the Museum of the Vati can, which, though incomparably superior, has, perhaps from its more recent formation, never attained the same popular fame; and thus its transcendent wonders burst upon me with all the delightful charm of unexpectedness.

The exterior of the Vatican is not prepossessing. It is a huge collection of odd buildings curiously jumbled together, full of sharp angles and strange excrescences; and, as somebody once observed, it is not like a palace, but a company of palaces, which seem to be jostling each other in a contest for place or precedency.

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With this view of them, we ascended from the colonnade of St Peter's into a court of little promise, though its triple ranges of arcades, well known by the name of the Loggie di Raffaello, are adorned with the designs of that inimitable master, and painted by his best pupils. But we stopped not How to examine them: we ascended a staircase, and passing along one row of the Loggie, painted in arabesque, with shells, fancy patterns, &c., we entered the first part of the Museum, called the Museo Chiaramonti, from the name of the present Pope,