believe Josephus, it comprized in one grand collection all the wonders of art, which had formerly been dispersed over the various provinces of the empire. A library formed part of its furniture, enriched probably by the numberless manuscripts which Vespasian and Titus might have collected in the eastern provinces. The temple of Peace was consumed by fire in the reign of Commodus. It had been erected by Vespasian as an omen and a pledge of that general peace which commenced on the conclusion of the Jewish war, and lasted with little interruption till the death of the former prince. Its destruction occasioned by an invisible and unknown agent was ascribed to divine vengeance, and considered as a portent that announced war and disaster. This apprehension was increased by the extent of the conflagration, which reached the temple of Vesta, consumed that cradle of the religion of Rome, and for the first time, exposed the Palladium itself to the gaze of the profane*. These presentiments of disaster were unfortunately justified by the event, and the fall of the temple of Peace, was followed by centuries of war, rebellion, and convulsion. The reader will perceive that I do not pretend to do full justice to the subject, or attempt to draw a perfect picture of the magnificence of the ancient city. It would fill an ample volume were I to detail the Basilica, the Curia, the Theatres, and the Circusses, that rose in every quarter, especially as they were all * Herod, Lib. I. + There were five theatres, two amphitheatres, and seven circusses. The circus of the most solid and beautiful architecture, and all adorned with statues and paintings. The number of statues indeed was incredible, they crowded not the public buildings only, but even the streets and lanes. They were of various sizes and materials: eleven of colossal magnitude adorned the Capitol alone, and nineteen of gold, and thirty of solid silver, shone in different parts of the city. Those of bronze and marble appeared on all sides in such profusion as to form, if we may credit the hyperbolical expression of Cassiodorus, a population equal in number to the living inhabitants. It is to be remembered that all the above-mentioned edifices were supported by pillars, and that these pillars were all of granite or of marble oftentimes of the most beautiful species, and that generally each shaft was of one single piece. When we take this latter circumstance into consideration, and combine it with the countless multitude of these columns, and add to these again the colonnades that graced the imperial palaces, and the courts and porticos of private houses, we shall be enabled to form some idea of the beauty and magnificence that must have resulted from the frequent recurrence and ever varying combinations of such pillared perspectives. Well indeed might foreigners contemplate such a city with astonishment, natives behold it with pride, and the calm philosopher feel the enthusiasm, and assume the language of the poet, when he describes its matchless wonders. "Verum" says Pliny," ad urbis nostræ miracula transire conveniat.. et sic quoque terra Maximus contained, according to some authors, three hundred thousand spec tators. rum orbem victum ostendere; quod accidisse toties pene quot referentur miracula apparebit ; universitate vero acervata, et in quemdam unum cumulum conjecta, non alia magnitudo exsurgit, quam si mundus alius quidam in uno loco narraretur*. But I have already observed that Rome, in every period of its existence, from its infancy down to its modern decrepitude, has ever been distinguished for grandeur in design and magnificence in execution. Nor was this characteristic spirit confined to the public works and edifices which I have enumerated above; it shewed itself even in fabrics raised for such transient objects as accidental or annual amusements. Two instances deserve notice. One is of Marcus Scaurus, who, when edile erected a temporary theatre, and adorned it with three hundred and sixty marble columns, and three thousand bronze statues. The other is perhaps still more astonishing in execution, though less magnificent in appearance. It was a wooden edifice erected by Curio, for the celebration of funeral games in honor of his father, and so contrived as to form according to the nature of the exhibition, either a theatre or amphitheatre. In the morning the semicircles were placed back to back, so that the declamations, music, and applauses of the one did not reach the other; towards evening they were rolled round face to face, and the circle completed. It is XXXVI. 15. + This theatre was capable of containing eighty thousand persons. The lower range of pillars were thirty-eight feet in the shaft, and their weight such that Scaurus was obliged to give security for the reparation of the Cloacæ, if damaged by their conveyance. to be observed that these changes were performed without displacing the spectators, who seem to have trusted themselves without scruple to the strength of the machinery, and the judgment of the artist. These two instances must, to the unlearned reader, appear incredible, and will perhaps be admitted with some degree of diffidence by the scholar, even though he knows that they rest on the authority of the Elder Pliny, and from their great publicity were well known to him and his contemporaries. These works were, I admit, not the display but the prodigality of magnificence. As such they are justly censured by the philosopher, and placed far below the more solid and more permanent, though less showy splendor of the Martian and Claudian aqueducts. Yet they are stupendous both in conception and execution, and shew the natural tendency of the Roman mind to the grand and the wonderful. The same noble taste shone forth with unusual splendor at the restoration of the arts in the sixteenth century, and displayed itself in numberless instances, too well known to be enumerated, but above all in the removal of the Vatican obelisk, XXXV. 15. + When we consider the prodigious number of pillars, and various species of marble alluded to above, we shall cease to wonder that Rome still exhibits so many superb columns, which a late learned French writer* represents as including in granite only six thousand, or that her ruins even after so many ages of research form a quarry still unexhausted. We may even conclude, that the pillars dug up bear a small proportion to those that still remain interred, and indulge a hope that in more tranquil times the long fallen column may again rear its head, and forgotten colonnades once more arise in all their ancient beauty. Abb. Barthelemi. and the conception and erection of that stupendous edifice, the Basilica Vaticana. Nay, even in our days, and almost under our eyes, works have been planned and executed in or near Rome, which would have reflected honor on the greatest of the Roman Emperors. Among these we may rank the restoration of three of the ancient obelisks, the formation of the Museum Pium Clementinum, and above all, the draining of the Pomptine marshes. The late Pontiff shares the honor of the two first of these undertakings, and may claim the exclusive credit of the last, the most difficult, the most useful, and consequently the most glorious. He had formed two other projects, which if executed would have contributed in a singular manner to the splendor of the city. The first was the erection of a forum at the Porta del ́ Popolo, on the plan of Vitruvius, which would have made the grandeur of the principal entrance into Rome adequate to the expectation of the traveller, and to the fame of the city. The other was on a scale still greater than the preceding, and intended to form a becoming approach to St. Peter's, by a double colonnade from the Ponte St. Angelo, to the entrance of the portico. The distance is a mile, and the extent of such an edifice, combined with the unequalled magnitude and elevation of its termination the obelisk, front and dome of the Vatican, would have formed a scene of beauty and grandeur, equalling, perhaps surpassing, any single perspective in the ancient city. I need not add, that these and several other similar designs were frustrated by the agitations of the revolution, the invasion of Italy, and the occupation of Rome itself: but in justice to the deceased Pontiff, I must repeat what I have elsewhere related, that his last project was the most noble and most glorious, because if crowned with the success it merited, it would |