wanton, the incalculable profusion of its gems and precious stones, its statues and pictures, its mosaics and gold, its bronzes and marbles, its spotless freshness and unsullied lustre, separate it from the imagination, and leave it without one of those solemn associations which blend such edifices with a remembrance of the mysterious past, and give them an interest in the mind beyond what the eye can command.'

6

Among the number of its splendid mausoleums,' continues this writer, all raised to the nemory of pontiffs and princes of the church, or to enshrine the ashes of kings and queens, there is one which affords a striking commentary on the text of this mighty edifice. It is the tomb of the famous countess Matilda, the most powerful ally the church ever knew; and her defence of the popes and their system, and the bequest of her valuable patrimony to the church, have obtained for her a monument in St. Peter's, to which her ashes were conveyed from Mantua by pope Urban VIII. Her effigy represents a stern and dogged-looking woman, one whose strong volition might have passed for geniusshe holds the papal sceptre and tiara in one hand, and in the other the keys of the church! at her feet lies her sarcophagus! and its relievoes form the precious part of the monument. They represent the emperor Henry IV. at the feet of pope Gregory VII., where Matilda had assisted to place him. The abject, prostrate, half-naked emperor, surrounded by Italian princes and ecclesiastical barons, the witnesses of his shame and degradation, forms a fine contrast to the haughty and all-powerful pope; who seems ready to place his foot upon the imperial neck of the unfortunate sovereign, who, thus crouching in the dust, represented the Roman Cæsars! Such was the church in her great day!-When the emperor Joseph II. visited St. Peter's, and his conductors led him to this monument, he is said to have turned from it with an ironical smile, and a crimson blush of indignation! It was then, perhaps, that his personal feelings gave new impulse to his philosophical reformation, urging him to decide on the fate of cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers; and from that moment he may have considered

One of the most remarkable modern additions to St. Peter's is the beautiful mausoleum, the work of Canova, raised to the memory of James II., king of England, his queen, and his two sons. This monument, and these titles, were bestowed by the munificence of the prince regent of England.

We shall follow the writer just quoted through the Vatican and the other principal palaces.

The Palazzo Ponteficio del Vaticano, communicating with St. Peter's, is rather a congregation of palaces, than a single edifice; and its architecture is as various as the ages and talents that went to its completion. The genius of Bramante, of Raphael, of San Gallo, of Fontana, of Bernini, with many other eminent and scarcely inferior artists, has been concentrated on its progressive

erection; and the talents of all ages, of all nations, have contributed to fill its marble labyrinths. The elevation is divided into three lofty stories, each story surrounded by a loggia, or open corridor, richly painted; its countless halls, its endless galleries, its beautiful chapels, its venerable library, its twenty courts (cortili), and 200 stair-cases, present a wilderness of building, out of which the stranger, how frequent soever his visits, can only recal those particular apartments more eminently distinguished than others by some miracle or miracles of art, from which they take their name. The Carte du Pays he will never master; but, go where he may, he will never forget the loggia of Raphael, the Borgia suite, the Portico del Cortile, the Belvedere, and the successive cabinets dedicated to various works of antiquity, the perfection of all that genius ever conceived, or art and labor perfected. Such are the halls of the animals, of the busts, of the muses, of the rotunda, the cabinets of the biga, of the candelabras, and that vast covered space which takes the various names of corridore of inscriptions (dei Lapidi), of the belvedere, of the museo chiaramonti, and clementino. This gallery is divided by gates and columns, as if to make artificial stages in its interminable length, and afford stations for the imagination to repose on, or memory to refer to. The first portion (into which the library of the vatican opens) is lined on either side with the rarest collection of inscriptions known in Europe. Those of the early Greek and Latin Christians, which have been found in the catacombs, occupy the left side; those of the heathen world are on the right, mingled with tombs, monuments, and sarcophagi, each in itself a study and a moral. The museo chiaramonti succeeds, rich in monuments of antiquity, statues, busts, and basso-relievoes-the work of the Phidias's of other ages, arranged by the Phidias of the present. Here the living make their personal acquaintance with the dead, and the features of a Commudus, a Tiberius, and a Lucius Verus, become as familiar to the mind as their deeds and reigns. The Museo Pio-Clementino, the collection of the treasures accumulated by the late pope, changes the scene, and belongs to the edifices occupied by the deities and priestesses and emperors of the preceding gallery. Here are hung the appropriate ornaments of temples, theatres, basilicas, forums, circuses, baths, and palaces, all beautiful in design and perfect in execution; and to these naturally follows the vestibule of the tombs-with the sarcophagus of a Scipio and the sepulchral effigies of some fair Roman dame, over whose deathcouch love still hovers. In moving among these consecrated images of art and time, the mind of the spectator catches something of their calm and dignity; for there is in ancient sculpture a quietude of grandeur, a solemnity of grace, not found in the works of modern genius, and which belong, perhaps, to the originals they copied. This majesty of expression and tranquillity of form, so well known to the Egyptians, lost something of its monumental sobriety under the Greeks. It is frequently found among savages, but rarely appears amidst the artificial exaggeration of corrupt civilisation. The French, who,

up to the Revolution, were a nation of dancingmasters, were the least graceful people of Europe; and the Apollo of Belvidere could never have been imagined in the court of a Louis XV.

This gallery so rich and beautiful, through the munificence of the late and present pope, was but of bare walls' when Evelyn visited it in 1643; and he observes that, as he passed through it on his way to the vatican library, it was full of poor people, to the number of 1500 or 2000, to each of whom, in his passage to St. Peter's, the pope gave a mezzo-grosso' (half a farthing). This is a curious episode in the history of the palace of the Vatican-of that palace whose uses and magnificence furnished Milton with his splendid imagery alike of hell and heaven-his palace of Pandemonium, and that

'Where sceptred angels held their residence.' The library of the vatican, described as it merits, would fill the pages of an ample volume. The locale is a palace in itself; and its galleries and various chambers might be visited as a splendid museum, had they no other attraction. One of the most striking circumstances in the greatest library of Europe is, that not a book is to be seen, although of MSS. alone there are said to be 30,000 volumes. The cases in which the collection is preserved give no indication of their contents; and the whole edifice, all campo d'ore and ultra-marine, looks rather like some Gothic hall of grotesque festivity than the retreat of learning. The principal gallery, 317 palmi in length, is divided into naves, separated by pillars; and the walls are painted with representations of the most celebrated ancient libraries, of general councils, and of the inventors of the characters of various languages. Low cabinets, richly and fantastically painted, surround this superb saloon, and contain the most precious of the MSS.; and tables of Egyptian granite, marble sarcophagi, and other fragments of antiquity, are scattered over its centre. Two vast corridors to the right and left, divided into various apartments, open out of this main gallery. Here are modern book cases filled with choice works; and objects of art, of great value and antiquity, are profusely scattered. In one of these is a picture of the design of the Façade of St. Peter's by Michael Angelo, far superior to that which has been adopted. From the hall of the papyrus, painted by Mengs, opens another spacious gallery, ornamented with gold and mirrors, and containing the most precious books in the collection; and cabinets devoted to medals, engravings, inscriptions, succeed, and terminate this wing. On the other side a suite of beautiful rooms, with columns of porphyry, are filled with book cases, decorated with Etruscan vases; and the wall is decorated with a series of paintings illustrating the trials of the late and present popes, during the Revolution:-the crowning and restoration of Pius VII., closes these fasti of papal sensibility and endurance.

The Quirinal is a stupendous fabric, only less vast than the Vatican, and crowns the Quirinal hill, which commands a noble view of the city. Pope Pius VI. did much to adorn both the palace and the Piazza del Monte Cavallo on

which it stands. He removed the obelisk which stood near the mausoleum of Augustus, to the front of the palace; and, not being able to displace the Coliseum, he carried off all that was moveable from the forum, and transported that gigantic vase of oriental granite to the Monte Cavallo, which now receives the waters of its beautiful fountain. The state apartments of the Quirinal are sufficiently noble; they were inhabited by the emperor of Austria and his family on his visit to Rome; and in their gaudy dress when we saw them, bore testimony to the still unpaid-for honors offered to the imperial guests. The gardens of the Quirinal are spacious and delightful, but encumbered with stones and marbles, as usual, disputing the soil with nature and vegetation. But all that is bright and fair in the Quirinal is brightest and fairest in that chapel in which the pope himself pontificates on Sundays and other holydays. When lighted by the mid-day beams, it looks like the temple of the sun, which once occupied its site. 'Here,' says lady Morgan, pictured saints appear as demi-gods; and the high altar exhibits a cross, brilliant and beautiful as that which lies on a lady's bosom. Here sounds that enchant, and odors that intoxicate, fill the air; and mysteries are consummated with forms so beautiful, and amidst objects so alluring, that the rigid or the ignorant might doubt whether he witnesses Christian ceremonies or heathen rites, and whether this is the temple of Apollo or the chapel of the pope.' The chapel of the Quirinal is on Sundays filled to suffocation. The tribunes on either side are occupied by the elegantes of London and Paris, Petersburgh and Vienna, Cracow or New York. In the central nave the throng is composed of abbots, priors, and dignitaries in grand costume-the mamelukes of the church! Roman generals, all armed for the military service of the altar, the only service they have ever seen; monks, guards, friars, Swiss soldiers, and officers of state! Outside a cordon, drawn round the choir, are placed the foreign gentlemen. The choir, the scene of action, all brilliant and beautiful, is still a void. When the signal is given, the crowd divides! and the procession begins! Mutes and others form the avant-garde of the pageant, and lead the

* We must find room for the note of our spirited guide. The details of the cardinal's toilette, which, at my own very womanish desire, were exhibited to me, are minute, splendid, and numerous, beyond description; for every ceremony has its dress. On some days the cardinals dress and undress as often as the three Mr. Singletons in the farce. The etole, or scarf, is now a sash superbly tissued: it is a symbol of the lost innocence of man-not of the cardi

The toilette of these church exquisites is perfect; not a hair displaced, not a point neglected, from the powdered toupee to the diamond shoebuckle. The pope is at last deposited on his golden throne: his ecclesiastical attendants fold round him his ample caftan, white and brilliant as the nuptial dress of bridal queens! they arrange his dazzling mitre: they blow his nose; they wipe his mouth, and exhibit the representation of Divinity in all the disgusting helplessness of driveling caducity. His holiness being thus cradled on a throne to which emperors once knelt, the conservators of Rome, the caryatides of the church, place themselves meekly at its steps; and the manikin, who represents the Roman senate, takes his humble station near that imperial seat, more gorgeous than any the Cæsars ever mounted. Meantime the demigods of the conclave repose their eminences in their stalls on velvet cushions, and their caudatorj (or tail-bearers) place themselves at their feet. In the centre stand, or sit, on the steps of the high altar, the bishops with their superb mitres and tissued vestments. Then the choir raises the high hosannahs, the pope pontificates; and the temple of Jupiter never witnessed rites so imposing or so splendid. Golden censers fling their odors on the air! harmony the most perfect, and movements the most gracious, delight the ear and eye! At the elevation of the host, a silence more impressive than even this solemn concord of sweet sounds' succeeds; all fall prostrate to the earth; and the military, falling lower than all, lay their arms of destruction at the feet of that mystery, operated in memory of the salvation of mankind.' When the ceremony is concluded, the procession returns as it entered. The congregation rush after; and the next moment the ante-room of this religious temple resembles the saloon of the opera. The abbots and priors mingle among the lay

:

nal's. The piviale is a mantle, like the ancient Irish cloak it is of massive gold tissue, insupportably heavy. This represents the pastoral robe of the patriarchs (for all in the church, Catholic or Protestant, is borrowed from the Jews-Christ having left nothing to copy but virtue and self-denial). This piviale was originally pluviale, and worn (as its name imports) to keep out the weather, before gold brocades were invented. The Soutane is a truly eastern habit: it is of violet velvet or silk, and its long and flowing train is held up by the caudatori. This was surely not the cloak' which St. Paul left behind him at Troas.' Next comes the golden pianelli, and the manipolo, of embroidered satin, which hangs on the arm, like a fine lady's reticule, and is the scrip of the patriarchal herdsman, in which he carried his bread and cheese. Then comes the camicia, a dress of the richest point lace. I saw three of these dresses belonging to one cardinal, said to be worth £2000; and I know it for a fact, that more than one petty reigning sovereign has endeavoured to wheedle his eminence out of a camicia worn upon state days. The mitres are of gold and silver, upon white or red grounds, according to the cardinal's various ranks. In private society their dress is a suit of black, edged with scarlet; scarlet stockings, and a little patch of red, called the calotte, on the crown of their heads, with their cardinal hat under the arm.'

crowd, and the cardinals chat with pretty women, sport their red stockings, and ask their opinions of the pope's pontification, as a marveilleux of the opera at Paris takes snuff, and demands of his chere-belle, Comment trouvez vous ça, comtesse?'

The palace of the Lateran, though now uninhabited, is vast and imposing; and, though little of the original building remains, it is sufficiently antiquated to recal its ancient destination as the scene of much of the licentious dissipation and fierce feuds of popes and anti-popes in the dark ages. It commands a sublime view of the waste its lords have made;—of the Campagna, stretching to the base of the blue Albanian hills; its desert, here and there spotted with ancient ruins of the tombs of heroes, or imperial aqueducts, with the walls of villas, and wrecks of monuments which skirted the road from the gates of the Lateran to the suburbs of Naples. The church, or basilica, of San Giovanni Laterano, is the principal, and one of the oldest, as we have seen, in Rome.

In the baptistery (Battisterio Lateranense) adjoining the church, built by Constantine, he is said to have been baptised by St. Sylvester. It was ravaged by frequent invaders, and long remained in the lower ages in a state of absolute ruin and spoliation; until, attracting the notice of successive pontiffs, and particularly that of Gregory XIII. and Urban VIII., it took that character of richness which now distinguishes it. The baptismal font is an ancient urn of basalt, ornamented with gold and bronze. From its bosom the waters of life are still dispensed to the Jews, who annually seek regeneration at so much per head. This edifice (its great antiquity, its superb columns of porphyry, and fine cornices, all plunder from the ancient monuments of Rome, excepted) has but little to excite admiration. Two of its pictures, however, afford a curious historical evidence, worth noticing. One represents the council of Nice burning books written against the bishops. The other the breaking of the statues in the Roman temples (probably the rivals of the Apollo and the Antinous): a bishop, with the air of a conjurer, stands by, tossing his golden censer, and purifying the spot defiled by the works of Praxiteles and Phidias This was before a bull was fulminated to prevent (but too late) the converting of marble statues into lime, to build dwelling houses.

Opposite to the great entrance of the palace stands the venerable chapel of the Scala Santa (holy steps), once a part of the ancient building. This chapel is the shrine of daily pilgrimage to the peasantry, many of whom were ascending its holy steps on their knees, on the several days that we passed by it. The veneration paid to this flight of stairs arises from the five centre Pilate's house, which were sanctified by the steps, said to be part of the staircase of Pontius blood of Christ. None can ascend it but on

their knees; and lateral steps are provided for those whose piety may not lead them to genuflexion.

There are family mansions, here termed palaces, in great numbers; but the far greater part

with the church, as priests, monks, or nuns, is computed at another 8000. The manufacturing establishments, though small, are in considerable variety, viz. woollens, silks, velvets, hats, gloves, stockings, liquors, pommade, and artificial flowers. Rome has a bank, and Monte di Pieta, or house for advancing money on deposited goods. Its foreign trade is limited to imports of colonial articles, and a few manufactured goods: its exports consist of the produce of the adjacent country, viz. olive oil, alum, vitriol, puzzuolano sand, anise, &c.

No part of the world has been more agitated by the French revolution and its consequences none perhaps so much improved-as modern Rome. Its nobles were, at the latter end of the sixteenth century, a race of banditti: laying waste their native city, and carrying desolation and ruin into the bosom of domestic life. The people, always insurgents or slaves, were the most demoralised of Italy; and though the dark and cruel despotism of the clever Sixtus V., whose love of blood induced him to envy Elizabeth the cutting off of Mary's head, stemmed for a time the torrent of iniquities, and broke for ever the spirit of the Roman barons, yet at his death the people were but the more debased by the loss of their ferocity. During succeeding periods, on the testimony of all travellers, the civil and religious state of Rome was an anomaly in human society. The court of the Quirinal, like that of France under Louis XIII. and XIV., was directed by the intrigues of priests and courtiers the cardinals governed by cabal, and all places were disposed of through their mistresses and their laquais. The princes or patricians, rich, idle, ignorant, and avaricious, were surrounded by dependents and parasites, the indigent followers of rank and opulence: the people, without domestic habits, lived like the commoners of nature, satisfied if bread and church ceremonies sustained life and amused it. The parasite came after the prince, and the beggar after the saint. The women of all ranks, divided into vestals and concubines, were either shut up in a convent, or let loose upon society, the mistresses of authorised paramours, and the wives of other women's lovers. The passions of all classes were unsubdued by education, unrestrained by law. Murder had its price, from a basket of figs to a purse of gold; and the murderer his asylum, from the high altar of the church to the cabinet of the palace. Assassination was a deed of nightly occurrence. In the midst of all this corruption of private manners, the inquisition placed its sbirri upon the intellect of the whole population. The capital punishments were barbarous, but rarely inflicted; and if the people sometimes suffered the torture, or submitted to the estrapado, they, in their turn, occasionally hung up a cardinal, or derided the vices of the conclave and the pontiff, through the medium of Pasquino. In 1786 cardinal Tortona so exasperated the people by his cruelties, in his office of grand inquisitor, that they dragged him from his carriage, and hung him on a gibbet in the street.

As there was no internal police, the public depended on the works of the Tarquins and the

Cæsars for their few accommodations: and the conduits for water, miraculously constructed during the darkest ignorance on the subject of hydraulics, were at the end of twenty centuries, and are still, the principal means of purification afforded for cleansing a city, which seems to have benefited but little by the advantages lent it by antiquity. The Cloaca Maximæ obtrude their neglected openings in vain; and streets lined with palaces, and palaces walled with marbles, have even now few sewers to carry off their accumulated filth.

Before Italy was conquered, Rome entered into the revolutionary projects of France. Hugo de Basseville, a man of letters and talent, was chosen by the national convention to sound the disposition of those who were no longer the population worked on by the eloquence of the monk Arnoldo, or the tribune Rienzi. Pius VI., who had refused to acknowledge the French republic, watched with jealous vigilance the motions of this emissary; and de Basseville affected to be occupied with the interests of the French academy at Rome. At length an imprudence on the part of de Basseville called forth the public opinion. After a dinner, given by him to the young men of the French academy, de Basseville drove with his wife and son to the Corso, permitting his footmen to mount the tricolored cockade. This was the signal of tumult. The street was accidentally or designedly filled with the common people and Trasteverini! A dreadful riot arose: de Basseville in vain sought to save himself by taking shelter at his banker's; he was pursued by the mob, and murdered. The first stab was given by a soldier of the pontifical guard. The French academy was next attacked and pillaged; the houses of foreigners were plundered; and, during the tumult, the virgin, whose name was the mot d'ordre, was seen in several of the churches to open her eyes (lest the people should open theirs), and to give testimony of the part she took in this crusade to her honor. But if, in 1793, an emissary of the convention was assassinated in Rome, in 1797 the Gauls of the eighteenth century had passed the Rubicon, conquered Romagna, the duchy of Urbino, and tht Marsh of Ancona. The murder of general Duphot at Rome, under the eyes of the accredited ambassador of France, urged on the fate of the 'Niobe of Nations.' The military occupation of Rome followed, and the proud capital of the world became a French province, by the name of the department of the Tiber!

Whatever reform, or feature of change, may be found in the circles of Roman society, belongs almost exclusively to the Cittadini of the best description, including persons of liberal profession, artists, some of the employés, and the mercanti di campagna, or gentlemen farmers or agriculturists, whose landed property has grown out of the sales of the church estates during the Revolution; and who, though chiefly resident at Rome, live by the produce of their farms. If something of cleanliness and order is visible in a Roman ménage, if stairs are found lighted at night, and rooms look not dirty by day, the innovation on ancient manners is only to be found in the dwellings of this respectable class.