which bewilder without instructing, and fatigue without amusing us. I am wrong, however, in the last expression. They do sometimes amuse us. Thus, one party insinuates that the CLOACA MAXIMA must have been the Colossal drain of some ancient, perhaps antediluvian city, which had vanished from the surface of the earth, and even from the records of history, thousands of years before Romulus and Remus were bornwhile another party insists that the said CLOACA is a comparatively modern work, constructed, not in the time of the Tarquins, but of the Cæsars! Common sense and common reason might suggest that the Tarquins drained the marsh of the Forumand that the same power and spirit which afterwards erected the aqueducts, enlarged the drains of the Tarquins. But what has common sense, or plain reason, to do with antiquarian research ? And now having carried the eye round the circuit of the Roman Forum, and philosophized in a hurried manner on some of the most prominent remains of its fallen grandeur, I shall trespass but a few minutes longer on the patience of the reader, by a rapid glance over some other fragments of antiquity that arrest the attention of the spectator while taking the SOUTHERN view from the TOWER of the CAPITOL. THERME. Balnea vina Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra :— Sed vitam faciunt, balnea vina Venus. At some distance to the left, and also at some distance to the right of the Coliseum, stand the most stupendous ruins of Rome -the Baths of TITUS on one side-those of CARACALLA on the other, as viewed from the Tower of the Capitol. Though infinitely more extensive, they are much less imposing than the COLISEUM from this point of view, on account of the unity and altitude of the Flavian Amphitheatre. They are formidable rivals of the Coliseum, however, in the honorable contest ofwhich shall afford the most striking proof of Roman DegeneRACY? Whenever, in a warm climate-perhaps in any climate -public HOT-BATHS are erected for the accommodation, or, more properly speaking, the LUXURY, of the citizens at largethat nation, state, or city is hastening rapidly to irretrievable decay. As a REMEDY for ill-health-or even as a PREVENTIVE of disease, the WARM-BATH is proper and beneficial in numerous instances. As a LUXURY for people in health-and more especially as a PUBLIC LUXURY for all ranks in a metropolis, it is eminently injurious to mind and body. The senses are given to man and other animals for enjoyment; but whenever that enjoyment is carried beyond the limit of moderation, the whole machine, intellectual and physical, suffers the penalty of intemperance. I have endeavoured to shew that the horrible exhibitions of the Coliseum, evinced a dreadful degeneracy, and awful perversion of the feelings and tastes of the Roman people. The public baths of Rome were not less indicative of degeneracy than the cruel conflicts of the amphitheatre. If history did not shew the effeminacy of the Romans in the days of Caracalla, Titus, and Commodus, as compared with those of the early republicans, when the Tiber was the only public bath; the stupendous THERMÆ, whose ruins we are now contemplating, would afford unequivocal proofs that personal, and, indeed, national hardihood, had been exchanged for voluptuousness-bravery for licentiousness-and patriotism for pleasure! That any man, and least of all a clergyman, should be so dazzled by the classical and historical images of Roman greatness, as to bewail the want of public baths in Britain-baths to which thousands and tens of thousands, of both sexes, rushed daily, to mingle promiscuously in immense reservoirs of hot water, dark as Erebus, is most astonishing! "I must observe, (says the Rev. Mr. Eustace) that it is to be regretted that we have deviated so widely from the ancients in this particular, and that the use of baths, both hot and cold, so wholesome and sometimes so necessary, should not be rendered more easily attainable to those who stand most in need of them, the poor and labouring classes of mankind. It must, indeed, be acknowledged that, in cleanliness, the moderns are far inferior to the ancients, or rather to the Romans, who seem to have carried this semi-virtue to a degree of refinement almost incredible." This SEMI-VIRTUE-this daily and promiscuous congregation of both sexes in Stygean hot-baths-this scene of indecency— this sink of sensuality, against which the edicts of Adrian and Aurelian were issued in vain-scenes which so scandalized (or rather mortified) the incestuous, murderous, meretricious AGRIPPINA, that she could not bear the idea of the Roman fair sex being on a par with herself in licentiousness-and, therefore, constructed FEMALE BATHS on the Viminal Hill, which, we may well believe, were little frequented:-Such are the semi-virtuous establishments which the simple, and, I have no doubt, pious EUSTACE bewailed the want of in his native land! In truth, EUSTACE appears to have known but little of the world, or of human nature, except what he drew from his classical library ;—and, therefore, his judgment, unaided by experimental knowledge, was easily warped by his imagination. Who could suppose that a clergyman would set up a Roman dandy, as described by Lucilius 2000 years ago, (and evidently stigmatized by the Father of Roman satire) as a pattern for the DANDIES of our own days? Scabor, suppelor, desquamor, pumicor, ornor, Such was the routine of self-decoration which every Roman dandy went through daily before he finished, or rather before he began his toilet !! Can it be wondered at, that, when such personal refinements prevailed among the upper classes of society, the ancient hardihood and martial fortitude of the Roman armies WALLS, TOMBS, AQUEDUCTS. 159 felt their influence? The fine faces that underwent the beautifyings described by Lucilius, could not be exposed to the cuttings and slashings of barbarian swords-nor could the fine forms, enervated by the vapour unctions of the THERMÆ, sustain the heavy armour and unwieldy weapons of their forefathers! When rulers are impelled by the taste of the public, or tempted by their own lust of dominion, to erect such fabrics as the COLISEUM and the THERME-the former to brutalize the the minds, and the latter to enervate the bodies of their subjects, we may rest assured that PRINCES are bent upon despotism;—and that the PEOPLE are either ripe for revolution, or in preparation for slavery. That PUBLIC ESTABLISHMENTS, So well calculated to demoralize and effeminate the population of a state, may never rear their heads on the shores of Britain, is to be devoutly wished! When the hardy Romans bathed only in the Tiber-spurned tyrants and tyranny-asserted their independence, and subjugated their barbarian neighbours, they knew not the luxury of linen-and their flannel shirts were rarely, if ever washed. Well! such a state, so horrible in the eyes of their degenerate successors, was preferable to that, in which the COLISEUM was necessary to saturate the sense of sight with slaughter;-and the THERME were indispensable for the indulgence of the other senses in every vicious propensity, which a prurient imagination could invent, or an insatiable luxury demand! WALLS, TOMBS, AQUEDUCTS. As the circle of vision widens, wave after wave, from the TOWER of the CAPITOL, the objects grow hardly less distinct— the recollections and reflections become scarcely less exciting. The sight of lofty battlements, standing like a chain of silent and unconscious sentinels around the solitude of a departed city, suggests the natural and the just idea, that ROME fell ingloriously by her own hands, and not in manly combat with a fo reign foe! Had the Romans been true to themselves, yon walls would not have been left to encircle vacuity-nor to stand, at once the emblem and the evidence of NATIONAL SUICIDE! PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS. Carrying the eye to the right, along the mouldering and mossgrown girdle of Imperial Rome, our attention is arrested for a moment-and but for a moment-by the Pyramid of CAIUS CESTIUS -one of the Septemvirs, who prepared the banquets of the Gods, and who, as comptroller of the celestial kitchen, tasted the choicest viands on the Lectisternian tables. CAIUS CESTIUS naturally concluded that a carcase which had, during life, fattened on ambrosia and nectar, would be speedily visited, after death, by swarms of the keen-scented courtiers of the grave. Brass and marble were put in requisition, to guard against oblivion and worms. The colossal statue and the pyramidal tomb arose-puny imitations of their stupendous prototypes heaved up on the banks of the Nile, by hands unknown and for purposes forgotten! The foot of the statue lies in a court of the Capitol-the body of Caius Cestius has vanished-and the pyramid itself, restored by a pious Pope, is only interesting, by daily sweeping its funereal shadow over the lowly and grass-grown graves of our departed countrymen, whom the spirit of curiosity, the thirst of knowledge, the ennui of idleness-the tyranny of fashion, or the torments of sickness, attracted to the hallowed shrine and balmy atmosphere of the Eternal City. No wall is permitted to surround the cemetery of Christian heretics, least it should obstruct the view of a pagan sepulchre. A deep trench answers the purpose as well, or better. A perusal of the "frail memorials" erected by consanguinity or friendship over the bones of our compatriots, clearly indicates that the greater number fell victims to that climate and those azure skies, from whose influence they vainly expected a restoration of health, or prolongation of life! It may possibly prove a gratification to their MANES, that their ashes are mingled with those of the Cæsars, the senators, and |