Paupertate omnes.

-Hic vivimus ambitiosâ

It was conceded that the aqueducts and cloaca were exempt from suspicions of impure motives in their construction. It is questionable, however, whether VANITY did not predominate over utility, in carrying streams of water from the neighbouring mountains through the air, on the shoulders of stupendous arches, when they might have been conducted, at one thousandth part of the labour and expence, through unseen and unostentatious pipes in the earth. But it has been said that the ancients were unacquainted with that hydraulic law which commands water to rise to its level however deeply bent downwards in its course. They knew this law practically; for, on several occasions, when the enemy was approaching, or expected in the Campagna, the water was conducted by subterranean conduits to the city. The mighty arches of the aque ducts were therefore unnecessary, since the lake of Albano or the river Anio might have been made to travel under the surface of the Campagna, and rise in copious floods to the summit of the Capitol. The very same kind of conduits along which the water runs in the aqueducts, would have preserved it pure through every kind of soil-and brought it to its various issues at a much cooler temperature in the scorching Summers of Italy, than it comes with, by its loftier route. But a still more serious objection lies against the admired aqueducts of the ancients. By this plan the pressure of the parent reservoir cannot be, or at all events, is not made to force the water to the tops of the houses, and thus to cleanse away the intolerable accumulation of domestic filth. Nay, with all the parade of these stupendous constructions, nine-tenths of the waters bubble away in fantastic fountains, without ever entering the houses at all— except when carried thither, as in the days of Romulus, on the shoulders of the fair sex!

The eye is carried almost unconsciously along the lines of tottering aqueducts, striding like solemn funeral processions across the plains of desolation and death-and alights, with

something like the pleasure of escaping from the tomb, on the heights of ALBANO, studded with villas, villages, and towns, white as Parian marble, and contrasting with the monotony and sepulchral solitude of the dreary Campagna.

This SOUTH view from the TowER of the CAPITOL-or, in other words, the view of "ROME in RUINS," is enough for one day,—and the traveller should not abruptly break the chain of reflections excited by the objects there presented to his sight, by a survey of the scene which the opposite view commands.

Returning to my hotel, I dined, without knowing what I ate or drank-threw myself on my couch-and, notwithstanding the clattering of English carriages in the court of the "HOTEL DES ISLES BRITANNIQUES," enjoyed the luxury of a Dervise dream, in which the events of ten centuries passed in vivid procession, though in wild fantastic order before the mental eye, during an earthly oblivion or equivocal existence of six short hours.

NORTHERN VIEW;

OR,

MODERN ROME.

Communion with the DEAD is safer, if not more instructive than communion with the LIVING. The race of ancient Rome and her countless inhabitants is run-their cause is adjudicated -the prisoners are acquitted or condemned by the tribunal of posterity. Censure cannot injure them-praise cannot soothe them-flattery cannot betray them. Their lives are become history—and history is a text, from which every one has a right to preach. With modern Rome and modern Romans it is different. They have eyes to see-ears to hear-senses to feel. Travellers should, therefore, be guarded in their expressions, measured in their language, temperate in their strictures-in

dulging only in generalities; and sedulously avoiding personalities. For my own part, preferring no pretension to either time, opportunity, or talent for a scrutiny of men or manners, I skim the surface, and merely note the impressions which obvious and prominent objects make on the senses, together with the reflections which these impressions excite in the mind. As a slight and superficial observer, I only address myself to readers of similar character; and, as there are various gradations of intellect and taste in this world, so a link in the vast chain may somewhere exist, on which these trifling and evanescent sketches may hang for a day.

Of all the scenes which I have beheld on the surface of the globe (and they have not been few) that which is surveyed from the TOWER of the CAPITOL, is the most interesting. I wonder that Mr. Burford has not selected it for a panorama—perhaps

I

may be the means of inducing him to such an attempt.* The contrast between the southern and northern prospects is truly astonishing. It is like a resuscitation from death to life-from the dreary vault to the cheerful haunts of man-from the silence of the catacombs to the bustle of active existence in a crowded city. Such is the contrast, if we turn, at once, from south to north. If we gradually veer round, from the two opposite points of the compass, we shall perceive a curious amalgamation of ancient and modern times. To the Westward, the seed of David is seen springing up close to the ruins of the Cæsarian palaces on the Eastern side, the successor of ST. PETER has erected his earthly tabernacle contiguous to the once licentious, but now consecrated, BATHS of DIOCLETIAN! In the midst of the modern city stand the Pantheon of Agrippa and the Column of Aurelian, like two venerable ancient FATHERS who have just started from their graves, and are calmly, but sorrowfully, contemplating the fallen state of their enfeebled descendants! Beyond the yellow Tiber to the North-west, the attention is divided by two most stupendous objects-the embattled tomb

* I find that this ingenious Artist did exhibit such a view several years ago.

of HADRIAN, and the still more gorgeous sepulchre of ST. PETER -the Pantheon of the ancient city suspended in air over the POLYTHEON of the Popes!*

One of the first reflections excited in the mind, on shifting the view from the Old to the New City, arises out of the natural query, why the former should have been erected upon hillsthe latter on a plain-the Campus Martius? Security was, no doubt, the cause of the first selection-luxury and laziness led to the second. It is not in ROME alone, that we see this difference between antique and modern taste. It characterizes the whole of the civilized world. The old and the new towns of Edinburgh afford a familiar example.

The Roman patricians did not dash to the Senate in splendid carriages, as our peers do. When Cicero assembled the conscript fathers in the Temple of Jupiter-on the very spot where I now stand-I question whether a regiment of Chamouni mules, the very best in Switzerland, would not have broken their knees in the attempt to carry the senators to the scene of their deliberations! No! The streets, and the Via Sacra― leaving history out of the question-prove that the ancients trudged the Eternal City on foot-and were true peripatetic philosophers. Not so their lazy and luxurious descendants. When the MONTE VATICANO begins to intercept the rays of the setting sun-when the vapours raised from the Campagna during the day, begin to descend in refreshing but deadly dews in the evening-then are carried forth the pale olive BEAUTIES and effeminate BEAUS of Rome, to be paraded in slow and solemn procession up and down the CORSO-a street greatly inferior to the Strand-but stretching from the foot of the Capitol to the Porto del Popolo. Where they spend the rest of their time, is best known to themselves-and to those of my countrymen and women, who had far better opportunities, and infinitely more

* It is well known that Michael Angelo literally performed his apparently hyperbolic promise-that of raising the Pantheon into the air. The dome of St. Peter's is of the same dimensions as Agrippa's Temple of all the Gods.

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curiosity than myself, to become acquainted with Roman pri

vacy.

The listless inhabitants of the Eternal City have not, and desire not, the salutary exercise of scrambling up and down the seven hills, like their forefathers, protected from the sun by the narrowness of the streets and the height of the houses. When English example or their own curiosity happens to draw them from the gloomy CORSO to the cheerful PINCIAN, they ascend not that pleasant mount by the marble stairs of the PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, refreshed by the jetting fountain at their base! oh no. A carriage-course has been ziz-zagged to its summit, from the PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, for dragging up the indolent patrician and lifeless Albino, on rare occasions, to inhale something like pure air!*

The external physiognomy of Italy, as well as of her great cities-and even of her inhabitants, presents more prominent features and singular contrasts than any other country or people in the world. Bernardine de St. Pierre informs us that all contrasts produce harmonies-and hence, perhaps, it is, that Italy is the land of music and of song. There is poetry-or the materials of poetry, in every thing which meets the eye between the Alps and Mount Etna. Her skies are azure and her hills are green-the sun-beams are ardent, the moon-beams mellow, the stars brilliant-the breezes are alternately delicious and malarious-iced by the Alps, or ignited by the Sirocco-her mountains are lofty, and her streamlets are clear-her rivers are rapid, and her lakes are smooth-her shores are laved by tranquil seas, her hills are shook by hidden fires-the country is rich,

* It is a well known fact, that a late Octogenarian Professor of "modern Athens," was in the frequent habit of walking to the summit of the Salisbury crags, and annually penning an ode, on those airy cliffs; the last of which, when upwards of 80 years of age, was to two of his oldest and best friends— HIS LEGS." The veteran, in this ode, renewed his adhesion to his tried friends, and declared his determination to "stick to them, as long as they would stick to him."