her whole history, when I was suddenly called off by her mother, who was then opening her" Latium" at the unanimous request of all present, perhaps for the hundredth time since its first publication. The Abbate looked mysteriously towards the stragglers; and, putting his lean finger on his mouth, with an important "Zitto!" instantly commenced the investigation. He was more moved by Cyclopic walls "as they were," than Inamorato or Inamorata; and a single whisper would have been, at such a moment, little less than absolute Vandalism. There is no appeal from such judges at Rome; there is no salvation for a "barbaro;" and, mustering what enthusiasm I could, I listened" demissis auriculis" to the lecture. The" Latium" was spread out on a large deal table, and the opening of the shrine occasioned a great stir amongst the antiquaries. They were at first sufficiently decorous and temperate; but the first arch on which they stumbled threw them into Tuscany, and from thence into the Cloaca Maxima-the scene of many a former feud; and the energetic battle which took place therein was so loud, both on the side of Tarquin and his adversaries, that it roused even the Inamorata herself from her poetic slumbers. "La Tregua di Dio—Signore, la Tregua di Dio, pray let the chronology limp or sleep as it may; and as to the claimants, judge them in the Rota." The advice was good, the company smiled, and the Abbate himself reluctantly obeyed. The inspection of the work proceeded more tranquilly. The authoress at every page told of her hair-breadth scapes," and sketched them with spirit and character. She is a point in the modern literary annals of the city; and though the labour and novelty have preposterously enhanced the value of the production in her own eyes, it must yet be remembered, that it is still a work of allowed merit, and an item not only curious, but instructive, in the topographical catalogue. She travelled over the whole of Latium herself, preparatory to the undertaking: she penetrated into the interior of the country almost alone, to the haunts of banditti, through woods of ilex, over oxploughed roads, to caverns and ruins, through snakes and freebooters, and danger and privation, and hunger and fever, and accomplished her object with a considerable loss both of health and money. This sacrifice of all to an object of intellectual glory is characteristic and Roman; nor could I avoid sympathising in the satisfaction with which she recurred, in the presence of her family, to those happiest days of her whole life. Her keen, sunk eyes enlarged and brightened, her little bent figure dilated with a sort of nervous affection, and she re-entered abruptly and involuntarily into silence. Her feelings were at work within her; she turned her head away, and I could not perceive her tears. This pause in the conversation was soon filled up by an "Excursus" on Cyclopic walls in genere, one of the combatants holding that they were so * The "Cyclopic," as it is technically called, may be divided into three classes: the first, rude and inform attempts at architecture, of which the remains of Tiryns may be quoted as examples. The second, an improvement on the former; the stones partly shaped by art, and partly in their rough state like the Tirynthian, of which there are numerous instances in Asia Minor, &c. The third, when wholly formed by art, as in most of the Italian towns, the Cyclopic walls of Athens, &c. The walls of Tiryns are huge rough masses of gigantic size tumbled one upon the other: the interstices, which were necessarily left between them, were filled up by smaller stones, which time has long since stolen from their places, and produced such intervals that the traveller can with great facility pass through them. It is just such an effort of brute strength as the aborigines might be supposed to have made in order to defend themselves against their enemies. The second class is wronght to a fair and smooth front, but the same process of filling up the spaces between the larger masses appears to have been adopted. There is every probability that, like the buildings in Egypt, they were not worked to this face until after they had been put up. The third class, the perfection of the two others, were shaped for their collocation, before they were put together, and are to be found in middle-sized polygonal masses without any interval whatever. One of the most perfect of the called by "courtesy" as a mere hyperbole, or "hyper-epithet," the other, that they were bona fide fabrications of the Cyclops and their relations. Emilia vehemently declared for the giants, "whom she always admired," but her aunt, with more discretion, oracularly pronounced that whether erections of the Titans, Cyclops, Læstrygons, or their cousin-germans, history did not aver, but that in all cases they were "after their manuer," or "of their school," as evidently appeared from the remains themselves. The parties then galloped off to Tiryns for the remains, where they continued without much satisfaction for some minutes, and then returned home. Next came sneers at Micali, and conjectures on the "Autochthones" of the Roman soil; for the same anti-Etruscan spirit seems still to exist at Rome as in the time of the Tarquins. The Abbate got into a reverie on the Lydians, and there was but one step further to the Phenicians, who, as all know, lie invitingly on the high road to Egypt. I saw that we should soon be at the Tower of Babel, for the "Origini Etrusche" had more than once been mentioned, and we had already left both Gori and Lanzi at a great distance behind us; when, after some general commendations of the engravings (after drawings by the D, and executed with all the aridity of the Continental schools) we saw the last pages of the work approaching with a sort of suppressed pleasure. It was finally shut up for another amusement, somewhat less intellectual, but which is still more characteristic of the "mezzo ceto" entertainments of Rome. The lady, to whom we were so much indebted in the early part of the evening, had retired for a few moments unperceived, and was now re-entering with a large basket in her arms. I imagined that a poetess could carry nothing but laurels and roses; and my surprise was extreme, when I saw her throw upon the deai-table, where we had been reading, a large quantity of bran. This was spread out with much ceremony by the long lean hands of the antiquarian Abbate, and in a short time formed a mound along the whole length of the table, which I at first believed to be intended for an illustration of the Agger" of Servius Tullus, or designed to represent, as well as it could, "the Spina" of the now pseudo-circus of Caracalla. In a little time an appeal was made, like a proclamation at the Consualia, to all the Signori Cavalieri present, to take their places in the moment, as the game was to be commenced forthwith. The pith and point of the game was like our Twelfth Night's cake, a sort of child's play search at hide and seek. A small piece of money was concealed in the mound just mentioned by the fair "arbitress of the elegancies,” and the fortunate finder became entitled to the amount. After numerous rounds, which called up many an unsophisticated laugh from this easily-amused people, and from none more than from our antiquarians, whose enjoyment of these ordinary pleasures was in perfect proportion and keeping with their authority, the games were declared to be closed, and the lady of the house was pronounced the victor,—the only person to whom the Abbate would have ceded with pleasure the enjoyment of the expected prize. He threw himself back in his chair, and after a free exhibition of his mirth, quoted two verses from the Phoenissæ, which were intended for his own consolation and excuse, and the greater exaltation of his lady patroness. The guests were about to rise, when their attention was again arrested by the piano: it appeared a favourable opportunity for entreat kind are the walls of Fondi; the walls of Cortona, Orvieto, belong rather to the Tirynthian. This third class was preserved to a comparatively late period; and the " lastrication" of the roads of the Romans, still in use in most parts of Etruria from Viterbo to Florence, is an example of its application to paving. The same style may be traced not only from Asia through Greece to Italy, but from thence on to Spain. The ruins of Numantia (now Murviedo) are here and there intersected by the Cyclopic. The singular construction observable at the gate of the Lions at Mycena does not come under any of these classes: it seems to have suggested the first idea of the Hellenic. ing the "Inamorata," who had hardly changed her place, to close the evening "con quella canzone che le andava più al genio," a request resisted by none but with difficulty, and least of all by those whose food is poetry and music. So said the disciple of Fea, but the lady seemed to be of a different opinion. She rose reluctantly, and, with a complaining glance towards her mother, sate down slowly before the piano; and raising her large black eyes to Heaven, which were still full of that languor and melancholy which Guido casts into all his heads, without excepting even his Herodias, and then throwing them down with all her curls upon the instrument, where she remained pausing for some time, she began with a trembling amongst the notes, and at last broke out in the air and words so well known in the neighbourhood of Rome, "O Roma, Roma, non sei più come era prima," which will hardly bear a translation into any language the simplicity of which is less musical than that of the Italian. She sung this with a strange intermixture of personal feeling: the great majority of the company were admirers of things as they are, but there is no Roman who unconsciously has not at times some vague yearnings after the past. In the present instance it was peculiarly observable: personal afflictions seemed blended at this moment with the gloomiest fortunes of a fallen country; there was scarcely one present who had not a grievance and a pain to bind up with the silent wrongs and misfortunes of Italy. I saw the Abbate at first whispering his neighbours something about the ancient Næniæ, and the ruins of Carthage, and the perishing of the very site of Troy; but an influence of a more home and powerful nature soon fell upon him-he listened attentively with his hands crossed and his head bent down, and walked away with "Giace l'alta Cartago" to the other end of the room, while the rest of his companions remained silent in a ring round the piano some time after the canzone had altogether ceased. The first word almost which was spoken was the "Felicissime Notte!" the beautiful evening farewell of the Italian; and after "many thanks for their entertainment," a peculiarly Roman fashion, I found the company gradually dropping off; my countrymen were amongst the first who had retired, anxious as usual to avoid each other, and, not feeling myself particularly well armed for a tête à tête with any of the remaining party, I thought it more judicious as soon as possible to imitate their example. I had scarcely opened the door of the anti-chamber, when I perceived by the moonlight, half-way down the staircase, the three-cornered hat of the Abbate, and his long arms in violent agitation, and heard him engaged at the highest pitch of his voice in a stormy debate with his neighbour on the extent of Rome anterior to Aurelian, and whether we were than standing in the ancient Via Lata, or not. I had not yet read Nardini, nor disputed with Nibby, nor walked with Rè, and, wishing to preserve my neutrality as long as I could, I glided by the combatants with haste into the modern street, and took the way through the Fontana Trevi, by the Piazza degli Apostoli, to my own habitation. In my way through these narrow lanes, contrasting so strongly with the squares and " Fora," both of the ancient and modern city, and lighted only with a gloomy kind of twilight from the reflection of the moon on the upper part of the opposite houses, I had full time to ruminate on the circle which I had just left. I could not help remarking a very striking difference between these "evenings," and those to which a stranger is generally introduced in his wanderings in the North. The two classes are there so demarcated one from the other, that there is hardly any neutral territory distinguishable on which they might occasionally come into parley and contact. They stand like enemies in perpetual observation, and habit and etiquette, like a sanitary cordon, are ever present to prevent the possibility of communion and contagion. The result is, that they form, toto cœlo, separate and often opposed communities-their domestic government, manners, and ideas are those of a state within a state; they belong often to different periods of civi lization, and never can recognize, but in its first principles, the same code of thought or action. In free countries these anomalies are still more conspicuous: the very functions attached to the different orders of the state, and the privileges connected with their exercise, imply a much greater, necessity for nicely graduating their different ranks. The upper classes in the North, from education and habit, have contracted a certain "ad unguem" delicacy of manner and mind, lying frequently between fastidiousness and effeminacy; but the middle orders on whom the real and stern interests of life generally fall, in commercial countries in particular, where they work in some manner for the world at large, are proportionably narrow, rude, and exclusive. In Italy commerce is a secondary consideration; and in Rome it may almost be said not to exist at all, or, if it occasionally appear, it is in connexion with the Arts, the great staple of the city, and contributes rather to increase than diminish the ruling passion of the inhabitants. The result is obvious: the very ranks, which in other countries are most removed from all elegant occupation, are here more or less tinged with a peculiar character of intellectual pre-eminence; the conversation of the lowest circles is more or less coloured with allusions to the very wide range of topics which every department of the Arts must necessarily embrace; and this, from its frequency and opportunity of indulgence, becomes at last a manière d'être, -the natural growth of their mind and climate, and not an affectation borrowed from the class immediately above them. With this natural enjoyment of refined pleasures, there is conjoined a certain dislike for all the more ordinary occupations of life, abundance of indolence, and a perfect apathy for most of those general principles of morals and politics, the taste for which belongs so eminently to all classes, high or low, in England. The "dulce otium ac pene omni negotio pulchrius" is the short and expressive creed of their philosophy; and in no country has philosophy a more contented sect for her worshippers. There is less exertion than with the French, less reserve than with us, and as much social pleasure and kindness perhaps as with either. "Urbanity" combines both, it is the appanage of all ranks, and you meet it even in the peasant. These reflections carried me insensibly to the Trevi, the sound of whose waters falling through the "friendly stillness" of the night, and audible at a great distance, immediately arrested my attention. It was like the rushing of a cataract on the heart of a luxurious city. I approached it sideways, and soon stood before it. Madame de Stael places her Corinna near, and Lord N. sees her figure in the water; this is possible in summer. When I saw it, it was in all the turbulence and confusion of a natural phenomenon. The Fontana is a compilation of excellence and defect: a Castellum Aquæ, (the terinination of the Palazzo Poli,) a reservoir below, into which seems to burst the whole of the unrivalled " Aqua Virgo," through rocks and fragments tempestuously cast together, a figure of Neptune, with his accompany. ing Tritons; these are the elements of the composition. The original conception is grand, and of that clear and comprehensive style which belongs exclusively to the republic and the early empire. Nothing could be nobler than heaping thus this scene of Nature in a city, and then striking through it a fierce and bold passage for the crowding waters. The accompaniments are in part well imagined, and as ill-executed. The Neptune is a good application of the Athenian fable, but the style in which it is translated is feeble, modern, and manuered-the Tritons and their horses, flung at random with little propriety over the rocks, are of as starved and sickly a temperament as if they had been intended for the Academie de Musique. The Castellum Aquæ, in partnership with a palace, is absurd; it is bringing the desert into a drawing-room. As to the ornaments, nothing can be more washy; The palace, as may be conceived, suffered materially from the connexion. It was notorious for its damp and decay, until purchased, together with the duke dom, by the Duke of Bracciano (Torlonia) for his eldest son, and restored to something like former magnificence on his marriage. the stucco-looking style of the Corinthian architecture, the incrustations, the windows, the fritter and meagreness of all the parts, are only worse than the two side-statues. They throw an appearance of incongruity over the whole. A Castellum Aquæ should be as severe as the "opus quadratum" of the Capitol, particularly with such a base; if ornament is to be tolerated, let trophies like those of Marius be appended. Any thing is better than the finery of a palace, and the inscriptions and taste of a modern Pope. The square, if so it must be called, is a ragged disorderly club of houses which should be got rid of; the enormous length of the palace would have furnished with beauty and advantage one whole side. As it is, it is of little moment; every thing is forgotten in the waters-they overcome every absurdity and defect, and are the only idea which remains of the Fountain. I hurried my steps through the remaining streets, and at last reached the Propaganda. It was twelve o'clock, not a stir in the whole city; watched and watchers had gone to sleep; dogs and carriages had ceased their noises, and the same stars which had shone out on Romulus and Cæsar, still looked down with undiminished glory on the follies and vanities of their successors. THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. A very remarkable account is given in Sismondi's Histoire des Français (vol. iv. p. 481) of the circumstances attending the death and burial of William the Conqueror. It is thus concluded-" Enfin le corps étoit déjà deposé dans la fosse, et avant qu'on le recouvrit de terre, Gislebert, Evêque d'Evreux, prononçait son panégyrique, lorsqu'un Normand, nommé Ascelin, se leva du milieu de la foule, et s'écria à haute voix, Cet homme dont vous venez de prononcer l'éloge, vous allez l'enterrer dans une terre qui est à moi. Ici même étoit ma maison paternelle, et il l'enleva à mon Père contre toute justice, sans jamais la lui payer, pour y bâtir cette Eglise. Je vous interdis, au nom de Dieu, de couvrir le corps du Ravisseur, avec une terre qui m'appartient.' Cette protestation frappa de componction les Seigneurs et les Evêques qui l'entendirent; ils firent immédiatement autour du cercueil une collecte pour racheter d'Ascelin, le place même où son Souverain seroit enterré; ils lui promirent que plus tard on le compenseroit pour la perte de son heritage, et ils lui tinrent parole; car le fait qu'il avait rappelé était de notorieté publique." LOWLY upon his bier The royal Conqueror lay; Down the long minster's aisle Crowds mutely gazing stream'd; Altar and tomb the while Through mists of incense gleam'd. And by the torch's blaze The stately priest had said High words of power and praise They lower'd him, with the sound Of requiems, to repose; "By the violated hearth Which made way for you, proud shrine; Hath borne for me and mine; |