grandeur of the Coliseum-the deserted shores of the Tiber-the wild and waste extent of the Campagna, marked with the long lines of broken aqueducts and mouldering tombs-the amphitheatre of mountains which sweep round the plain of Latium -every object that meets our view recals to us the times that are fled.

All the distant and romantic events of history are realized by the presence of the scenes in which they are acted; the long interval of ages is at once annihilated, and we seem to live, and move, and think, with those who have gone before us. Here, far from every sound and sight of man, and surrounded only with the ruined monuments of ancient greatness, I have indeed felt, that it is at Rome only we live more in the past than in the present.

The prodigious extent of the ruins of all ages which cover the wide extent of the Palatine itself, is not the least striking of the features of the scene. It almost seems, from the destruction which has overwhelmed every modern erection on this hill, as if the Genius of Rome, impatient at the profanation of her ancient seat, had struck them with her withering hand, and doomed all the works of man to perish here.

The distant view of the dome of St Peter's recalled us from the high heroic visions of early days, to a chapter in the history of mankind fraught with wonder and instruction; and as, standing on these ruins, which once contained the despot whom all the nations of the earth obeyed and worshipped, we looked to the Vatican, whose now innocuous

thunders had once shaken Europe, and hurled monarchs from their thrones,-we thought of the singular destiny of a city that had successively been the temporal and the spiritual tyrant of the world, and almost anticipated the day when that papal, like this imperial palace, would lie in ruins, and the dominion of the popes, like that of the emperors, be at an end for ever.

"Rome was the whole world-all the world was Rome;" but what is it now? Where is the Queen of Nations?

"Thou, stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seek'st,
And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv'st at all,
Those same old walls-old arches which thou seest,
Old palaces—is that which Rome men call.
Behold what wreck, what ruin, and what waste,
And how that she, which with her mighty power
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herself at last,
The prey of Time, which all things doth devour."

"Rome, living, was the world's sole ornament, And, dead, is now the world's sole monument."

We have now traced the immense mass of the broken and scattered ruins that overspread the deserted surface of the Palatine, like the skeleton of a mighty giant. Notwithstanding the ages that have passed since their erection, it is not their existence, but their destruction, that excites our amazement. So solid is their structure, that no common fate could have overwhelmed them, and

* Vide Ruins of Rome, in Edmund Spenser's Poems.

it has evidently been the work, not of time, but of violence. Even now, broken and ruined as they are,-if their final fall be not accelerated by the convulsions of nature or the labours of man,-they bid fair to stand, while a long series of generations shall visit them and pass away into dust.

LETTER XV.

THE CAPITOL.

How I hate antiquarians! They destroy all one's happy illusions and delightful dreams, and leave one nothing in return but dismal doubts and cold uncertainties.

"When ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;" but wise I must be, though sadly against my will; and yet, after hearing and comparing all the contradictory opinions of the most famous of these stupid people—after listening to more dry discussions, and poring over more musty old books, than my ears and eyes can well endure; the end of all my knowledge is, that, like the Athenian sage, I know that I know nothing, and, what is worse, I suspect that nothing is to be known; nothing at least that I want to know, can they tell me, and what they have to teach, I do not wish to learn. They have carefully grubbed up all the rubbish of antiquity, but lost the gems; and the reproach that was made to one of the tribe applies justly to all—

"O fie!" quoth Time to Thomas Hearne,
"Whatever I forget, you learn."

Antiquarianism seems to me to be the genuine science of puzzling. It is like a labyrinth, the farther you go into it, the more you are bewildered; and its professors, who pretend to be your guides through its mazes, only lead you farther astray. They can perplex, but they cannot clear up-they can tell you what a thing is not, but not what it is. If to doubt be philosophical, then are they the greatest of philosophers, for they never do any thing else; and yet their credulity is at times even more extraordinary than their scepticism. Would you believe that one of them gave me a long account of the revolutions of Latium for about a thousand years before Romulus, as true history! But this was even surpassed by the piece of information imparted to me, with profound gravity, by a learned, and exceedingly solemn amateur antiquary, that the Sicuti, a people of Illyrium, had possession of the Capitoline Hill several centuries before the time of the Aborigenes. This was no lapsus linguæ; for, in answer to my reiterated enquiries, he kindly repeated the information again and again.

Would you like to have any more of their lucubrations? Will it be any satisfaction to you to know, that at the time old Janus lived on Mount Janiculum, Saturn inhabited the Capitoline Hill, then called Saturnius'; and that they were in the constant habit of fighting with each other in the most neighbourly manner possible, until at last Saturn, at the head of an army of Cretans, got the