not its beauty, has vanished. The sculptured silver that embossed its roof, the statues that filled its niches, and the famed Caryatides of Syracusan bronze that sustained its attic,† are all gone; and perhaps it is not less the remembrance of what it once was, than the sight of what it now is, that touches our feelings while we linger within its walls. Its four grand recesses, each supported by two magnificent columns, and two pilasters of giallo antico, are truly beautiful; but the eight little cavities, or altar-places between them, with ugly pediments, and paltry little porphyry pillars, are wretchedly mean, and in a taste very unlike the grandeur of the rest of the edifice. Their date is ascribed to the reign of Septimius Severus, who not only repaired, but altered this noble building. The present pavement is also supposed to be his; indeed, the quantity of porphyry it contains is one proof of it, for it is a curious fact, that it was a substance, the use of which was very rare in the best ages, but which gradually increased as taste declined.

Eighteen centuries have left their traces—and, more than all, their dirt behind; most grievous, indeed, is it to see the filthy state in which it is kept; and if I might be allowed to come in with an heretical mop, I would have a pleasure in scouring

Among the number of statues in the Pantheon, was a Venus, adorned with ear-rings made of a split pearl ;-the twin sister of that which Cleopatra dissolved and swallowed at the banquet with Mark Anthony. Macrob. lib. xi. c. 13. + The work of the Grecian sculptor Diogenes. Vide Pliny.

it at my own expense, and almost with my own hands; and restoring to its marble columns, and walls, and pavement, no inconsiderable portion of their ancient freshness and brilliancy. It is inconceivable what a renovation might be made by soap and water. That it has never been washed since it was a Christian place of worship, is a lamentable fact. Catholics seem to think that there is a great sanctity in dirt. The only attempt towards cleanliness that has been ever made,-that of whitewashing the roof, had better have been spared.

Behind the altars that crowd the principal recesses, are placed, on shelves, the busts of the most distinguished poets, artists, and philosophers of modern Italy; a generous tribute offered by the unaided munificence of Canova, to the kindred departed spirits of his country. But the littleness of busts, and the minuteness of their arangement on shelves, do not suit the grandeur of the character of this place. We wish to see it once more adorned with noble statues-and we wish, oh, how vainly! to banish all the trumpery shrines that insult, with their tawdry tinsel, this glorious edifice! It may seem ungrateful to quarrel with the very instruments that unquestionably saved it from destruction; but to see the dusty altars, frippery Madonnas, and faded old artificial flowers that lumber up the recesses-the pasteboard figures of saints that fill the attic niches above, or the loathsome living objects that crawl about the marble pavements below-and not to exclaim against

popes, popery, and priesthood-surpasses human patience!

I verily believe these beggars live here; forever are we persecuted with the same horrible objects, and assailed with the same doleful whine of"Qualche cosa per l'amore di Dio!"

Why did not the French, who had no great respect for altars, and never encouraged beggars, clear it out of all these nuisances?

Why did they not convert it, as its name would seem to indicate, into a temple sacred to the illustrious dead?

The taste of Canova would have dictated this great improvement, which has been long and ardently desired. Indeed, the preservation and embellishment of the Pantheon have seemed to be dear to every mind of genius, in every age. Raphael bequeathed a sum of money for its repair; so did Annibal Caracci, and many other distinguished artists; but it appears all to have gone to the Madonna and the martyrs; to priests and masses.

Many of those whose names reflected lustre upon Modern Italy in her proudest days, are interred here.

The mortal remains of Raphael, and that last and noblest work of his genius-the Transfiguration, were placed together in the church for three successive days after his untimely death, and admired and mourned by thousands. Here, too, he was buried; but in vain I inquired for his tomb; in vain I sought it through the Rotonda; no traces of it met the eye, nor could one of the Italians

who were present shew me where it was to e found!

"And what-no monument, inscription, stone,
The very earth that wraps his grave unknown ?”

I returned afterwards to the Pantheon with a friend, who pointed out to me the stone beneath which his remains repose; no tomb has been raised over it. His bust, among the undistinguished crowd, upon a shelf above the neighbouring altar, is the only tribute paid to his memory in the city that was embellished by his genius, and honoured with his dust. Beneath it is inscribed Cardinal Bembo's famous distich:

"Ille hic est Raphael, timuit quo sospite vinci
Rerum magna parens, quo moriente mori."*

It has been very faithfully translated into Italian; and I have attempted (upon the spur of the moment only) something like it in English:

Nature, in life, saw thee herself outvie,
Yet, Raphael! fear'd, in death with thee to die.

The author was not aware, until after the first edition of this work was published, that Pope has imitated, or rather translated these verses, without acknowledgment, in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller. It was, however, probably his lines which unconsciously suggested her own. Pope's couplet is as follows:

"Living, great Nature feared he might outvie Her works; and dying, fears herself to die."

LETTER XXIII.

TEMPLES-REPUTED TEMPLE OF VESTA-PUDICITIA PATRIZIA-BOCCA DELLA VERITA-ARA MAXIMA -TEMPLE OF FORTUNA VIRILIS-OF ANTONINUS AND FAUSTINA-OF ROMULUS AND REMUS-OF PEACE ANCIENT STYLES OF BUILDING-DOUBLE TEMPLE OF VENUS AND ROME-TEMPLE MINERVA MEDICA-OF VENUS AND CUPID-OF VENUS ERYCINA.

OF

FROM the Pantheon, I must now carry you to the Temple of Vesta, for such is the name the antiquaries of yore were pleased to give to a beautiful little temple near the Tiber, and such is the name it still bears, in despite of the antiquaries of the present day, who are now waging fierce battles about the different gods and goddesses to whom it might, could, or ought to have belonged. The claims of Phoebus and Venus; of Portumnus, God of the Port, and Volupia, whose image, treading Virtue under foot, was certainly worshipped somewhere at Rome-very little to the credit of the Romans-have at various times been brought forward; but at present the contest seems to lie between Her