"mother doomed to destruction might make even a heart like "his yield, for a moment, to the touch of nature."

Tacitus gives, to the life, the whole of that iniquitous act; her escape by swimming, and her death;-but this last scene must be given from his own words :

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"In her room, the pale glimmer of a light was seen, and

only one maid in waiting. . . . She listened; and on the "coast of Baiæ, where, not long before, the whole was tumult "and confusion, a dismal silence prevailed, broken at inter"vals by an uproar that added to the horror of the scene

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Agrippina trembled for herself. Her servant was leaving "the room. She called to her :- And do you, too, abandon "me?' In that instant the tribune entered the chamber:

"If you come,' said Agrippina, from the Prince, tell him "I am well; if your intents are murderous, you are not sent "by my son; the guilt of parricide is foreign to his heart' "The ruffians surrounded her bed. The centurion was

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drawing his sword; at the sight, Agrippina presented her person,- And here,' she said, 'plunge your sword in my "womb!'"

Of her own dreadful end Agrippina had warning from a Chaldean, many years before, who told her that her son would reign at Rome, but destroy his mother: the reply of this evil but powerful-minded woman is recorded: "Let him," she said, "let him kill me—but let him reign!"

Tacitus quits the subject with his usual power: "There "was something awful in the sounds of the trumpets heard on the hills; and in the nightly lamentations supposed to

"issue from the tomb of Agrippina." Agrippina was the daughter of Germanicus, sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, and mother of Nero.

XXV.

Where hath change so wrought?

It was under Tiberius that Baia became degraded. He came to it like a Pestilence; his example was only wanted to make the Sybarites dwelling there, throw off the veil which Decency still thinly spread before their vices. The secret shades of Baia were witnesses to crimes as foul as they were unnatural; the virtuous fled from haunts which fame made infamous. To have been at Baiæ, settled the character of a Roman lady: it was sufficient. The venal Muses still lauded its beauties; but they debased themselves in their subject: the holy inspirations of Virgil were fled from it for ever!

XXVI.

Solitude sat there:

The town, forsaken, sank into ruin; none approached, none remembered it. The most delicious spot the Sun ever looked on, became a desert; and, even to this hour, although the earth, when tilled, replies in abounding fertility, the general aspect of the naked shore, and of the grey waste-looking hills, impressively reminds us of the past; they still seem to be the expiating witnesses of the crimes of the last degenerated Romans. Of the palaces which crowned the shore—which, as it were, tiarad the hills, masses of tufa alone remain,

scarcely distinguishable from its sides. Finally, no page written by the most masterly hand, could illustrate so eloquently well the instability of the works of man, and the mutability of all human affairs, as the mournful and deserted shores of Baiæ !-JOURNAL.

XXVIII.

where Cuma rears;

How impressive are the Cyclopean looking ruins of the Arco Felice, the entrance Gate of Cuma! We remember it as the most ancient of the Italian cities: the "Eubeian Cuma"*—the fortunate or the happy Cuma of the ancients; the city which Horace so lauds for its vases; which, after war and plague had ruined it, was the "vacua Cuma" of Juvenal. It declined with the Roman power, after having, as it were, created Puteoli and Naples; its cause of decline was the most capricious of all tyrants-Fashion: Baiæ and Naples held out greater attractions.

XXX.

A wilderness of flowers.

Vines were everywhere trailing, from tree to tree, and on the ground; far below me lay the old Acherusian lake, embosomed among the richest vegetation. Walking along, to the right of the gate-way, towards the supposed cave of the Sibyl, which opens beneath a lofty crag, the mounds which rose everywhere round me-ruins of the ancient city-for

* Strabo.

there was no seeing beyond their surface-were, literally, masses of flowers of all colours, mocking the hues of Iris herself. I never saw such measureless profusion: the horn of plenty so heaped up, so flowing over as here! the whole scene was one Paradise of flowers: and of fertility of every living description! Here, rich fields of wheat were shooting up: olives, and other trees, rising thickly among them; the vines festooning round them all, twined into every fantastic form. Occasionally a stone of the once populous city peeped forth its grey brow; as if its memory ought not entirely to be forgotten; as if the millions whose hearts once panted there, like mine, still demanded from us a tributary sigh! The deep Sea lay extended far below; the intense blue sky was above, making one feel, in its purity, why it was called HEAVEN; and there, among the green trees tangling above me, and in the song of birds, and in the diapason of the distant Deep, I heard the voice, and I felt the pervading influence of the very Spirit of Joy; that our life was love; and that their song was only common gratitude in return for the boon-the ineffable blessing of existence! JOURNAL.

XXXIV.

. yonder grassy hill:

There stood the famous Temple of Apollo, which had been brought to Cuma from Æolia, under which was established the oracle of the Cumaan Sibyl. It was here, following Virgil, that Dædalus alighted, after his flight from Crete;

consecrated his "remigium alarum" to Apollo, and erected him a temple. Ovid has told the tale with his usual prettiness-Virgil, with the finishing touches of nature-with the master hand of a poet;

Bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro,

Bis patriæ cecidere manus!

The works of Dædalus were chiefly in wood; of which, no fewer than nine are described as existing in the second century, which, in despite of the injuries of fourteen hundred years, and the imperfections of early taste, seemed, in the words of Pausanias, "to possess something of divine expression." MEME'S HISTORY OF Sculpture.

Standing on the hill, near the gate, the wide plain is seen beneath, where stood the city and the lake of Follicole, now Licola. Further along the shore, stood Liternum: a white tower now occupies the site. The word " patria" was found legible on one of its stones, which led to a curious popular error. Pliny the elder mentions olives, and also a myrtle planted by Scipio, as existing at Liternum in his time. It is likely the ashes of Scipio were conveyed to the family sepulchre in Via Capena.* It was there where the destroyer of Carthage, and the all but the rival of Hannibal, for he never had an equal, played with the pebbles on the beach. JOURNAL.

* See in Livy, c. xxxviii. a most interesting account of his Life at Liternum