eighty-six feet square at the base. The outside is covered with large pieces of Tiburtine stone, reckoned nearly as hard as marble. A small door on one side leads to the sepulchral chamber in the centre, where the walls have been plastered with hard stucco, and ornamented with arabesques. The ground contiguous to this pyramid is set apart for the interment of those who are called heretics; and here is to be observed among others a head-stone to the memory of Mr. Moore the English artist, who died at Rome.

Beyond the walls of the city, in the Appianway, stands the sepulchre of Cecilia Metella, wife of Crassus, and daughter of Quintus Metellus Craticus, as shewn by the inscription. This structure appears to have been the most superb of the kind built during the commonwealth; and it is reasonable to imagine, from its general figure, that it served as a model for the sepulchres which were erected in after-ages by different emperors of Rome. It is circular on the plan, of a cylindrical form in its elevation, and about eighty feet in diameter. Below the surface of the earth is a square substruction or plinth, and very near the top is an ornamental frieze and cornice. The frieze is adorned with oxen's heads and festoons. The walls are nearly thirty feet thick, composed of brick, and faced with marble, leaving the space in the centre only twenty feet in diameter, or thereabouts. The height of this building I could not learn. On the outside, at some distance from the ground, is a small square door, which leads to steps that go up to the summit of the sepulchre.

Pope Paul III, was the first who made a way into the interior through the circular outside wall, exactly where the vault for interment came (the original entrance is still remaining under the ground in the substruction part), and an immense channelled sarcophagus of Parian marble was found therein, which is now to be seen in the quadrangle of the Farnesian palace. Owing to the solidity of its construction, it was used as a citadel in the middle ages during the civil wars of Rome, which occasioned the military battlements and loop-holes now observed on the top to be added, but which evidently were no component parts of the original. building.

From the preceding relation of the ancient state of those mausoleums at Rome most worthy of the traveller's attention, I am aware how naturally persons are induced to expect something very surprising even in their remains; but on local exami nation the traveller will experience no small disappointment in this respect. For instance, the tomb of Augustus has been stripped of all its external beauties by degrees, and has nothing left but two or three bare walls with a few of the arched corridores; also the interior, once the resort of silent and mournful meditation, is now converted into a prophane and noisy theatre for fighting bulls. And the hallowed vaults and catacombs that heretofore inurned the sacred dust of the Cæsars, are at last employed for the degrading purpose of holding coals.

Again, the tomb of Adrian, that superb edifice which was looked upon as an unrivalled display

of regal magnificence, is now no more than an uninteresting pile of massive stones, and can demand no higher appellation than a barrack for soldiers or a prison-house. And although the sepulchre of Caius Cestius has suffered less alteration from time and the hands of men than those I have already mentioned, yet that is nearly covered with weeds and brambles, and the holy depository that once contained the relics of that revered citizen, is at length become a breeding-place for serpents, toads, and other reptiles. Much in the same condition is the tomb of Cecilia Metella: a great part of it is buried under the ground, and the sepulchral vault within its walls is now inhabited by owls and bats. Also the tomb of the Scipios, situated in a vineyard near the gate of St. Sebastian, is dwindled into a miserable brick ruin; and instead of inshrining the remains of the relatives and descendants of Cornelia, is at this day in the occupation of a poor peasant, and used for no nobler end than as a cellar.

Again, the sepulchre of Menenius Agrippa on the sacred mount, who in his day was the idol of the Roman people, now serves as a stable for oxen; and that which was erected to the individual honour of Scipio Africanus, near St. Peter's church, has become a pump-house.

Thus great Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay,

May stop a hole and keep the wind away.

About a quarter of a mile from the gate of St. Sebastian is a small field surrounded by a kind of ditch, in which you are told the battle between

the Horatii and Curiatii was fought; but in the Roman history it is stated that the Roman and Alban forces met five miles from the city, and there the famous combat took place between the three twin brothers, chosen out of each army to decide the fate of their countries; so that the ear of Rome (who call themselves antiquarians), zealous as they may feel in the cause of truth, and profound as they may be in their researches into past events, seem in this instance to have imagined a circumstance that never existed. Opposite this field is a brick vaulted ruin which they also say was the tomb of Horatia, sister of the Horatii, who was killed by her only surviving brother, because she reproached him for slaying her lover, one of the Curatii. This is very probably the spot where she met him when he was returning in triumph into the city, and may have given rise to the mistake I have just mentioned.

Near the Circus of Sallust is a place called Campus Sceleratus, so named because the Romans used on this spot to bury alive those vestals who had violated their oath of perpetual chastity. The ceremony of this punishment, according to the description given of it by Dion Halicarnassensis, must have been of the most frightful and shocking nature. The offender was first bound down upon a bier, and covered: in this state she was carried through the city, attended by persons of all descriptions, who preserved a mournful silence, to the place of burial, where there was a subterraneous sepulchre, and in it a little bed, a lamp, a few provisions, and a vessel of water. They then

unbound her and discovered her to the priests, one of whom prayed over her, after which the veil was taken from her, and as soon as she had descended into the vault they drew up the ladder, and immediately threw the earth in upon her till the hole was completely filled up level with the ground. This infliction was in itself so dreadful that many of the unhappy women who had yielded to the impulses of their passions laid violent hands on themselves.

There are still some remains of the temple of Minerva Medica. This building was a decagon 220 feet round within the walls, or thereabout, and what is now to be seen of it consists only of rough brickwork. In the sides are large niches, supposed to have been made to hold statues of different gods and goddesses: a part of the dome, which is of brick, is still standing; and the whole forms a picturesque ruin.

Near the column of Antonine are the remains of the temple of that name, which now embellish the front of the Custom-house. They consist of a beautiful façade, formed by eleven Corinthian fluted columns of white marble bearing a continued entablature, and over them are pedestals with pannels between resembling a low attic. The height of the columns is said to be thirty-nine feet seven inches, and their diameter four feet three inches. Close behind these columns a modern front, consisting of three stories, has been erected, which belongs to the Custom-house; but the intercolumniation of them being rather small, the

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