Kas the power, therefore, to indulge his tale. His civil establishment exhibits few attendants at the vatican; and his military appointment confifts of a few domestic troops, who appear, on great days, in a motley drefs with antique helmets and breait-plates, that hang loofely upon them, and who gar ifon Civita Vecchia, Urbino, and Ferra a, with, perhaps, a few other places. His holiness has been commended for attending to more important concerns than the purfuits of tafle; and we join in praifing him for having drained the Pontine marshes, a work which baffled the conful Cethegus and the emperors of Rome, and which is now completely effected to the great convenience of the traveller.

His endeavours to encourage commerce have been more commendable than fuccefsful. If he had equally exerted himself in other things ftill more effential; if he had encouraged the peafantry to fettle on the dreary waftes of the Campania, had given up the preemption of its produce which damps all fpirit of induftry, and by taxing the land inftead of the produce, had induced his fubjects to cultivate his once fertile territory; if he had fet up a regular and flrict policy, punish ed individual acts of revenge, and eftablished a fair and speedy adminiftration of justice; if he had roufed the nobility to useful fervices, abolished monopolies, even that of corn now poffeffed by his own nephew, and reformed a vicious clergy to Chriftian virtues, he would then have conferred effential obligations on his country,

and have fupported the declining power of the papacy which now totters to deftruction. We fhould have then feen his territories flourish; we fould have seen his refidence not a fad mixture of magnificence and dirt, a fcene of ecclefiaftical pomp and wretched poverty, a city of fpiritual pride and hideous beggary †; where ignorance triumphs in the incredulity of the higher and in the fuperftition of the lower ranks; where vice and fin of every kind predominate; where proftitution holds out its lures at every window; where affaffinations are daily committed in the face of day, and known murderers beg for charity under the porches of every church; and where a cardinal, now in exile at Genoat, was condemned for attempting to poifon a brother of the conclave.

To fuch undertakings, however, under exifting cbitacles, the prefent pope is unequal. With good intentions and fome exertions he aims not at fuch arduous labours, but is contented with publicly killing the foot of St. Peter with the zeal of a pilgrim; with officiating gracefully on the great days; with improving his mufeum, and with cultivating facred literature, the caufe of which he has ferved, by publishing in 1784, a fine edition of St. Maximus, with a wellwritten dedication to Victor Amadeus, and by extending fome countenance to men of distinguished talents.

Many of his tubjects, not fatisfied with fuch pretenfions to their favour, feem to feel little regret at a paralytic

'Laniatum corpore toto

Cardinal Ci,

affection

affection under which he now labours: unlefs, indeed, from apprehenfions that he may not outlive the carnival. Many think that the papal power will expire in him; and obferve, with apparent pleasure, that the niches in St. Paul's church are now filled up, except one deftined for the reception of the portrait of Brafchi. Severe epigrams are often affixed on the ftatues of Marphone and Pafquin, on which the bels of antiquity were hung. Difcuffions are common, in which the fuppreffion of convents, in neighbouring territories of Florence, is pronounced to be deferving imitation; and the writings of the reformed church, in spite of interdictions, make their way. Let us hope that when reformation begins, as begin it muft, it may come gently, that it may facilitate a re-union with the reformed churches, a confummat on devoutly to be wifhed, to which the church of England is fincerely inclined, and bends with increasing favour; anxious only to fee the causes of feparation removed and palpable errors given up, which may be thought, indeed, the more practicable fince many of the Romish writers have almost explained away the offenfive part of many of their doctrines, indefenfible as they are, and often refuted as they have been *.

LETTER XXX.

Rome, Dec. 20.

ROME is very full of English, many of whom are lodged near each other in the Piazza di Spagna. They affociate much together, preferring the company of their countrymen to the being carried in crowds, under Mr. Jenkins' protection, to concerts and converzationes, at the house of princefs Santa Croce, or the cardinal de Bernis.

The cardinal de Bernis is well

known to have formerly entertained all ftrangers at his houfe with great hofpitality; but as his revenues from France have been withheld he now receives company only of an evening. The two aunts of the French king are now with him. They were vifited on their arrival by the pope, which is an unufual mark of attention from his holinefs. They confine themselves to a final fociety. The English at these houfes do not intermix much with the Romans. They are fomewhat regardless of etiquette, and they do not often speak Italian with fluency; and the Romans diflike to speak French. The two parties, therefore, like the teams of the Rhine and the Arve, near Geneva, flow in the fame current without mingling together. At the prince de Borghefe's the parties. are more felect and pleafant; but it requires private introduction to be admitted to them. There are no public amufements at Rome except during the carnival, a time of neceffary relaxation, when the ancient difcipline of the church was obferved. During the reft of the year there are concerts indeed, in the churches; the vocal performers are Caftratos, who should not be permitted to fing in facred edifices, especially in a country where emafculation prevails to an extent that requires difcouragement of every kind. The Roman nobility are chiefly the defcendants of the relations of the pope's, and confequently often of foreign extraction. A few of them boast of being derived from the ancient Romans. The two branches of the Maffimi family claim a descent from Fabius Maximus, who, in the flourishing period of the fecond Punic war, was the difinterested poffeffor of nine acres of land. They certainly can trace their pedigree to the tenth century, when they were a powerful family. There are alfo three branches of the defcendants of Valerius Publicola +, whofe ancestor, with Herfilia,

+ The Publicole Meffale et Valerii.

effected

effected the reconciliation between the Romans and Sabines, and who himfelf joined with Brutus in delivering his country from the tyranny of Tarquin, and reconciled Porfenna to Rome. The Urfini, the Colonna, and the Savelli families, with a few others, pretend alfo a defcent from diftinguished perfonages of the republic; but their pretenfions are lefs fatista torily fupported.

Since I have laft written to you, we have made an excurfion to Tivoli, to which we drove, over eight miles dreary walle of the Campania, a country once defcribed, by Varro, as an orchard, and excelling all lands in fertility. The parts of it which are now thinly inhabited, are laboured by perfons who repair to it for a feafon from Viterbo, Perugia, and other parts of Italy: the Roman territories being depopulated by caftration, celibacy, and bad government. The few tenants of the diftrict prefer the pure air of the mountains to that of the plains, rendered unwholesome by the noxious vapours which afcend from ftagnant waters and a volcanic foil. Thefe, it is true, were experienced in ancient times, as we learn from Livy, but in a lefs degree, as the atmosphere was then corrected by vegetation, and the breath of herds and men.

The volcanic nature of the country about Rome tends to confirm the opinion of those who, from the language of St. John, recollect that Rome, like Sodom, fhall be utterly burnt with fire,' that the fhall fink like a great mill-stone in the fea,' and her fmoke rife up for ever and ever.' Burnet, in his Theory of the Earth, a work of fublime fancy and extravagant reafoning, attempted to speculate upon the mode of this deftruction; and it is curious to fee how a theorift gets over difficulties that obftruct his

fcheme. The ingenious writer leaft, from the fituation of Italy, the fea fhould be thought likely to extinguish the conflagration which he fuppofed to take place, imagines that the ocean and Black Sea, from which the Mediterranean is fupplied, will fink in their channels fo low as not to be capable of flowing into the Mediterranean at each end; and these fupplies being cut off, it would foon empty itfelf fo far, partly by evaporation and partly by fubterraneous paffages, as to shrink from all its fhores and become a standing pool of water in the middle of the channel.

I fhall not dilate in an account of the Ponte Lucano, by which we passed the Arno about twelve miles from Rome; of the Crater, of the extinguifhed volcano, and of the Solfaterra, with its floating islands of compacted reed and bulruih, not far from which the unfortunate and ungenerous Zenobia, the beautiful patronefs and betrayer of Longinus, lived in an elegant villa, given her by her conqueror Aurelian; and from the elevation of a throne infenfibly funk, as Gibbon tells us, into a Roman matron; her daughters being married into Roman families, and the race being continued to the fifth century. Baronius fuppofes Zenobius, bishop of Florence in the time of St. Ambrofe, to have been defcended from her.

The fcenery of Tivoli; the fine ruins of the villa of Macenas, of which the arches fill difplay a great range of front covered now with vineyards; the cafcades, fome of which rufh headlong from the ruins to fwell the Arno; the hills, covered with olives, among which the fancy may trace veftiges of the villas of Cæfar, Caflius, Lepidus, Horace, Quintilius Varus, Catullus, Propertius, Statius, and Vopifcus, and compare their defcriptions with exifting scenes; and

the elegance and projecting fwell of the Sybil's temple, hanging over the grotto of Neptune, led us on to a fucceffion of the most interesting contemplations that could amufe and delight the mind. Our reflections were brought down to later times when we were conducted to the villa Eftenfe, near the town where Hippolito of Efte, cardinal of Ferrara, the great offfpring of the Herculean line,' to whom Ariosto dedicated his Orlando Furiofo, built up his taftelefs and elaborate ftructure, and gardens, and terraffes, and grottoes, and other artificial works in face of the bold and uncontrolled beauties of the neighbouring country. At night, though I flept in a room clofe to the temple of the Sybil, or of Vefta as fome think it, and heard the wind roar through its time-injured columns, my mind was fometimes engaged in modern events, fuggefted to memory by the name of lord P e and of 8 written on the walls.

After feeing Tivoli we visited, with lefs pleasure, Frefcati, where the modern Romans, as well as thofe of ancient times, pafs a few of thofe weeks when it is most unhealthy to remain at Rome. The villas are ftately, the gardens large and adorned with waterworks, hydraulic organs, bufts, ftatues, &c. The prince de Borghefe, from the villa Taverna, may contemplate an estate of 60,000 crowns per annum, fpread, as may be imagined, over a vast extent of country, fince its lands are but little cultivated, and few flocks, or herds, or cheerful villages, or farms, are to be feen. If I were to speak to you of the fupendous and interefing ruins of Adrian's villa, of the endless fucceffion

of its buildings, of which the forms and even ornaments are till difcernible, I must write a volume.

POSTCRIPT.

Rome, Dec. 25.

I DID not close up my letter that I might fend you a fort account of the ceremonies of this day, on which we were prefent, by ten o'clock, at St. Peter's, and faw the pope officiate between two rows of cardinals richly dreffed. Their cloaks were covered with the finet lace. The Latin and Greek gofpel and epifle were chaunted by the priests of the respective churches. The frequent change of the pope's drefs, between which he was fometimes ftripped to his flannels, unfortunately fuggefted ludicrous ideas, and difconcerted the mufcles even of fome attendant ecclefiattics. He received the communion in both kinds himself, fucking the drop of wine from the chalice through a golden quill or pipe, a cuftom introduced about the tenth century, and foon difcontinued, except by the pope. His holiness afterward adminiftered the wafer to each of the cardinals. After he had performed the fervice, he was carried on men's fhoulders, wearing the tiara. A large feather waved on each fide of his chair. We were fhocked at the oftentatious difplay of grandeur in a weak mortal, in a church erected to the honour of God. It was fomething, however, amid unmeaning parade and ill-directed attention, to fee an object almost idolized and lifted up to the highest pitch of human vanity, only to proftrate himself in voluntary abafement to the fuppofed body of Chrift.