go VIEW OF SOCIETY AND

their minds with more force than if their statues had been carried with the others.— ** Præfulgebant Ciassius atque Brutus," says Tacitus, " eo ipso, quod effigies eorum non ** vifebantur *."

* The memory, of Cassius and Brutus made a deeper im. pression on the minds of the spectators, on this very account, that tbeir statues were not seen ia the proceffion.

LETTER LIU.

Naples.

T Take the 'first opportunity of in■"• forming you of our arrival in this city. Some of the principal objects which occurred on the road, with the sentiments they suggested to my mind, shall form the subject of this letter.

It is almost impossible to go out of the walls of Rome,, without being impressed with melancholic ideas. Having left that city by St. John de Lateran's gate, we soon entered a spacious plain, and drove for several miles in frght of sepulchral monuments and the ruins of ancient aqueducts. Sixtus the Fifth repaired one of them, to bring water into that part of Rome where Dioclesian's baths formerly stood: this water is now called aqua se/ice, from Felix, at the Torre de Mezzo Via, so called from an old Tower near the post-house, we proceeded through a silent, deserted, unwholesome country. We scarce met a passenger between Rome and Marino, a little town about twelve miles from the former, which has its name from Caius Marius, who had a villa there; it now belongs to the Colonna family. While fresh horses were harnessing, we visited two churches, to fee two pictures which we had heard commended; the subject of one is as disagreeable as that of the other is difficult to execute. The connoisseur who directed us to these pieces, told me, that the first, the flaying of St. Bartholomew, by Guercino, is in a great style, finely coloured, and the muscles convulsed with pain in the sweetest manner imaginable; he could have gazed at it for ever. "As for the other," added he, * * which represents the Trinity, it is "natural, well grouped, and easily under"stood; and that is all that can be said * * for it."

T? n»- • .1 i r i Mons Albanus, we were charmed with a fine view of the country towards the sea; Ostia, Antium, the lake Aibano, and the fields adjacent. The form and component parts of this mountain plainly shew, that it has formerly been a volcano. The lake of Nemi, which we left to the right, seems, like that of Aibano, to have been formed in the cavity of a crater.

We came next to Veletri, an inconsiderable town, situated on a hill. There is one palace here, with spacious gardens, which, when kept in repair, may have been magnificent. The stair-case, they assured us, is still worthy of admiration. The inhabitants of Veletri assert, that Augustus was born there. Suetonius says, he was born at Rome. It is certainly of no importance where he was born. Perhaps it would have been better for Rome, and for the world in general, that he never had been born at all. The Veletrians are so fond of emperors, that they claim a connection even with Tiberius and still to be seen about a mile from this city, at a place called Colle Ottone. Of those four emperors, the last mentioned 'was by much the best worth the claiming as a countryman. As for Caligula, he was a mischievous madman. Tiberius seems to have been born with wicked dispositions, which he improved by art. Augustus was naturally wicked, and artificially virtuous; and Otho seems to have been exactly the reverse. Though educated in the most vicious of courts, and the favourite and companion of Nero, he still preserved, in some degree, the original excellence of his character; and at his death, displayed a magnanimity of sentiment, and nobleness of conduct, of which the highly flattered Augustus was never capable. "Alii diutius imperium tenueriut," says Tacitus; " nemo tarn fortiter reliquerit*." Convinced that, if he continued the contest with Vitellius, all the horrors of a civil war would be prolonged, he determined to