of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting relics of the ancient city, and is certainly the figure, if not the very animal to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses: "Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros et lambere matrem For the Roman's mind · Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould. Stanza xc. lines 3 and 4. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first generalthe only triumphant politician-inferior to none in eloquencecomparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators and philosophers that ever appeared in the world-an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage-at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting‡ and mak lus et Remus; non procul a templo hodie D. Mariæ Liberatricis appellato ubi forsan inventa nobilis illa ænea statua lupa geminos puerolos lactantis, quam hodie in capitolis videmus." "Olai Borrichii antiqua Urbis Romana facies, cap. x. See also cap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini in 1687. Ap. Græv. Antiq. Rom. tom. iv. p. 1522. *Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius. + En. viii. 631. See-Dr. Middleton, in his letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. In his tenth book, Lucan shows him sprinkled with the blood of Pharsalia in the arms of Cleopatra, Sanguine Thessalicæ cladis perfusus adulter After feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse with the Egyptian sages, and tells Achoreus, Spes sit mihi certa videndi Niliacos fontes, bellum civile relinquam. "Sic velut in tuta securi pace trahebant Immediately afterwards, he is fighting again and defending every position. ing love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his em pire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his cotemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages, who were the most inclined to deplore and exe. crate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory or with his magnanimous, his amniable qualities, as to forget the deci sion of his impartial countryman: HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.* 48. What from this barren being do we reap? Stanza xciii. lines 1 and 2. omnes pene veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; angustos sensus; imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vita; in profundo veritatem demersam; opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui: deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt." The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not remov. ed any of the imperfections of humanity: and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday. 49. There is a stern round tower of other days. Stanza xeix. line 1. Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Matella, called Capo di Bove, in the Appian Way. See-Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold. 50. Prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favourites-early death. Stanza cii. lines 5 and 6. Ὃν οι θεοί φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνησκει νέος Τὸ γὰρ θανεῖν οὐκ ἀισχρὸν ἀλλ' ἀισχρῶς θανεῖν. Rich. Franc. Phil. Brunck. Poetæ Gnomici, p. 231, edit. 1784. "Sed adest defensor ubique Cæsar et hos aditus gladiis, hos, ignibus arcet cæca nocte carinis Insiluit Cæsar semper feliciter usus Præcipiti cursu bellorum et tempore rapto." "Jure cæsus existemetur," says Suetonius after a fair estimation of his character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. "Melium jure cæsum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit:" [lib. iv. cap. 48.] and which was continued in the legal judgments pronounced in justifiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. See Sueton, in vit. C. J. Cæsar, with the commentary of Pitiscus, p. 184. † Academ. 1. 13. VOL. I.-B b 51. Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. Stanza evii. line 9. The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled brick-work. Nothing has been told, nothing can be told, to satisfy the belief of any but a Roman antiquary.-See-Historical Illustrations, page 206. 52. There is the moral of all human tales; Stanza cviii. lines 1, 2, and 3. The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion enter. tained of Britain by that orator and his cotemporary Romans, has the following eloquent passage: "From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms, how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance and poverty, enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and religious imposture: while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refine. ments of civil life; yet running perhaps the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline, and corruption of morals: till by a total degeneracy and loss of vir tue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing every thing that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original barbarism." 53. And apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime. Stanza cx. lines 8 and 9. The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Anrelius by St. Paul. See-Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto, &c. 54. Still we Trajan's name adore. Stanza exi. line 9. Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes :† and it The History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vi. vol. ii. p. 202. The contrast has been reversed in a late extraordinary instance. A gentleman was thrown into prison at Paris; efforts were made for his release. The French minister continued to detain him, under the pretext that he was not an Englishman, but only a Roman. See "Interesting facts relating to Joachim Murat," page 139. "Hujus tantùm memoriæ delatum est, ut, usque ad nostrum ætatem non aliter in Senatu principibus acclamatur, nisi, FELICIOR. AVGVSTO. MELIOR. TRAJANO," Eutrop. Brev. Hist. Rom. lib. viii. cap. v. would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good and he ad vanced them; and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country." 55. Rienzi, last of Romans. Stanza exiv. line 5, The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and inedited manuscripts relative to this unhappy hero will be seen in the illustrations of the IVth Canto. Stanza cxv. lines 1, 2, and 3. The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto.† He assures us that και τη ... * Τω τε γὰρ σώματι ἔῤῥωτο ψυχή ηκμαζεν, ὡς μηθ' ὑπο γηρως ἀμβλύνεσθαι . . . καὶ ὄντ ̓ ἐφθόνει, ουτε καθηρει τινὰ ἀλλὰ και πάνυ πάντας τούς ἀγαθοὺς ἐτίμα και ἐμαγάλυνε και διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε ἐφοβειτό τινα αυτῶν, ὅὔτε ἐμίσει . . δια· βολαῖς τε ηκιστα ἐπέστευε καὶ ὀργη ηκιστα ἐδουλουτο· τῶν τε χρημάτων τῶν ἀλλωτρίων ἴσα και φό νων τῶν ἀδίκων ἀπέσχετο.... φιλούμενός τε οὖν ἐπ' αυτοῖς μᾶλλον η τιμώμενος έχαιρε, καὶ τω τε δημῳ. μετ ̓ ἐπιεικέιας συνεγένετο, και τη γηρουσία σεμνοπ ξεπῶς ὡμίλει· ἀγαπητος μὲν πᾶσι. Φοβερος δὲ μη δενί, πλην πολεμίοις, ὤν. Hist. Rom. lib. lxviii, cap. vi, & vii. tom. ii. pp. 1123, 1124. edit. Hamb. 1750. , +Poco lontano dal detto luogo si scende ad un casaletto, del quale ne sono Padroni li Cafarelli, che non questo nome è chiamato il luogo; vi è una fontana sotto una gran volta antica, che al presente si gode, eli Romani si vanno l'estate a ricrearsi ; nel pavi mento di essa fonte si legge in un epitaffio essere quella la fonte di Egeria, dedicata alle ninfe, e questa, dice l'epitaffio, essere la mede. sima fonte in cui fu convertita.” Memorie, &c ap. Nardini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription. he saw an inscription in the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines of Ovid from a stone in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think had been brought from the same grotto. This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, creeps down the matted grass into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aquataccio. The valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes of that name who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land. There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality of his commentators have supposed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been into the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the Kings, as far as the Arician grove, and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city.† The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk. The modern topographers‡ find in the grotto the statue of the nymph and nine niches for the Muses. and a late travellers has discovered that the cave is restored to that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. But the headless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any individual cave. Nothing can be collected "In villa Justiniana extant ingens lapis quadratus solidus in quo sculpta hæc duo Ovidii carmina sunt Egeria est quæ præbet aquas dea grata Camœnis Qui lapis videtur ex eodem Egeriæ fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthuc comportatus." Diarium. Italic. p. 153. De Magnit. Vet. Rom. Ap. Græv. Ant. Rom. tom. iv. p. 1507. Echinard. Descrizione di Roma e dell' agro Romano corretto dall' Abate Venuti in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. "Simulacro di questo fonte, essendovi sculpite le acqúe a pie di esso." Classical Tour. chap. vi. p. 217, vol. ii. "Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam, |