remarked in general terms, that although nature and art here offer the most abundant and the richest materials, these villas are wanting in simplicity, neatness, and rustic embellishment! The Romans, who for two months in the year are driven into exile by the Mal'aria to the heights of this beautiful hill, carry too much of the city along with them. Strange as it may seem, not a particle of correct taste in gardening is to be found in the oldest nation on the continent, except the few instances in which a new system has been introduced.

Having visited all the objects of interest upon the Alban Mount, we returned to Frascati and commenced our flight across the Campagna late in the afternoon, making the fifth time that this desert had been traversed by four different routes. The road is equally solitary with those which have already been described, and the tract as susceptible of being reclaimed. Passing under the Aqueduct denominated the Aqua Felice, the principal source whence the city is supplied with water, we re-entered the gates of Rome at sunset, and were happy to recognize many old acquaintances, if not in the faces of the inhabitants, at least in the Coliseum, the Triumphal Arches, and the ruins of the Forum, after an absence of a little more than a month. During the whole of this time, with the exception of one or two days, the weather was delightful, and the flowery region arrayed in all the bloom of spring. Few travellers have probably visited the south of Italy under more favourable circumstances; and I may be permitted to add without vanity, that few have examined it with more fidelity.

LETTER LXXI.

SKETCH OF ROME RESUMED-DESCRIPTION OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH.

June, 1826.

On the day after our arrival, we resumed an examination of Rome, and an unremitted round of observations was continued for three or four weeks. I hardly know what disposition to make of the numerous objects comprised, and the variety of facts gleaned, in this long term of active sight-seeing, added to the notes taken on our first visit and not yet exhausted. The sketch I have already given is so voluminous, that it will be drawing largely upon the patience of my readers, to ask their attention to a new series of topics, lying in a beaten track, and affording little room for originality of remark. Rome is in truth an endless subject. If half a dozen octavo volumes have been filled with the history of the walls alone, how exhaustless must be the antiquities and the modern works of art, embraced within their circuit ? I shall select from the number such as are deemed the most interesting, and be as concise in my notices, as the relative importance of the several topics will permit.

St. Peter's Church is among the first objects which the traveller will visit, and among the last which he will wish to attempt to describe. Like a knotty face, with many unique lines and peculiar features, it requires numerous sittings, before any thing approximating to an accurate portrait can be expected. I have seen it perhaps a hundred different times since my first entrance into Rome-at morning, evening, and noon-day; by moonlight, and in the blaze of two illuminations. To catch its different aspects, I have been round it, and over every part of it, from the vaults to the ball; but after all, it may be extremely difficult to convey an adequate idea of the structure; as it is sui generis, wholly beyond the limits of comparison. Let it not be inferred from this, that St. Peter's has overwhelmed my mind with utter amazement. One learned author, after giving a narrative of his journey through the rest of Italy, recoils from this Herculean labour of tourists, and "durst not violate the majesty of the divine fabric by his unpolished pen." The poet Gray says he saw it, and "was struck dumb with astonishment."

If these travellers manifested no affectation in the expression of their feelings, their minds must have been differently constituted from those of ordinary visitants; for nine out of ten look at St. Peter's for the first time without any strong emotion, and are even obliged to reason

themselves into admiration, by dint of repeated visits. Most persons are disappointed at the coup d'oeil; and my case claims no exemption from the common lot of humanity. The first glimpse of the Dome, caught at the distance of twelve or fourteen miles across the Campagna, produced a much more powerful effect upon my mind, than the front view of the church, within fifty paces. It requires the evidence of unquestionable admeasurement to satisfy the spectator, that its dimensions exceed those of many other buildings; and although this optical deception, arising from the exactness of the proportions, may constitute the highest praise of the fabric, on reflection, its magnitude is in a great measure lost to the eye.

is

The location of St. Peter's is pre-eminently beautiful, though little except the Dome can be seen from other parts of the city. It stands on a gentle eminence, the brow of the Vatican Mount and the site of Nero's amphitheatre,* a few rods from the right bank of the Tiber. From a point near the Castle of St. Angelo, two comparatively narrow, crooked, and dirty streets, with a block of mean buildings between them, terminate in the Piazza in front of the church, of which nothing seen till you enter the square. One of the Pontiffs had it in contemplation to remove the intermediate range of old houses, uniting the two streets into a broad avenue, opening upon the Tiber and the bridge of St. Angelo. The improvement is so obvious, and the sacrifice of property would be so trifling, that it is surprising the project has never been carried into execution. At present the approaches are through passages lined with butchers' stalls and the boutiques of market-women. A chop-house and a tippling-shop for teamsters, the capitals on the sign of which outstare those of Paul V. on the front of St. Peter's, borders the eastern extremity of the square, and is one of the most conspicuous objects in the vicinity. A lure of "hot and cold dinners," blazoned forth in letters legible from the doors of the church, induced us to step in on a rainy day for refreshments; but the filth of the place and the low company compelled a hasty retreat.

*This situation was selected by Constantine, the original founder of the Church, out of respect to the primitive christians and martyrs, who were cruelly persecuted by Nero, and thrown into his amphitheatre, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts. The ground was moreover supposed to be hallowed by the dust of St. Peter, who is said to have been crucified with his head downward; though some have doubted, whether he ever visited Rome. The tradition of the ecclesiastics holds, that this Apostle embarked on the coasts of Palestine, in the year 44, for Italy; that he touched at Naples and Baiæ, thence continuing his voyage, Eneas like, towards the mouth of the Tiber; that contrary winds drove his felucca far out to sea; that he was driven ashore near the mouth of the Arno, and preached the gospel to

The view on entering the Piazza is certainly magnificent, though not sufficiently imposing to strike the mind with awe or astonishment. From the entrances of the streets to the porch of the church, spreads an area of about a thousand feet in length, and in the widest part eight hundred in breadth, handsomely paved with large flags, bordered by lofty porticos and gallerics on both sides, ornamented with an Egyptian obelisk in the centre, and refreshed by two noble fountains, throwing their silver sheets of water to a great height. The moderate acclivity of the area; the triple flight of steps mounting to the porch; the front of the church; the dome; the lantern; the ball and the cross, form an ascending series, extremely agreeable to the eye. Had Michael Angelo's plan of St. Peter's been adopted, which would have brought the dome to the centre of the edifice, and rendered the whole of it visible above the contemplated portico, like that of the Pantheon, the view from this point could scarcely have been equalled in architectural grandeur. As it is, the high front, surmounted by a balustrade and by colossal statues, effectually conceals some of the boldest and finest features of this glorious temple. The Sacristy, which may be denominated the Folly of Pope Pius VI. on the left, and the monstrous pile of the Vatican, on the right, also obtrude themselves upon the eye, and interrupt the unity of the prospect. Notwithstanding the panegyrics, that Eustace has lavished on the beauty of the Travertine stone, of which the church is constructed, its complexion appeared to me to detract much from its dignity. Its hue is a pale, sickly yellow, without any of the richness of the Coliseum, or even the sober grandeur of St. Paul's at London. With these deductions, the coup d'oeil is less striking, than one might imagine from a description of the constituent parts.

But to descend more into detail: the porticos, bordering the sides of the Piazza form segments of an ellipsis, the axis of which is eight hundred feet, and the transverse, six hundred. They are composed of four ranges of Doric columns, sixty feet in height, including the Ionic entablature by which they are capped. This mixture of the orders of architecture, the work of Bernini, has been severely censured. The three hundred enormous pillars, forming these colonnades, stand at sufficient distances, to leave three avenues between the rows, of which the central one is wide enough for two carriages to pass abreast. In continuation of the porticos, covered galleries, with arcades looking

the Pisans; that he thence travelled to Rome, where he was made the first Pope, and finished his apostolical labours by suffering martyrdom.-See Misson's Voyage to Italy in 1687.

into the square, rise with a slight inclination to the vestibule of the church. The tops of these magnificent avenues, extending on either hand about a thousand feet in length, are faced with pilasters, adorned with balustrades, and crowned with two hundred colossal statues, ten or twelve feet in height, giving a total elevation to the sides of the Piazza of upwards of seventy feet. It is difficult to conceive of an approach exhibiting an air of greater grandeur.

The obelisk consists of one stupendous block of red Egyptian granite, covered like all the others at Rome, with hieroglyphics.* It was brought from Heliopolis, by order of the Emperor Caligula, in a vessel constructed for the purpose; and after being purified from the superstition of the Nile, it was dedicated to the Cæsars and erected in the amphitheatre of Nero. It lay buried in ruins for many ages, till one of the Popes raised it by machinery at an immense expense, absolved it again from the pollution of pagan idolatry, consecrated it to christianity, and mounted it upon its present pedestal, on which it is supported by four lions. The quadrangular, pyramidal shaft is about a hundred and thirty feet in height, with long Latin inscriptions on two of the faces. A horizon is drawn on the pavement, round the pedestal, and the points of the compass marked in the Italian and English languages.

The two copious and exquisitely beautiful fountains form the finest features in this superb arca. They are constantly gushing out in jets d'eaux, in the shape and size of large weeping-willows, sparkling in the sun, and not unfrequently producing an iris. The waters fall into basins of oriental granite, fifty feet in circumference. In this species of ornament, which in point of convenience, cleanliness, and taste, ought to be placed in the very first rank, Rome holds out an example worthy of imitation in all other large cities. Not one of her hundred squares is destitute of fountains, some of which are even superior to those of St. Peter's, splendid as they are. I do not despair of seeing the day, when New-York and other cities in the United States, shall present similar embellishments, equally conducive to health, neatness, and taste.

The triple flights of marble steps, leading to the vestibule of St. Peter's, have not in my opinion that boldness of outline, which is suited to the grandeur of the temple. They are four hundred feet in breadth, and perhaps half that distance in depth, sloping off towards the Piazza,

* A learned antiquary is now engaged in deciphering the inscriptions on these obelisks, and intends shortly to publish a volume, revealing mysteries so long concealed from the world.