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doubtful authority.

There is a coin of Cara

calla's with a circus on the reverse side;-here is a circus that wants an owner;-how easy the inference then, that it must have been Caracalla's! It has suffered so little alteration from time, that the whole shape and extent are as distinct as they could have been 1,500 years ago. By the way, the circus of the Romans is any thing but a circle. It is a narrow oblong, with rounded ends. Up the middle ran the spina, round which the chariots turned ;—and it must have required very delicate driving. The length of the circus is 1,630 French feet, the breadth 330. The walls of the two meta are still standing;-and the obelisk, which now stands in the Piazza Navona, once stood in the middle of it.

From hence I drove to the Fountain of Egeria; which is doubtful again; and cannot well be reconciled with the description of Juvenal, as to its locality. It is, however, a pretty fountain in a pretty valley: and, if it be the fountain of which Juvenal speaks, time has at least realized his wish, and the water is now again inclosed, viridi margine, "with a border of eternal green ;"—and the only marble that profanes the native stone, is a headless statue, but not of the nymph Egeria;

for it is evidently of the male sex, and was probably intended for the god of the stream which flowed from this spring. I can vouch for the excellence of the water, of which I took a copious draught.

CHAPTER IV.

St. Peter's-Resemblance between Catholic and Heathen Ceremonies Christmas Day- Baths of Dioclesian Funeral Rites-Palaces-Fountains-Pantheon-Tarpeian Rock-Close of the Year.

December 23d. A LONG morning at St. Peter's-of which I have hitherto said nothing, though I have visited it often. All my expectations were answered by the first impression of this sublime temple. It may be true that, on first entering, you are less struck than might be supposed with the immensity of the building. But this, I believe, is entirely the fault of our eyes ;—which are, indeed, the "fools of the senses;"-and we are only taught to see, by reason and experience. In St. Peter's, so much attention has been paid to preserve the relative proportions of all the parts, that for some time you do not perceive the largeness of the scale. For example, the figures of the Evangelists, which decorate the inside of the cupola, scarcely appear to be larger than life, and yet the pen in St. Mark's hand is six feet long, from which one may calculate their real stature.

The fact is, that nothing is great or little but by

comparison; and where no familiar object exists to assist the judgment, the eye readily accustoms itself to any scale.

Gulliver says very naturally, that he lived with the Brobdingnagians, without being fully sensible of their stupendous size; but that he was most forcibly impressed with it, on his return to England, by the contrast of his own diminutive countrymen. In the same manner it is, when you enter any other church, that you are most struck with the prodigious superiority of St. Peter's, in magnitude and grandeur.

There is, indeed, one exception to the harmony of proportion in the inside of St. Peter's. The statue of the Apostle himself, which was changed from an old Jupiter Capitolinus, by a touch of the Pope's wand ;-this famous St. Peter is seated in an arm-chair, on the right hand of the altar, and is scarcely above the size of life.

It was the contrast afforded by this statue, that first made me fully sensible of the magnitude of every thing else.

It is to be lamented that Michael Angelo's plan was not adhered to, whose intention was that the figure of the church should have been a Greek

cross.

The advantage of this form is, that it ex

hibits the whole structure at one coup d'œil. In the Latin cross accompanied with aisles—as is the case in St. Peter's-the effect is frittered away, and instead of one great whole, there are, in fact, four churches under one roof. In spite, however, of all that the last architect has done to spoil it, St. Peter's stands, beyond all comparison, the most magnificent temple ever raised by mortal hands to the worship of the Supreme Being. It is a spectacle that never tires ;-you may visit it every day, and always find something new to admire. Then, its temperature is delightful ;-after starving in the cold and comfortless galleries of the Vatican, it is a luxury indeed to enjoy the mild and genial air in the interior of St. Peter's; and I am told, the church is as pleasantly cool in summer, as it is comfortably warm in winter. The fact is, the walls are so thick, and it is so wholly free from damp, that the air within is not affected by that without; so that, like a wellbuilt cellar, it enjoys an equability of temperature all the year round.

Immediately under the glorious cupola, is the tomb of St. Peter, round which a hundred lamps are constantly burning; and above, written in large characters on the frieze in the inside of the

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