Parifians in bearing, and in a quarter which was for a long time the beauty of Paris, and clofe by the walks of that quarter, the tench and many inconveniences of an open fewer, without any water running into it, loft in dead grounds, and the infected atmosphere of which over-fpread no finall part of the garden ground fupplying that great city. At length, M. Turgot was the man who contrived and made a stone-work-fewer, which, by means of the water running through, and thus cooling and cleaning it, fhould equal thofe at Rome; yet it is but little above twenty years fincé fuch a city (thanks to that valuable citizen) has been provided with a convenience of fuch importance: tantæ molis erat, c!

The reafons of neceflity, which called for fach an undertaking at Paris, did not exist in Rome under Romulus and Tarquin.. Its inhabitants may be fuppofed to have been none of the most delicate perfons: it flood fcambiing along the Tiber, on hills and eminences, the vallies of which were natural drains for the waters and filth, difcharging them into that river.

ANTIQUITIES in the VATICAN and CAPITOL.

The ruins with which the inhabited parts of ancient Rome are covered muft naturally affect the antiquarians, as reprefenting to their imagination various monuments of the magnificence and grandeur of ancient Rome. The Vatican and the Capitol, amidit the multitude of ftatues and bufts efcaped from the ravages of time and barbarifm, exhibit fome which

every eye muft behold with pleafure. The Vatican antiques are as univerfally known as St. Peter's. The Mufæum Capitolinum, in giv ing the curious an idea of thofe which Benedict XIV. has affembled in the Capitol, at the fame time muft excite an eager defire of feeing fuch beauties. The intent of Leo X. and Benedict XIV. in forming thefe collections, was to fecure the enjoyment of them to the public: how different from that croud of rapacious popes and nephews, whofe leading view leading view was to enrich their houfes with the spoils of ancient Rome! It is, however, to be wifh. ed, that these collections were abfo

lutely public, and that they who are entrusted with the keeping of them did not fell the fight of them, and fcrew an income out of the ar tifts who are obliged to study them: fuch a monopoly correfponds nei ther with the magnificence nor the intentions of a master, who has fo many ways for providing for perfons of this clafs.

The villas of Borghese, Pamphili, Medicis, &c. the palaces of Farnefe, Barberini, Verofpi, Maf fimi, Albani, &c. are likewife very rich in antiques; but nothing equals, if not in choice, at leaft in quantity, thofe of the Juftiniani palace. The apartments, the faircafe, court, walls, every corner of this palace are filled or covered with antiques in a word, under a large shed belonging where are piled up all thofe for which room could not be found, one fees at once more than are to be found in all Europe, Reme and Florence excepted. At the fight of fuch riches we admire the mu nificence of the prince which has thus provided for their confervation;

but

but the quantity rather aftonifhes than fatisfies.

Befides, all thefe pieces, though real antiques, are far from being equally valuable. Every artian, who had an hand in filling Rome with monuments of this kind, was not a Phidias or an Apollodorus; the majority of them only copying their most celebrated pieces: every where one meets with copies of the Venus of Medicis, fome good, fome middling, and often very bad. I faw one at Rome which had been lately difcovered, and pretty well repaired, fet out for fale in a workfhop near La Trinitá di Monte. The repair which moft of thefe antiques feem to require, is a very dangerous trial, in which they are always lofers it were perhaps to be wifhed, that they were treated after the example of Michael Angelo with the celebrated Torfo of the Vatican, the repair of which he modeftly declined as above his skill, great as it was. The tradition which had attributed to him the repairing of Laocoon, is manifeilly falfe; the fecond-hand legs and arms bearing no proportion to the bodies to which they have been fitted.

Cardinal ALBANI'S PALACE.

Cardinal Alexander Albani is at prefent the capital repairer of antiquity. With him the moft muti lated, moft disfigured, moft irre. mediable pieces recover their original beauty: nova facit omnia: the fragment of a buft, which, even when entire, all antiquaries would have difregarded as una tefta incognitiffima, from him receives, with new life, a name which irrevocably perpetuates its rank.

As a repofitory for thofe pieces,

a

he was building, without the Salara gate, a palace in the tafte of thofe of ancient Rome. Its front is covered with exquifite embellishments, and interfected by a portice, over which runs the firft ftory; a difpofition which, if it cools the ground-floor apartments as fhaded by the portico, leaves them only a falfe light. This front faces parterre with fine water-works, and innumerable antiques, terminating in a vaft femi-circular portico, which is open towards the garden, furmounted with a contiguous balustrade, and the outward parts mured. This portico puts one the more in mind of the xyfti, or covered walks, of the Romans, as being flocked with thofe objects with which a learned luxury delighted to embellifh them; that is, the ftatues and bufts of the most eminent perfonages. To ftatues and bufts cardinal Albani has added altars, tombs, bas-reliefs, and monuments of all kinds, and all in part made whole by new work. It is in buftos that these renovations chiefly fhew themfelves, in the nofes, the ears, and whole parts fitted to those which time has fpared. Thus one fees there the Grecian poets, philofophers, and orators, with amend. ments and additions; and the name of each newly engraved in Greek characters. We had feen cardinal Albani before, feeing his palace; and on our intimating a defire of admiring that ftructure and its inestimable contents, he anfwered with fomething of a fneer, "It is not made for eyes used to "the wonders of French archi"tecture: to you the plan must appear chimerical, and the per

66

"formance execrable." K 3

Car

TAGE.

With lefs expence and parade cardinal Paflionei had built and ornamented his Camalduli hermitage. This hermitage, contrived on the fide of the mountain of Frefcati, had a profpect of Rome, part of the Campania and its fea, with an horizontal view of the Rufinella of the Jefuits lying under it. The difpofition was modelled from the irregularity of the ground. The apartments formed as many infulated pavilions, difperfed among groves communicating along ferpentine paths: and thefe paths ended at the main walk, which itfelf was laid out only as the mountain would permit, being cut in it like a little bank. Along the borders of this walk, of thefe paths, and thefe groves, were placed funeral monuments which the cheerful verdure around them enlivened.

Thefe monuments were ancient tombs of all dimenfions, urns of different figures, moftly very uncommon, and Greek and Latin epitaphs of all ages. The moft remarkable piece, at leaft in its bulk, was the tomb of an emperor of the lower ages. Cardinal Albani, to whom it belonged, had made an offer of it to cardinal Paffionei, with the exprefs provifo that he fhould hoift it into his hermitage, fuppofing this to be utterly impoflible; however, cardinal Paf fionei, by dint of machines and oxen, at length effected it.

Among the epitaphs, that on a Greek actress attracted particular notice, being of a great length, in characters of the best times, and finely preferved. I was for copying thofe infcriptions which I thought

the cardinal faved me that trouble, informing me that he had fent a complete collection of them to the Royal Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris.

In the dining room flood a ciftern taken out of the ruins of Adrian's villa at Tivoli. It was an oblong fquare of four feet to three, and one in depth, and pierced in its centre for a tube: which, playing at meal time, furnished water for drinking, and rinfing the glaffes: this water, equally excellent for its coolness and quality, is the very fame which watered Cicero's Tufculanum : the cardinal having alighted on the ancient pipes. I never faw any goldfmith's work comparable to this ciftern, either for elegancy of form, tafte of the ornaments, or delicacy of workmanship. of workmanship. The cardinal, in his pavilion, had a closet of books rather choice than many. In the moft confpicuous part of this clofet hung a portrait of the celebrated M. Arnaud, a Sorbonne doctor; and near it was a large octavo bound in green, without a title: on opening it, there was the Lettres Provinciales in five languages.

But this hermitage had nothing fo extraordinary in it, as its founder: he was free, open, and juft, in his converfations, in his dealings, and all his actions; in a word, cardinal Paffionei was really a phænomenon in a country and a court, which are the very centre of intrigue and the most artful practices. In his love of literature he had no cqual: nobody ever fhewed more ardour in promoting it, and nobody ever more heartily detefted the je; fuits: this love and this hatred were the two fprings of his views, his fchemes, and his whole con

duct.

the growth of the beard from portraits, and other remains of antiquity, I find that it never flourished more in England, than in the century preceding the Norman conqueft. That of Edward the Confeffor was remarkably large, as appears from his feal in Speed's Theatre of Great Britain." After the conqueror took poffeffion of the kingdom, beards became unfashionable, and were probably looked upon as badges of difloyalty, as the Normans wore only whiskers. It is faid, that the English fpies took thofe invaders for an army of priests, as they appeared to be without beards.

I

MARY.

HAVE before obferved, that much the fame kind of drefs which was worn by Henry VIII. in the former part of his reign, is now worn by the yeomen of the guard. It is no lefs remarkable, that the most confpicuous and diftinguishing part of a cardinal's habit, which had been banished from England ever fince the death of cardinal Pole, is alfo now worn by the lowest order of females, and is called a cardinal.

I take the reign of Mary to be the era of ruffs and farthingales, as they were first brought hither from Spain. Howell tells us in his "Letters," that the Spanish word for a farthingale literally tranilated, fignifies cover-infant, as if it was intended to conceal pregnancy. It is perhaps of more honourable extraction, and might fignify coverinfanta.

A blooming virgin in this age feems to have been more folicitous

wom

to hide her fkin, than a rivelled-old woman is at prefent. The very neck was generally concealed; the arms were covered quite to the wrifts; the petticoats were long, and the head-gear, or coi fure, clofe; to which was fome, times faftened a light veil, which fell down behind, as if intended occafionally to conceal even the face.

If I may depend on the autho rity of engraved portraits, the beard extended and expanded itfelf more during the fhort reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, than from the conqueft to that period. Bishop Gardiner has a beard long and ftreaming like a comet. The beard of cardinal Pole is thick and buthy; but this might poffibly be Italian. The patriarchal beard, as I find it in the tapestries of those times, is both long and large; but this feems to have been the inven tion of the painters, who drew the cartoons. This venerable appendage to the face, was formerly greatly regarded. Though learned authors have written for and against almost every thing, I never faw any thing written against the beard. The pamphlets on the "Unlove"linefs of Love-locks, and the "Mifchief of long Hair," made much noife in the kingdom, in the reign of Charles I.