but the quantity rather aftonishes than fatisfies.

Befides, all these pieces, though real antiques, are far from being equally valuable. Every artifan, 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 moft 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 most of these antiques feem to require, is a very dangerous trial, in which they are always lofers: it were perhaps to be wished, 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 fkill, great as it was. The tradition which had attributed to him the repairing of Laocoon, is manifeftly falfe; the fecond-hand legs and bearing no proportion to the bodies to which they have been fitted.

arms

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 a 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 baluftrade, and the outward parts mured. This portico puts one the more in mind of the xyfti, or covered walks, of the Romans, as being stocked with thofe objects with which a learned luxury delighted to embellish them; that is, the ftatues and bufts of the mcft 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 thefe 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 structure and its ineftimable contents, he anfwered with fomething of a fneer, "It is not made for eyes ufed to "the wonders of French archi"tecture: to you the plan muft "C appear chimerical, and the per"formance execrable."

TAGE.

With lefs expence and parade cardinal Paffionei had built and ornamented his Camalduli hermi

tage. 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 Greck 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 impoffible; however, cardinal Paffionei, 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 stood 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 workmanfhip. The cardinal, in his pavilion, had a clofet of books rather choice than many. In the most 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 equal: 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.

duct. An unexpected restraint on his declared fentiments proved his death: though eighty years of age, his genius and constitution retained all their vigour.

His decease was followed by the fpeedy deftruction of his hermitage: the people of Camalduli, on whofe ground it was built, feconded by their neighbours, immediately fell to pulling down a place which he had formed, and was his fupreme delight. I have heard, that, to make the quicker work in its demolition, his rancorous enemies

tumbled down from the mountain moft of the monuments, which the cardinal had placed there.

To the Roman antiques, with which I was moft taken, I think I may add one of a very remarkable kind indeed, and difcovered but a little before my arrival.

The abbot Mazeas had accompanied the bishop of Laon, when going to Rome as ambaffador from France. Though the account given by Spartian of the magnifi cence with which the emperor Adrian had collected for his houfe at Tivoli, the most remarkable products of the feveral provinces of the empire, be but fuperficial, this learned Frenchman under ook from it to fearch the ground on which the ruins of that houfe lie fcattered. Among fome plants quite foreign to the foil of Rome, and which have perpetuated them felves on this ground, he perceived a fhrub emitting a kind of gum, made ufe of by the labouring peafants for perfuming their fnuff. The first thrubs of this fpecies which he examined were weak and knotty; but advancing towards an eminence intercepting the north

wind, he perceived others very vis gorous, and to be nothing less than that valuable fhrub from which the Arabians gather the balfam of Mecca, and by the emperor Adrian imported and cultivated in his gardens at Tivoli. The abbot Mazeas, it is to be prefumed, will communicate to fome of the academies, of which he is a member, the particulars of his obfervations, and the difcoveries arifing from them.

The following curious Enquires into the Modes of Fashion and Dress of our Ancestors at different Periods, taken from Grainger's Biographical Hiftory of England, will, we doubt not, prove very entertaining to fuck of our readers as have not had an opportunity of Seeing the original.

IN

HENRY VIII.

N the reign of Richard II. the peaks, or tops, of shoes and boots were worn of fo enormous a length, that they were tied to the knees. A law was made in the fame reign, to limit them to two inches. The variety of dreffes worn in the reign of Henry the Eighth, may be concluded from the print of the naked Englishman, holding a piece of cloth, and a pair of fhears, in Borde's "Introduction to Know"ledge." The drefs of the king and the nobles, in the beginning of this reign, was not unlike that worn by the yeomen of the guard at prefent. This was probably aped by inferior perfons. It is recorded, that "Anne Bolen wore "yellow mourning for Catharine "of Arragon."

As far as I have been able to trace

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." Af ter 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 moft confpicuous and diftinguifhing 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 translated, fignifies cover-infant, as if it was intended to conceal pregnancy. is perhaps of more honourable extraction, and might fignify coverinfanta.

It

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

worn

to hide her skin, 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 coifure, clofe; to which was fomnetimes faftened a light veil, which fell down behind, as if intended occafionally to conceal even the face.

If I may depend on the authority of engraved portraits, the beard extended and expanded it. felf 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 bufhy; but this might poffibly be Italian. The patriarchal beard, as I find it in the tapestries of thofe times, is both long and large; but this feems to have been the invention 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 almoft every thing, I never faw any thing written againft 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.