was of the family of Barbarini, presented as much of this metal to his nephew as was sufficient for the decoration of his new palaces, on which occasion this pasquinade was stuck up:

Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecere Barbarini.

Alexander VII. did what Urban had neglected to do. He ordered search to be made for pillars to match those of the portico of the Pantheon, and some were found of the very same model. He also caused all the old houses before the portico to be pulled down, and the rubbish to be cleared away which covered the steps and the bases of the pillars. Clement IX. enclosed the portico with iron rails. Several later popes have added to its decorations, which were all in the taste of the times they were done in, and the body of the edifice and its architecture gained nothing from them.

ANTIQUITIES OF BENEVENTO, IN ITALY.

THE arch of Trajan, now called the Porta Aurea, forms one of the entrances to the city. This arch, though it appears to great disadvantage, from the walls and houses that hem it in on all sides, is in tolerable preservation, and is one of the most magnificent remains of Roman grandeur to be met with out of Rome. The architecture and sculpture are both singularly beautiful. This elegant monument was erected A. D. 114, about the commencement of the Parthian war, and after the submission of Decebalus had entitled Trajan to the surname of Dacicus. The order is Composite; the materials, white marble; the height, sixty palms; length, thirty-seven and a half; and depth, twenty-four. It consists of a single arch, the span of which is twenty palms, the height thirty-five. On each side of it, two fluted columns, upon a joint pedestal, support an entablement and an attic. The intercolumniations and frieze are covered with basso-relievos, representing the battles and triumphs of the Dacian war. In the attic is the inscription. As the sixth year of Trajan's consulate, marked on this, is also to be seen on all the different columns he erected along his new road to Brundusium, it is probable that the arch was built to commemorate so beneficial an undertaking. Except the old metropolis of the world, no city in Italy can boast of so many remains of ancient sculpture as Benevento. Scarce a wall is built of any thing but altars, tombs, columns, and remains of entablatures.

The cathedral is a clumsy edifice, in a style of Gothic, or rather Lombard architecture. The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built in the sixth century, enlarged in the eleventh, and altered considerably in the thirteenth, when archbishop Panger adorned it with a new front. To obtain a sufficient quantity of marble for this purpose, he spared neither sarcophagus, altar, nor inscription, but fixed them promiscuously and irregularly in the walls of his barbarous structure. Three doors, a type of the Trinity, according to the rules established by the mystical virtuosi of those ages, open into this facade. That in the centre is of bronze, embossed with the life of Christ, and the effigies of the Beneventine metropolitan, with all his suffragan bishops. The inside offers nothing to the curious observer but

columns, altars, and other decorations, executed in the most inelegant style that any of the church-building barbarians ever adopted. In the courtyard stands a small Egyptian obelisk, of red granite, crowded with hieroglyphics. In the adjoining square is a fountain, and a very indifferent statue of Benedict XIII. long archbishop of Bene

vento,

TEMPLE OF JUPITER AT OLYMPIA.

THIS temple was of the Doric order, sixty-eight feet high to the pediment, ninety-five wide, and two hundred and thirty long; the cell encompassed with the columns. It was erected with the country stone; the roof was not of earth baked, but of Pentelie marble, the slabs disposed as tiles; the way to it was up a winding staircase. The two pediments were enriched with sculpture, and one had over the centre a statue of Victory gilded, and underneath a votive buckler of gold. At each corner was a gilded vase. Above the columns were fixed 21 gilded bucklers, offered, at the conclusion of the Achean war, by the Roman general Mummius. The gates in the two fronts were of brass, and over them were carved the Labours of Hercules. Within the cell were double colonnades, between which was the approach to the image.

The Jupiter of Olympia immortalized its maker, Phidias. It was of ivory and gold, the head crowned with olive. In the right hand was a statue of Victory; in the left a flowered sceptre, composed of various metals, on which was an eagle. The sandals were of gold, as also the vestment, which was curiously embossed with lilies and animals. The throne was gold inlaid with ebony and ivory, and studded with jewels, intermixed with paintings, and exquisite figures in relievo. The pillars between the feet contributed to its support. Before it were walls, serving as a fence, decorated principally with the exploits of Hercules. The portion opposite the door was of a blue colour. It was the office of a family descended from Phidias, called Phædruntæ, or the polisher, to keep the work bright and clean. The veil or curtain was cloth rich with the purple dye of Phoenicia, and with Assyrian embroidery, an offering to king Antiochus, and was let down from above by strings.

The image appeared higher and broader than it measured. Its magnitude was such, that though the temple was very large, the artist seemed to have erred in the proportions. The god, though sitting, nearly touched the ceiling with his head. A part of the pavement before it was of black marble, enclosed in a rim of Parian or white, where they poured oil to preserve the ivory.

The altar of Jupiter Olympius was of great antiquity, and covered with ashes from the thighs of the victims, which were carried up and consumed on the top with wood of the white poplar-tree. The ashes also of the Prytaneum, in which a perpetual fire was kept on a hearth, were removed annually on a fixed day, and spread on it, being first mingled with water from the Alpheus. The cement was made with that fluid only; and therefore this river was esteemed the most friendly of any to the god. On each side of the altar were stone steps. Its

height was twenty-two feet. Girls and women were allowed to ascend the basement, which was one hundred and twenty-five feet in circumference. The people of Elis sacrificed daily, and private persons as often as they chose.

'ABY DUS.

ABYDUS is a town in Egypt, famous for the palace of Memnon, and the temple of Osiris, and inhabited by a colony of Milesians. It was the only one in the country, into which the singers and dancers were forbidden to enter. This city, reduced to a village under the empire of Augustus, now presents to our view only a heap of ruins, without inhabitants; but to the west of these ruins is still found the celebrated tomb of Ismandes. The entrance is under a portico, sixty feet high, and supported by two rows of massy columns. The inmoveable solidity of the edifice, the huge masses which compose it, the hieroglyphics it is loaded with, stamp it a work of the ancient Egyptians.

Beyond it is a temple three hundred feet long, and one hundred and fifty-five wide. Upon entering the monument, we meet with an immense hall, the roof of which is supported by twenty-eight columns, sixty feet high, and nineteen in circumference at the base; they are twelve feet distant from each other. The enormous stones that form the ceiling, perfectly joined and incrusted as if they were one, presented to the eye nothing but one solid platform of marble, one hundred and twenty-six feet long, and twenty-six feet wide. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics. One sees there a number of animals, birds, and human figures, with pointed caps on their heads, and a piece of stuff hanging down behind, and dressed in loose robes that come down only to the waist. The sculpture, however, is clumsy; the forms of the body, the attitudes and proportions of the members, ill observed. Amongst these we may distinguish some women suckling their children, and men presenting offerings to them. Here also we meet with the divinities of India.

Monsieur Chevalier, formerly governor of Chandenagore, who resided twenty years in that country, carefully visited the monument on his return from Bengal. He remarked here the gods Juggernaut, Gonez, and Vechnou or Wistnou, such as they are represented in the temples of Indostan. A great gate opens at the bottom of the first hall, which leads to an apartment forty-six feet long, by twenty-two wide. Six square pillars support the roof of it, and at the angles are the doors of four other chambers, but so choked up with rubbish, that they cannot now be entered. The last hall, sixtyfour feet long by twenty-four wide, has stairs by which one descends into the subterraneous apartments of this grand edifice. The Arabs, in searching after treasure, have piled up heaps of earth and rubbish. In the part we were able to penetrate, sculpture and hieroglyphics are discoverable, as in the upper story. The natives say that they correspond exactly with those above ground, and that the columns are as deep in the earth, as they are lofty above ground. It would be dangerous to go far into these vaults; for the air of them is so loaded

with a mephitic vapour, that a candle can scarcely be kept burning in them. Six lions' heads, placed on the two sides of the temple, serve as spouts to carry away the water. The ascent to the top is by a staircase of a very singular structure. It is built with stones incrusted in the wall, and projecting six feet out; so that being supported only at one end, they appear to be suspended in the air.

The walls, the roof, and the columns of this edifice, have suffered nothing from the injuries of time; and did not the hieroglyphics, by being corroded in some places, mark its antiquity, it would appear to have been newly built. The solidity is such, that unless people make a point of destroying it, the building must last for a number of ages. Except the colossal figures, whose heads serve as an ornament to the capitals of the columns, and which are sculptured in relievo, the rest of the hieroglyphics which cover the inside are carved in stone. То the left of this great building we meet with another, much smaller, at the bottom of which is a sort of altar. This was probably the sanctuary of the temple of Osiris.

CURIOSITIES OF BOMBAY.

AMONG the curiosities of Bombay, Mr. Ives mentions a very large terapin, or tortoise, kept at the governor's house, the age of which was upwards of two hundred years. Frogs, which abound every where through the East Indies, are very large at Bombay. Our author saw one that measured twenty-two inches from the extremities of the fore and hind feet when extended, and he supposes that its weight could not have been less than four or five pounds. On the sea shore, round the island, are a great variety of beautiful shells, particularly the sort called ventle-traps, or wentle-traps, held in great esteem among the ladies some time ago. Several pounds sterling are said to have been given by a virtuoso for one of these shells, when commodore Leslies' collection of shells was sold by auction.

Mr. Ives enumerates the following kinds of snakes found in this island and other parts of the British empire in the East Indies. 1. The Cobra de Capella, which grows from four to eight or nine feet long. Their bite kills in fifteen minutes. 2. The Cobra Manilia is a small blueish snake, of the size of a man's little finger, and about a foot long, frequently seen about old walls. A species of these, found at Bombay, kill much sooner than even the former. 3. The Palaira, a very thin beautiful snake, of different colours; its head is like that of the common viper, but much thicker than the body. Our author saw one that was four feet long, and not much thicker than a swan's quill. 4. The Green Snake is of a very bright green colour, with a sharp head; towards the tail it is much smaller than in the middle. The largest part of it is no bigger than a tobacco-pipe. 5. The Sand Snake is small and short, but not less deadly than the others. 6. The Cobra de Aurelia resembles an earth-worm, is about six inches long, and no bigger than a small crow-quill. It kills by getting into the ear, causing madness, &c. 7. The Manilia Bomba is a very beautiful snake, of about the same size throughout the whole length, except at the two ends, where it comes to a point. It is white in the

belly, but finely variegated on the back. It lives in the sand, and the sting which it inflicts with its tail, is said also to occasion contractions in the joints.

PRISON IN VENICE.

WHEN I was in Venice, says Moseley, I descended into the cells of the Prigoni Publiche, or Great Common Prison.-Here-even herethe soul of man clings to his body; and shews no more symptoms, or prescience, of immortality, than if that body were on a bed of down, canopied in a gorgeous palace.

In the morning, when I set out on this gloomy expedition, Dominico Zacchi, my Venetian servant, who had attended Lord St. Asaph, Sir George Beaumont, and several other English travellers, during their residence at Venice, took his leave of me. This was on the sixteenth of September, 1787. Dominico thought that I would never return, or, if I did, I might "a tale unfold" that would endanger my safety at Venice. But he said, from what he had heard, he did not think it possible for me to survive the foul and pestilential air I had to

encounter.

My design was to see the perfection-the far-farmed ultimatum of policy-the immured for life in solitary cells.

The late Mr. John Howard, F. R. S. was at the prison when he was in Venice; but he only heard something, and saw nothing, of this prison of prisons.

He had not bodily strength to bear the exertion required in such an undertaking; neither do I believe he would have been suffered to enter them. It was with some difficulty that I obtained permission from the inquisitors, which was granted me merely on account of my being an English physician; a character much respected at that time in Venice. I wished to have seen the Sotto Piombi, where the state prisoners were kept, but that was refused. Here, under the roof of the public buildings, they are confined; exposed to the rigour of winter's cold and summer's heat, and the vicissitudes of scorching days and chilling nights.

I was conducted through the prison by one of its inferior dependants. We had a torch with us, and crept along narrow passages as dark as pitch. In some of them two people could scarcely pass each other. The cells are made of massy marble; the architecture of the celebrated Sansovine.

The cells are not only dark and black as ink, but being surrounded and confined with huge walls, the smallest breath of air can scarcely find circulation in them; they are about nine feet square on the floor, arched at the top, and between six and seven high in the highest part. There is to each cell a round hole of eight inches diameter, through which the prisoner's daily allowance of twelve ounces of bread and a pot of water is delivered. There is a small iron door to the cell. The furniture of the cell is a little straw, and a small tub; nothing else. The straw is renewed, and the tub emptied, occasionally, through the iron door.

The diet is ingeniously contrived for perpetuating punishment.