"medallas desconocidas." The same character also lurks in many magical books, though under other combinations. It may be considered as a wild speculation to discover the traces of ancient mythology in a schoolboy's scrawl; but a remarkable instance can be given of the strange stubborn vitality of these vestiges of the superstitions of the elder day. We often see English in the turf,

shepherds cutting the pentalpha ☆

although they never heard of Antiochus or saw his coin, and although they are ignorant of its mystic

power.

Sir William Jones, with his usual taste and research, has drawn a parallel between the deities of Meru and Olympus and an enthusiast might, perhaps, maintain that the vases of Alba Longa were a relic of the times when one religion prevailed in Latium and Hindûstan. It is most singular that the Hindû cross is precisely the hammer of Thor.

It may finally be observed, that, supposing the state of remote society to have existed which the Italian antiquary assigns to the hill, and supposing these relics to have been suddenly overwhelmed by the volcano in those unknown ages, some other vestiges besides sepulchral deposits would have been found to attest the same industry and skill in the arts which are manifested in these specimens.

Notwithstanding, however, these difficulties and a

division of opinion even amongst the Romans, the discovery of the Alban vases has been considered of much importance, and has transported the antiquaries into ages and amongst nations where, having no guide to lead, and no witnesses to contradict them, they may form leisurely a world of their own.*

VATICAN.

This stupendous collection adds daily to its treasures, and there are many marbles for which no place has yet been found. The Borgian apartments have received many new and several well-known specimens of ancient art. The frescoes which I saw on the walls of the Villa of Munatia Procula, when first discovered in 1822, have found their way to this chamber. The five heroines are painted at full length, and, having no feature or symbol to distinguish them, except the bull of Pasiphäe, the artist has taken care to add their names- a common contrivance on the pictures of vases, but not so frequent in frescoes. The companions of Pasiphäe are Scylla, Myrrha, Canace, and Phædra. Such ladies might, as the elder Madame de Staël said of herself, have been well contented with a bust: how they came to be favourites with

*The conjecture that the vases might be Gothic, of the time of Totila, was afterwards adopted by Professor Nibby in his 'Viaggio Antiquario.'

Munatia Procula it is difficult even to conjecture. They would have been no very inappropriate ornaments of the apartments where they are now found, when occupied by the Borgian family; but the prudent Pinturicchio took care to employ his pencil on other subjects-for the fresco next to the Ascension of our Saviour represents Alexander VI. himself playing a conspicuous part at the general resurrection. It must have been particularly edifying to the holy father and his daughter Lucretia to have "stared devoutly" on these painted ceilings, particularly on a composition which is thus described in the guide-books: "S. Barbara che si toglie dalle insidie del padre."

In the same apartment are now to be seen the famous "Nozze Aldobrandini," until lately the property of a private gentleman. The learned, after much wrangling, seem to resolve that this is the bridal of Peleus and Thetis; but this is only a guess. That the costume is not Roman is quite clear; yet there have been connoisseurs who resorted to the epithalamiums of Catullus and of Statius for the origin of this picture. The friezes from the Forum of Trajan, exhibited in these apartments, show a specimen of workmanship as delicate and highly finished as the intaglio of a cabinet: yet they were viewed at a height of fifty feet, perhaps, from the ground. The Boxers in relief were found in the same forum; so also was the large portrait of Trajan, also in relief, which has been restored by Thorwaldsen.

CORRIDOR OF BRAMANTE.

The Corridor of Bramante may be said to contain the largest collection of sepulchral inscriptions in the world. Though the great mass of them are filled with unheardof names, yet there is something interesting in feeling ourselves at once, as it were, in the midst of long-past generations, speaking to us by records more certain and more affecting than any history, however eloquent. This is the charm of Pompej and Herculaneum.

Here, as in the Villa Albani and elsewhere, I remark that the elder ancients did not usually vary their expressions of regret or admiration, nor give scope to their feelings upon the tombstones of their friends, in the style of modern epitaphs. The wives are generally "dearest" and "sweetest," the husbands "well deserving;" the patron or powerful friend is, for the most part, "the best" of his kind; but the higher the quality, the shorter and simpler the praise. The flowers of poetry are generally reserved for respectable concubines or faithful fellow-freedmen. Nothing can be shorter or plainer than the inscriptions which tell on what spot the Lords of the Roman World were reduced to ashes :

TI. CAESAR

GERMANICI CAESARIS F

HIC CREMATUS EST.

TI. CAESAR.

DRUSI CAESARIS F

HIC SITUS EST

In the degeneracy of the arts the humblest and easiest accomplishment seems to have been as unattainable as the highest effort of art; and the date of a tomb or a milestone may be guessed as much by the form of the letters, as that of the frieze of a temple, or the face of a statue, by the style and finish of the sculpture: yet mere imitation might have produced a broad, well-defined, deeply-cut, straight, or curved line. No more was

wanted.

In ranging over the vast never-ending galleries and superb saloons, studded as they are with innumerable columns, statues, busts, reliefs, mosaics, and other specimens of art, of every imaginable shape and kind, the stranger may easily imagine himself in some old imperial residence, amidst the fresh unmutilated masterpieces of antiquity; but could these wonderful works be suddenly reduced to the state in which they were first discovered, he would be still more surprised at the ingenuity and hardihood which, from headless trunks, fractured limbs, disfigured busts, and fragments of drapery, have composed an august assemblage and a tolerably complete series of

* These are on stones which serve as pedestals to statues in the statue gallery, near the Ariadne, found, I believe, in the mausoleum of Augustus.