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THE LOGGIE OF THE VATICAN. what it was," in the wilderness, a lodging-place of wayfaring men ;"*-that Casino of the Euganean hills, that Home of the Old Age of Petrarch!

Among the mirabilia of the Vatican, the Loggie, immortalized by Raphael and his pupils, are much more talked of than they are either felt or understood. In many melancholy instances, it is to be apprehended, they are confounded with the four stately Stanze embellished by the same illustrious School!

Erecting their triple tier about the Court of San Damaso, and approached by all the old Italian pomp of Staircase, these regal Porticoes scarcely required the exquisite elaborations of Raphael's fancy, or the masterly creations of Raphael's mind to illustrate the naked glory of Bramante's beautiful designs.

The noble Corridors command the most enchanting prospect of this thrice built city of Mars, besides the Mountains, the Pine-woods, the Castles, and the Towns, of its delightful Contorni ; and when, satiated with the voluptuous view, you turn from the harmonious colourings of Nature, to the more brilliant, but not less finely modulated decorations of Art; you are amazed at the prodigal luxuriance with which Painting opens up her every fountain there. Story, Design, and Colour, join in august alliance to decorate the proud pro

• Jeremiah.

THE FRESCOES OF RAPHAEL.

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jections of her sister, Architecture. Vaults radiant with Arabesques, Pannels glowing with Landscape, Medallions, each a masterwork, and each a drama in itself, and Pilasters variegated with delightful imageries of Genii, Birds, Flowers, and Fruits, worthy of their presumptive origin, from the Baths of Titus, absolutely plague you with the admiration they solicit.

That Raphael, the Painter of the Great Judgment, whose pencil could shoot terror into the bosoms of the most obdurate, and elevate to a celestial tone, even the dullest understanding, that he should condescend to luxuriate in these most elegant yet trivial intricacies of Art, what a proof of the elasticity of true Genius! Men so great can well afford to be little!

But then, alas!-but then, before the first flood of enthusiasm has ebbed away, comes the heartsinking conviction, that all this beauty, all this grandeur, all this that ought to be Immortality, consigning a hundred great Names to the Archives of the World, is already a Ruin.

Yes! amidst all the sunshine that irradiates the distant Landscape, and floats over their pillared pavements, amidst all the soft airs that advance wooingly upon the brow, along their shadowed colonnades you look upon these tarnished mildewed and dilapidated triumphs of Art, and fancy you hear the Tempest howling, the Rain streaming, the Snow and Hail rattling, or the Lightning and

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SPLENDID PRODIGALITY.

the Thunder holding their terrific revels in these elegant Corridors! Ah! would there were no vestiges of the pitiless havoc of that Spanish Soldiery, whose wanton violence, anticipating time, seems to have envied the very seasons their charter to destroy.

How reckless were these Pontiff Princes, even of their own magnificence. In embellishing their Temples, and Palaces, and Towns, they gave as much to the Sky, to its suns and to its storms, as they bestowed upon the more tranquil penetralia of their Cabinets and the richest decoration of their Banquet saloons. Believing with consummate assurance, that "to-morrow shall be as today, and yet more abundant," they challenged Time and Tide to do their worst, relying on their own resources against Vicissitude, and confident that they could soon

"repair the golden Flood,

And warm the nations with redoubled ray."*

Ah! could Julius and Leo look upon these mouldering Loggie, and compare them with that illumination of Painting, and Marble, and Gold, matchless productions of munificence and art, which, under their auspices, found, in these Arcades, an illustrious Home; they might groan over their annihilated Pride, or weep above the phantoms of their beloved Delights!

* Gray's Bard.

SCENE ON THE FLAMINIAN WAY. 123

How long hence, (speak, ye Sibylline Leaves !) how long hence, before the wild fig bursts beneath their crumbling balustrades, or the bright network of the ivy embroiders their pilasters, or the silken moss becomes their tapestry, or the jewelled lichens supplant the marbles of their inlaid pavements? Fate only knows!

It may be that Rome will be a City long after this Fiat of her usurped dominion.

Rome, Feast of St. John Baptist, 1844.

I HAVE before me a Vessel filled with the golden Broom flowers, so large of blossom, and of such delicate perfume as Britain never knew; and a bunch of pink Mallows, worthy of a border in her most exclusive Gardens.

They call to my memory a delightful vision of Rural scenery on that Way of the Wilderness, the Via Flaminia, within an evening drive from Rome.

True it was neither extensive nor sublime. Consisting of a few green Knolls overlaid with the yellow blooms I have mentioned, and a long holme of pasture-land, with a Fountain (of course) exuberant in crystal waters, winding among woodland slopes, and grazed by the large-eyed mousecoloured Herds of the country, it offered little to

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MONUMENTAL MISNOMER.

awaken the heart, save the charm of Seclusion and Repose; little to please the eye except its contrast to the dull Campagna, the hot winds, and the Simoom of dust, that persecuted us from Rome, like the Eumenides of old!

But the Place received at once its character and its embellishment, from that towering Sarcophagus, which, in defiance of Chronicle, ay, in the very teeth of its grinning Epitaph, is still designated the Tomb of Nero.

What could poor Publius Marianus, and his Lady with the high sounding name, have done to deserve being turned out of doors a second time, and after being obliged to abandon their mansion of clay for the

Domus exilis Plutonis,

to be ousted from their decent resting place of Marble, in order to make room for that Imperial Proverb of Wickedness? Tradition answereth not. But I do declare, I should not like to walk in these solitary dells by Moonlight; I am certain they must be haunted by their vexed Spirits! I should expect to encounter the worthy Publius, with one of those fat foolish faces one sees in the Busts of the Vatican, or Capitol, all white and flabby in the moonshine; or Regina Maxima, his portly Consort, stalking at his side, tall and austere, with that appalling chevelure, that Cybelian turret of curls, by which the Imperial and