Quodque in eo maxime mirandum est, artificio tam singulari composita est ea moles, ut Echo loquentium voces septies, et octies, distincte, et articulate, referat; ut in exequiis et funere quod Crassus uxori solemniter celebrabat, ejulatus plorantium multiplicaretur in immensum, non secus ac si Dii Manes, et omnes inferorum animæ, fatum Cæciliæ illius commiserati ex imo terræ continuis plangerent ploratibus, suum doloremque testarentur communem, quem lachrymis viventium conjunctum esse vellent.*

However, not even this poetical fiction, nor the hallowed repose due to the dead, averted the profanation, and the thunders, of war, and havoc ; for, about the beginning of the fourteenth century the family of the Savelli here withstood a regular siege by a German army, and the fortress of the tomb, then impregnable, was finally honourably surrendered; afterwards during the civil commotions of the Roman Barons with their Pontiffs, the family of the Gaietani, having possessed themselves of this eternal pile, a second time used it as a fortress, and erected on its summit those battlements now crumbling into dust.

Once again all is hushed and still, and the ivy

*But what is most to be admired is the very curious construction of this pile, by which means, Echo distinctly, and articulately, repeats the human voice seven, and even eight, times; so that amid the funeral pomps which Crassus solemnly celebrated for his lost Cecilia, the sighs and lamentations of the weeping mourners were re-echoed as though the Spirits of the Dead, and the Infernal Deities themselves, bewailed her unhappy fate, and thus in the profundities of the grave mingled their ghostly wailings with the sorrows of the living.

of centuries, friend to the repose of the grave, has crept silently o'er, and around, all, seeking to hide with its ever-verdant leaf the unseemly havoc of cannon, and the unfitting turrets, and battlements, of war.

The Metelli were a Roman family who gave to their country both patriots and warriors. Cecilia's father, Metellus Creticus, was thus named from his conquests in Crete, about 60 years before Christ.

Illustrious by birth; blessed with a husband's love; the deeds of her sires chronicled in the page of history; her own monument eternal; what terrors could the tomb have for Metella?

The Romans were prodigal of monumental grandeur, but this has more; vast, venerable, eternal: the wide prospect around is desert of habitation; the city is distant; and the Angel of Desolation has laid human habitations low; Nature only renovates; ever verdant and here ever tranquil. The pilgrim may pause at this tomb, and may contemplate till the tumultuous passions of his bosom be hushed, and calm, as the air around!

Thence we proceeded to view another Tomb, far less striking in appearance, but equally interesting in its recollections; the subterranean tomb of the most illustrious patriots Rome ever gloried in-the Scipios.

This monument has not been revealed more

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Tomb of the Scipios.

than forty years: the sarcophagi, busts, inscrip tions, &c. have been removed to the Vatican, and of the story, built above the present excavation no vestige remains. Dark and dismal, as are these mouldering caverns after the lapse, and neglect, of 2000 years, methinks, the records yet remaining written on the walls; and the niches, where once reposed the bones of these illustrious dead, may kindle the flame of patriotism to light the dreary

way.

A very different object comes next. The Fountain of Egeria, the Goddess Nymph whom Numa Pompilius, second King of Rome, is said to have been in the habit of visiting, and from her divine oracles to have received those precepts, and laws, which his people willingly obeyed.

Numa, who was married to Tatia, daughter of the King of the Sabines, spent his life in philosophic retirement. Called to the throne by the will of the people, at the death of Romulus, some celestial fiction was necessary to give currency to laws proposed by him for the government of so unsettled a state. He reigned 43 years to the benefit of ancient Rome, and died 672 years B. C.

The situation of the Grot is romantic, and retired; and still there issues from it the same pure stream which probably Numa, and other Romans, had quaffed, and which I, therefore, quaffed also. This flows on unaltered and unalterable; all else