people know as much of places as one's self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to write to you of Westminster Abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, &c. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularized there, it would appear transcribing to write upon the same subjects. I know you will hate me for this declaration; I remember how ill I used to take it when any body served me so that was travelling. Well, I will tell Well, I will tell you something if you will love me: you have seen prints of the ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica; you shall only hear its situation, and then figure what a villa might be laid out there.

'Tis in the middle of a garden at a little distance are two subterraneous grottos, which were the burial-places of the liberti of Augustus. There are all the niches and covers of the urns with the inscriptions remaining; and in one very considerable remains of an ancient stucco ceiling, with paintings in grotesque.

Some of the walks would terminate upon the Castellum Aquæ Martiæ, St. John Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, besides other churches; the walls of the garden would be two aqueducts, and the entrance through one of the old gates of Rome. This glorious spot is neglected, and only serves for a small vineyard and kitchen garden.

I am very glad that I see Rome while it yet exists; before a great number of years are elapsed, I question whether it will be worth seeing. Between the ignorance and poverty of the present Romans, every thing is neglected and falling to decay; the villas are entirely out of repair, and the palaces so ill kept, that half the pictures are spoiled by damp.

At the villa Ludovisi is a large oracular head of red marble, colossal, and with vast foramina for the eyes and mouth: the man that shewed the palace said it was un ritratto della famiglia. The Cardinal Corsini has so thoroughly pushed on the misery of Rome by impoverishing it, that there is no money but paper to be seen. He is reckoned to have amassed three millions of crowns. You may judge of the affluence the nobility live in, when I assure you, that what the chief princes allow for their own eating is a testoon a day (eighteen-pence); there are some extend their expence to five pauls, or half-acrown. Cardinal Albani is called extravagant for laying out ten pauls for his dinner and supper. You may imagine they never have any entertainments: so far from it, they never have any company. The Princesses and Dutchesses, particularly, lead the dismallest of lives. Being the posterity of Popes, though of worse families than the ancient nobility, they expect greater respect than my ladies the Countesses and Marquises will pay them; consequently they consort not, but mope in a vast palace with two miserable tapers, and two or three Monsignori, whom they are forced to court and humour, that they may not be entirely deserted. Sundays they do issue forth in a vast unwieldy coach to the Corso.

In short, child, after sun-set one passes one's time here very ill; and if I did not wish for you in the mornings, it would be no compliment to tell you that I do in the evening. Lord! how many English I could change for you, and yet buy you wondrous cheap! and then French and Germans I could fling into the bargain by dozens. Nations swarm here. You will have a great fat French Cardinal, garnished with thirty Abbés, roll into the area of St. Peter's, gape, turn short, and talk of the Chapel of Versailles. I heard one of them say, t'other day, he had

been at the Capitale. One asked of course how he liked it— Ah! il y a assez de belles choses.

Tell Asheton I have received his letter, and will write next post; but I am in a violent hurry and have no more time; so Gray finishes this delicately.

Not so delicate; nor, indeed, would his conscience suffer him to write to you, till he received de vos nouvelles, if he had not the tail of another person's letter to use by way of evasion. I sha'n't describe, as being in the only place in the world that deserves it, which may seem an odd reason-but they say as how it's fulsome, and every body does it, (and, I suppose, every body says the same thing), else I should tell you a vast deal about the Coliseum, and the Conclave, and the Capitol, and these matters. A-propos du Colisée, if you don't know what it is, the Prince Borghese will be very capable of giving you some account of it, who told an Englishman that asked what it was built for,-" They say 'twas for Christians to fight tigers in."

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We are just come from adoring a great piece of the true cross, St. Longinus's spear, and St. Veronica's handkerchief; all which have been this evening' exposed to view in St. Peter's. In the same place, and on the same occasion, last night, Walpole saw a poor creature, naked to the waist, discipline himself with a scourge filled with iron prickles, till he had made himself a raw doublet, that he took for red satin torn, and shewing the skin through. I should tell you that he fainted away three times at the sight, and I twice and a half at the repetition of it. All this is performed by the light of a vast

fiery cross, composed of hundreds of little crystal lamps, which appear through the great altar under the grand tribuna, as if hanging by itself in the air.

All the confraternities of the city resort thither in solemn procession, habited in linen frocks, girt with a cord, and their heads covered with a cowl all over, that has only two holes before to see through. Some of these are all black, others parti-coloured and white; and with these masqueraders that vast church is filled, who are seen thumping their breast, and kissing the pavement with extreme devotion. But methinks 1 am describing-'tis an ill habit, but this, like every thing else, will wear off. We have sent you our compliments by a friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a very agreeable man; one Mr. Williams: I am sorry he staid so little a while in Rome. I forget Porto Bello all this while; pray let us know where it is, and whether you or Asheton had any hand in the taking of it. Duty to the Admiral.-Adieu !

Ever yours,

T. GRAY.

LETTER XXII.

MR. GRAY TO MR. WEST.

Tivoli, May 20, 1740.

THIS day being in the palace of his Highness the commands upon

Duke of Modena, he laid his most serene me to write to Mr. West, and said he thought it for his glory, that I should draw up an inventory of all his most serene possessions for the said West's perusal.—Imprimis, a house, being in circumference a quarter of a mile, two feet and an inch; the said house containing the following particulars, to wit, a great room. Item, another great room; item, a bigger room; item, another room; item, a vast room; item, a sixth of the same; a seventh ditto; an eighth as before; a ninth as abovesaid; a tenth (see No. 1.); item, ten more such, besides twenty besides, which, not to be too particular, we shall The said rooms contain nine chairs, two tables, five stools, and a cricket. From whence we shall proceed to the garden, containing two millions of superfine laurel hedges, a clump of cypress trees, and half the river Teverone, that pisses into two thousand several chamberpots. Finis.-Dame Nature desired me to put in a list of her little goods and chattels, and, as they were small, to be very minute about them. She has built here three or four little mountains, and laid them out in an irregular semi-circle; from certain others behind, at a greater distance, she has drawn a canal, into which she has put a little river of her's, called Anio; she has cut a huge cleft between the two innermost of her four hills, and there she

pass over.