THE TEMPLE OF PALLAS. Quivi tempio sublime Sacro all' eternità con aurea chiave E luogo in ciel fra gli altri numi ottenne. FULVIO TESTI. THE same doubts have been started by antiquaries respecting the proper designation of this temple as of most others in the eternal city-a title to which, were it not for the immortality of her people, and the unfading lustre which memory casts upon the spot, would be less properly applied to Rome than to any other city of the earth; for where has ruin so wrought her perfect work? where is time seen the conqueror and man the victim so clearly and so awfully as there? The death of a strong man fills us with a deeper sense of human frailty than that of a weaker being; and Rome in ruins-the mightiest and the proudest monument of the earth crumbled into dustmakes us feel as if the pillars of the round world itself were unloosened. The image of eternity seems to have been raised of adamant to be dissipated in air, and dreaming of Rome as clothed in her bridal garments and the spouse of hundred-throned victory, we wake to tread upon her ashes, her name only remaining immortal. Of the almost infinite number of temples which adorned this city, not a dozen can be said to exist even in ruins; and of those of which vestiges remain, a very few are known for certainty to be ascribed to the right deities. So numerous were these edifices during the flourishing times of the empire, that some antiquaries have excused themselves from naming them all by saying that such a task were endless; and those who have commenced the undertaking have ended with fixing the names to two or three ruins as temples, which the next generation of critics has determined to be basilicas, baths, or palaces. "The antiquarian disputes began at an early period," observes Mr. Hobhouse; "and where nothing but a name was left, there was still some pleasure found in the struggles of conjecture. The mica aurea has not been seen since the ninth century; but it afforded an opportunity of quoting Plutarch, Ammian, and Martial, to show that it might have been a Greek girl, or a bear, or a supper-house. The actual remains were soon found to be no less uncertain. The two vaults of the church of St. Maria Nuova were believed by Pomponius Lætus the fragments of a temple of Esculapius and Health; by Martianus, of the Sun and Moon; by Blondus, of Æsculapius and Apollo; by Poggio, of Castor and Pollux. They are now called the Temple of Venus and Rome." In the same manner the Temple of Maria Egizziaca has been at different times supposed to be a chapel of Patrician Modesty; a basilica of Caius and Lucius; a temple of Good Fortune; a temple of Manly Fortune; while at the time Mr. Hobhouse was in Rome it was generally believed to be, as at first supposed, the Temple of Modesty. And thus it has been for ages past with almost all the ruins on which the antiquary gazes with P most pleasure; each having his own opinion, and delighting himself sometimes with his favourite theory, at others, with the splendid visions which belong to the spot, if that theory be true. The temple, however, we are at present contemplating is one of the most beautiful ruins in Rome. It consists of two Corinthian columns, eleven feet in circumference, and supposed to be thirtyone feet high; but the soil has been so long suffered to accumulate around them that but half their height is to seen. The architrave supported by these columns is strikingly beautiful, as well as the frieze, which is magnificently adorned with bas-reliefs, descriptive of the mythological character of the goddess to whom the temple is thought to have been dedicated. Above the whole rises an attic story, but in a totally dilapidated state; all that remains, in any degree of preservation, of this part of the building being a supposed statue of the deity. How different are the religious associations now connected with the name of Minerva's temples and the seats of her former grandeur! How changed is the spectacle which throngs the way to the spots where stood her ancient fanes, and the feeling with which the adoring multitudes hallow them as sacred to divinity! Speaking of the customs prevalent in the sacred city during Lent, the author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century" thus describes the procession to one of these consecrated spots, now the site of a christian church. "Before the Holy Week," it is said, "our sufferings began. We were disturbed the very morning of our return from Naples with the information that it was a grand festa-the festa of the Annunciation; and that a grand funzione was to take place at the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, preceded by a still more superb procession ; and that we must get up to see it, which we accordingly did, and drove through streets lined with expecting crowds, and windows hung with crimson and yellow silk draperies, and occupied by females in their most gorgeous attire, till we made a stop near the church, before which the pope's horse-guards, in their splendid full-dress uniforms, were stationed to keep the ground; all of whom, both officers and men, wore in their caps a sprig of myrtle as a sign of rejoicing. After waiting a short time the procession appeared, headed by another detachment of the guards, mounted on prancing black chargers, who rode forward to clear the way, accompanied by such a flourish of trumpets and kettle-drums that it looked at first like any thing but a peaceable or religious proceeding. This martial array was followed by a bare-headed priest, on a white mule, bearing the Host in a gold cup; at the sight of which every body-not excepting our coachman, who dropped down on the box-fell upon their knees, and we were left alone, heretically sitting in the open barouche. "The pope, I understand, used formerly to ride upon the white mule himself; whether in memory of our Saviour's entrance into Jerusalem on an ass, or no, I cannot say; and all the cardinals used to follow him in their magnificent robes of state, mounted either on mules or horses; and as the eminentissimi are, for the most part, not very eminent horsemen, they were generally fastened on, lest they should tumble off. This cavalcade must have been a very entertaining sight. I understand that Pius VI., who was a very handsome man, kept up this custom; but the present pope is far too infirm for such an enterprise, and so he followed the man on the white mule in his state coach, at the very sight of which he seemed to have made a jump back of two hundred years at least. It was a huge machine, composed almost entirely of plate-glass, fixed in a ponderous carved and gilded frame, through which was distinctly visible the person of the venerable old pope, dressed in robes of white and silver, and incessantly giving his benediction to the people by a twirl of three fingers, which are typical of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the last being represented by the little finger. On the gilded back of this vehicle—the only part, I think, that was not made of glass-was a picture of the pope in his chair of state, and the Virgin Mary at his feet. This extraordinary machine was drawn by six black horses, with superb harness of crimson velvet and gold. The coachman, or rather postilions, were dressed in coats of silver stuff, with crimson velvet breeches, and full-bottomed wigs well powdered, without hats. is "Three coaches, scarcely less antiquely superb, followed, with the assistant cardinals and the rest of the train. In the inside of the church, the usual tiresome ceremonies went on that take place when the pope present. He is seated on a throne, or chair of state; the cardinals in succession approach and kiss his hand, retire one step and make three bows or nods, one to him in front, and one on the right hand and another on the left, which, I am told, are intended for him (as the |