that name, attracted the eye by its gleaming waters; so totally destitute of banks, that it looked like a looking-glass lying on the ground.

In descending, we stopped at the Ruffinella. Prince Lucien has bestowed much money, but little taste in its embellishment. Ancient ilex, the growth of ages, have been lopped into skeleton trees, and are interspersed with little parterres, newly made, embroidered with the names of Homer, Virgil, Racine, &c., planted in box, and framed in the same! The statue of Apollo has been stuck up amongst them, as if this ingenious device had been inspired by that god himself. There are no want of bad busts and modern statues, clipped hedges, and formal grass walks. Forlorn dirty offices meet the eye; the slovenly, neglected appearance of every thing, gives this princely villa an air of utter wretchedness; and we look in vain for flowers or shrubs,-for bloom or fragrance,-for nature or beauty.

The chapel in the interior is pretty, and contains three tolerable paintings, by Carlo Maratti,—a monument, erected by Prince Lucien, to his first wife, who died at the age of twenty-six; another to his son, who died in the prime of youth; and a third to his and Napoleon's father, who was born at Corsica, and died at Montpellier, at the age of thirtysix; and who, judging from his bust, must have had an uncommonly fine commanding countenance.

In the little town of Frascati, we saw the tomb of Lucullus, a name which tradition alone has given. Once it has been a magnificent building, but now

it serves for a pig-stye. The exterior is nearly destroyed, and two dirty houses are built against it.

I forgot to mention, in their proper place, the Centroni di Lucullo, as the country people call some curious and very extensive substructions, in the form of an oblong square; which Centroni they maintain to have been the cellars of that great epicurean's villa. Their extent, indeed, enormous as it is, (and by pacing, the gentlemen of our party computed it to be about 450 feet in length,) would scarcely be disproportioned to that of a villa, which, according to Pliny, covered whole acres, and "made land scarce.'

According to some accounts, Frascati was the real birth place of Metastasio.

In the Cathedral,-a paltry structure, is a paltry monument to Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, who was Cardinal Bishop of this diocese; and another to Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender.

The inscription, which is sufficiently simple, you may perhaps like to see. It is as follows:

Hic situs est Carolus Odoardus cui Pater Jacobus III. Rex Angliæ, Scotia, Franciæ, Hiberniæ, Primus Natorum, paterni Juris et regiæ dignitatis successor et heres, qui domicilio sibi Romæ delecto Comes Albaniensis dictus est.

Vixit Annos 57 et mensem, decessit in pace.Pridie Kal. Feb. Anno. 1787.

It was not over the dust of the last of this ill-fated race, that we could recall to mind their errors; pity for their misfortunes could not fail to find its way to our hearts; yet we could not but reflect, that had they sat on the throne of their fathers, and their royal tomb arisen in the land of their birth, we might now have had cause to mourn for our country, instead of her kings.

་

LETTER XCIII.

GROTTA FERRATA CICERO'S VILLA-DOMENICHINO'S FRESCOS.-MARINO.

NOTHING can exceed the beauty of the drive from Frascati to Albano; for nine miles, we continue to pass through a varied succession of the most romantic and picturesque scenery. We first drove through the grounds of the Villa Giustiniani, and along a road shaded with umbrageous woods of oak and ilex, to the church and convent of Grotta Ferrata, one of the supposed sites of Cicero's Tusculan Villa. The situation is delightful; the ancient trees, and soft verdant meadows around it, almost reminded me of some of the loveliest scenes of England; and the little brook "that babbles by," was not the less interesting from the thought that its murmurs might, perchance, have once soothed the ear of Cicero. It is now called the Marana, but is generally thought to be the Aqua Crabra, which he celebrates. Certainly this rivulet affords a strong presumption

that it is the true site of Cicero's Villa. He would scarcely have described it as he does, had it been two miles off. Some remarkable pieces of sculpture are said to have been discovered here, which answer to descriptions he gives in his letters of the ornaments of his Villa-particularly a Hermathene, or united statue of Mercury and Minerva-and a table supported by images of the Gods. A headless bust inscribed with his name was also dug up here. Two small bas reliefs which are placed in the adjacent Episcopal Palace, are now to be seen. One represents a philosopher, (young,) sitting with a scroll in his hand; the other, (a strange subject,) martial figures, supporting legs of a semi-colossal size.

But so numerous and thickly set were the Villas of the Romans at Tusculum in all ages of the Republic and Empire, that, perhaps, Fancy alone could lead us to suppose it possible now to trace the ves tiges or the site of the only one which excites our interest-the Villa of Cicero; and the spot we view with veneration as consecrated by his genius, may have been the retreat of the infamous Agrippina.t

The Convent of Greek Basilian Monks at Grotta Ferrara was founded by a St Nilo, or Nilus, in the tenth century, and if there was any thing so heathenish as a vestige of Cicero's Villa at that time,

* The same palace formerly inhabited by Cardinal York, now in the possession of Cardinal Gonsalva, the present bishop of Frascati.

† Agrippina had a splendid Villa here. Tacitus, Ann. lib.

xiv. c. 3.