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surdity; yet many have been executed by Ligorio, Kircher, Ré, and others, which may be had at Rome.

We left it at last with regret, after having spent many hours in wandering among its ruins and its groves.

The destruction of the Villa Adriana, though not yet consummated, was early commenced. Caracalla began to despoil it of its exquisite sculptures, and, from that time forward, it seems to have been abandoned to decay, and its wonders of art, its glories of antiquity, have perished along with it. Even the most portable of these, the master-pieces of statuary, have been buried in its ruins; and after serving as a quarry of the fine arts for ages, it probably still contains treasures destined to astonish future generations.

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LETTER XCI.

TIVOLI CASCADES---- GROTTO OF NEPTUNE-SYREN'S CAVE-TEMPLE OF THE SYBIL, AND OTHER REMAINS OF ANTIQUITY—TOUR OF THE HILL— VILLA OF MÆCENAS-LUCIEN BUONAPARTE'S MANUFACTORIES-RUINED VILLAS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS-EXCURSION TO HORACE'S SABINE FARM -MAJESTIC RUINS OF THE AQUEDUCTS.

THE beauty of Tivoli consists in its rocks and waterfalls. It is to the Anio,-still the " præceps Anio," that it owes it all. And yet this is sufficient to constitute the most enchanting scenes. Amidst the dreary wilds of the Campagna, you would never dream that a spot so romantic was at hand. For twenty tedious miles you cross its bare and houseless track-you ascend the hill of Tivoli, amidst the sad sameness of the pale olive-you enter the narrow street, and behold nothing but meanness and misery-you walk but a few steps, and what a prospect of unspeakable beauty bursts upon your view! Tremendous precipices of rock, down which roars a headlong torrent-trees and

bushy plants shading its foaming course,-cliffs crowned with the most picturesque ruins, and painted in tints whose beauty art can never imitate,-hills, and woods, and hanging vineyards; and Tivoli itself-which, peeping out amidst the dark cypresses at the top of these sunny banks, looks like an earthly paradise.

I deal little in description-for words are insufficient to convey an idea of the beauties and varieties of Nature. The pencil only can describe Tivoli; and though unlike other scenes, the beauty of which is generally exaggerated in picture, no representation has done justice to it-it is yet impossible that some part of its peculiar charms should not be transferred upon the canvas. It almost seems as if Nature had herself turned painter, when she formed this beautiful and perfect composition.

Having viewed the fall from above, we descended the long steep precipice by a zig-zag path to the Grotto of Neptune, a cave at the bottom, hollowed out in the worn and petrified rock, by the boiling flood which for ages has beat against it, and on the brink of that tremendous gulf which receives it. The contrast between the white silvery foam of the waters in the fall, and their Stygian blackness as soon as they reach this still and deep abyss, is most striking. It is like the torrent of life swallowed up in the gulf of death. And like the promise of immortality, as we gazed upon it, there sprung up a bright and beautiful rainbow, shooting across the spray, and connecting earth

with heaven in a radiant arch of glory. Upon this painted arch, it is fabled that the messengers of the gods, and the angels of light, have descended from the skies; and may it not to us, in fancy, open the passage to brighter worlds?—It is the arch of promise, and seems set in heaven to reassure guilty man, that to the height from which he has fallen by sin, he may reascend by faith.

But I must turn from the fall of man to the fall of water or rather the falls-for here there are two; one formed by a small branch of the river, the other by its main body. Their united streams rush onward, and precipitate themselves into a tremendous abyss beneath a natural bridge of rock, called the Ponte del Lupo. This wonderful view can only be seen from the Syren's cave, to which we descended on the opposite side of the river, by a path continually wet with the dew of the spray, and so steep and slippery, that to save ourselves from falling, we had to cling to the bushes which fringe the sides of the precipice. At length we reached the Syren's Cave. But what a prospect is there! From these hollow dripping rocks, on the very brink of the impetuous torrent, which almost laves our feet as it foams along, we look up to the thundering cataracts above us, almost deafened with their ceaseless roar-and look down into the shuddering unseen depths of that dark abyss, which yawns beneath to swallow up the foaming waters.

Never shall I forget the view from the Syren's Cave. The tremendous cataracts above, the fear

ful gulf below-the depth of which our shuddering sight vainly seeks to fathom; the roar, the rage, the strife of the maddening waters, impelled onward as if by an irresistible destiny to their terrific doom; the narrow step that separates us from their sweeping fury, hovering as we stand on the brink of perdition. No!-words can never speak its sublimity!

To me a mighty cataract has always seemed the most sublime of all the terrors of Nature. There is something in its continuity, and its unabating rage, which strikes our soul with awe and wonder. All things else in Nature change and perish, and all that are the most fraught with force and power, are the most evanescent-excepting this. The tempests of the ocean pass away-the thunder-storm endures but for a time-the dread hurricane is soon at rest-the volcano's red streams of liquid fire grow cold, and are extinguished-and the earthquake itself, that shakes the foundations of the earth, and swallows up whole nations in its yawning womb, is but the convulsion of a day. But we behold the ceaseless fall of that torrent, which has held on its raging course from the beginning of time, and will continue till its latest close,which knows no rest, no stop, no change-by night and by day-in storm and in sunshine—the same in every moment of the past and the future-yesterday, to-day, and forever!

Few can stand on that giddy brink, without horror and trepidation! Such is the roar of the waters, that the voices of my companions were un

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