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Without vanity, he was always gratified by attentions. Knowledge made him humble, and without any expressions of assurance, he always signified a modest hope that he had closed with the terms of salvation proposed in the gospel, and trusted

he should enter into his Master's joy, believing that mortality would be swallowed up of life, and that saints will rise in the likeness of their glorious Redeemer.

For the Anthology.

ORIGINAL LETTERS;

Jan. 20, 1808.

From an AMERICAN TRAVELLER in EUROPE, to his friends in this country.

LETTER SIXTEENTH.

Naples, Dec. 5, 1804.

MY DEAR SISTER,

IF I did not know that the thermometer would contradict me, I should say, that the weather was now as cold as it is with you. The truth is, that substantially, to your feelings, it is so. You suffer as much from the cold here, as in America, though there is no frost, and though you do not perceive the usual appearances, which indicate severity of cold in our climate. Tomorrow, however, it is probable, the Sirocco will again return, and will bring with it, its warm and enervating blast. Never was a climate more changeable than that of Rome. We have had three chilly, freezing, northwestern gales, and as many Chiroccos, or southern breezes, bringing with them ennui and debility, relaxation and ill health. That you have some mild, beautiful days in Italy, in which you fully realize the descriptions of the poets, cannot be doubted, and when the weather is fine, nature scems here better to respond to the softness of the climate. You see the country covered with verdure; the grass has the soft colour and the vigour of spring; the whole tribe Vol. V. No. 3.

S

of culinary vegetables are in full perfection throughout the winter. It is the summer, here, which makes them disappear; the hardy vegetables of the north cannot withstand the sultry summer blasts of the Campania of Rome.

The gardens in Rome are in their highest glory at this season. I will give you a picture of them; two objects appear to attract the attention of the gardener: shade in summer, shelter in winter; to effect these important objects, he sacrifices prospect, though he retains romantick and retired beauties; his garden is laid out in walks of evergreen, consisting of the arbutus, laurustinus, and laurel. The box, not unfrequently, blends his bright and glossy verdure, and his coarse perfume; these hedges are from seven to ten or twelve feet high, and sometimes are permitted to form bowers; they are suffered to grow so thick, as to be impenetrable to the sun or wind. Fancy then, fine hedges of these most beautiful and glossy evergreens, the laurustinus now in full flower, protecting you from the norther blasts, and equally securing you from the scorching sun; imagine this garden, or rural walk,

interrupted by artificial fountains, in the most expensive and noble stile, pouring their cool and refreshing, sometimes murmuring, and often roaring, streams, into some vast bason, formed by the hand of taste, and ornamented, not unfrequently, with ancient sculpture, or with modern works in imitation of the ancients. Walk then with me into the orangery, see in bleak December, the verdant orange trees loaded with golden fruit, unprotected by any canopy but the heavens, and you may almost imagine yourself in the Elysium of the poets. The truth is, that the appearances of nature contradict your feelings at Rome; you feel chilly; you cherish the fireside; but you issue out in the heat of the day; you find yourself oppressed with the warmth of the sun; you gather the ripe orange, and you realize around you tropical scenery. Such is the odd picture

of the Roman climate.

I have forgotten one part of the colouring which would have increased the contrast. Ascend the Vatican, and you behold on one side the summer I have just described, and on the other, at the short distance of forty miles, the snow covered Appenines.

No people have ever carried the arts, which contribute to luxury, to so great a heighth as the ancient Romans. I have spoken of their proud trophies to their conquerours, and of their vain attempts to give immortality to their tombs. I must now descend to those edifices and establishments, which were the consequence, either of a depraved luxury, which hastened the destruction of the Roman empire, or of that slavery, to which the masters of the world were, in their turn, obliged to submit. When the Roman people, degraded by habits of luxury,

indolence, and vice, introduced by their conquests, and the splendour of their consuls, prefects, prætors, and other officers, who had preyed upon the conquered provinces, lost that characteristick industry, simplicity and enterprize, and that love of virtue, which had distinguished them in their early history; when torn by civil dissensions, they suffered an enterprizing and popular general to lead them to the subjugation of an illustrious Senate, which haď so gloriously conducted Rome to its splendour, it became necessary to govern this monstrous populace, whom ambition and love of power had excited to action.

The Roman emperours, then the masters of the world, though dependent for all their power, on a few cohorts, and a disorderly and turbulent populace, introduced the system of supporting that people in idleness, and of amusing them by publick exhibitions. During several centuries, the Roman people no longer engaged in constant wars, nor occupied with any profitable or honourable employment, were supported by the vast contributions of tributary nations, with every species of games, and spectacles, which proud or ingenious magnificence could invent.

The relicts of the splendid edifices for these spectacles, excite the astonishment of every visitor of Rome. Almost every emperour had the pride or vanity to erect a new place of exhibition.

The Circus Maximus was the largest and most magnificent of these places of publick spectacles. Authors differ about its dimensions. The most extravagant say, that it was capable of containing 380,000, and the most moderate, 150,000 persons. Either of them would exceed all belief, if the scite and gen

eral dimensions were not, at this day, perfectly visible. A place that could have contained the inhabitants of every city in the United States, must, you will admit, have been a phenomenon worthy of admiration; of this building very little remains except its foundation, which shews its form, and a great variety of detached ornaments, which have been transferred to adorn the different edifices of modern Rome. The situation of these grand edifices may be an object of curiosity to you. The Circus Maximus was situated directly opposite to the magnificent palace of the Cæsars, and the emperours and imperial family usually enjoyed the publick spectacles from the balcony of the palace. The circus Maximus was not, as its name would import, a circle; its form was elliptical, or oval. This was also the case with all the circuses, the remains of which I have seen. The amphitheatres were generally, and I believe universally, circular.

The circus of Caracalla was also a most noble building, of which the walls are still entire, and which enable you to form a correct idea of this species of building.

The theatre of Marcellus, so called in honour of the nephew of Augustus Cæsar, who died at an early age, and who was intended to be his successor, was very nearly in the centre of the city, and was a superb building. We are indebted for what remains of it to the cupidity, rather than the good sense of the modern Romans. They have erected dwelling houses

upon

the old walls, so that you can perfectly discover the stile of architecture, and its general dimensions.

But the most complete edifice of this nature, if we consider its original magnificence, or its present state of preservation, is the Coliseum, as it is vulgarly called, from a colossal statue of Nero, which stood in the centre of it. It was really the Flavian theatre, so called in honour of Flavius Vespasianus, the emperour, who erected it upon his successful return from the war against the Jews, in which he had taken Jerusalem. It is said, that it was erected by the labour of 12,000 Jewish prisoners, whom Vespasian brought with him. When the theatre was dedicated, Titus gave a great spectacle of combats between gladiators and wild beasts.

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They pretend that 5000 animals of different species were killed upon the occasion. It is built altogether of the freestone, of which St. Peter's, and all the fine edifices of Rome are built. Two thirds of this vast building are yet extant, and the sides, which remain, are al most perfect, as the whole would still have been, if the popes had not demolished it, for the purpose of erecting their private palaces. It was four stories high externally, and comprised every ancient order of architecture. It is 1641 feet in circumference, and was capable of containing 80,000 spectators. Degraded as it has been by modern Van dals, it is still the noblest monument of antiquity extant.

For the Anthology.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY.

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or antiquity.

I. Chronological and historical demonstration of the king's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. By WILLIAM PRYNNE, 6 vols. fol. Lond. 1666.

"It has been thought proper to bind this copy of a very curious and scarce work in six volumes, for the conveniency of the ingenious students of Harvard college at Cambridge, in New England, who shall consult it.

"The copy was complete in three tomes, when purchased a few years ago; but was mutilated afterwards, shamefully, in a manner not so prop er to relate, and the scarcer part of the scarcer tome from page 848 to 993 stolen !

"It is supposed that there are not six complete copies of this valuable work, at this time in Great Britain." T. H.

Pall Mall, October 1, 1769.

To account for this scarcity, the transcriber of the preceding, adds the following particulars.

The Catalogue of the Harleian Library, p. 456, has this remark. "Most of the printed copies of the two first volumes were consumed by the fire of London in 1666, not above seventy of them being rescued from the flames; which rendered them so scarce that a complete set has been sold for thirty pounds."

Mr. Prynne himself, in "an address to the reader," at the end of the second volume, after mentioning the dreadful fire, says, " among other millions of books thus suddenly con-sumed, whiles I was busie in endeav ouring all I could to excite others to resist and extinguish these supinely over long neglected raging flames, and to preserve the publique records of the King and kingdom from their fury, Mr. Thomas Ratcliffe's, my printer's house, near Doctor's commons, with most of the printed copies of this tome, (taken fully finished at the press, except the intended tables to it) as likewise the second tome formerly published, and of the first book and third tome, (wherein there burned together with it; not I had made some progress) were above seventy of them being rescued from the fire, to my damage of neare two thousand pounds.'

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This must have been a heavy loss to the author, as he had before been sentenced to pay a fine of 5000/. for publishing his Histriomastix," to stand in the pillory, lose his cars, be

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expelled the University and Lincoln's Inn, and to remain imprisoned for life. While in prison he wrote some books, which were also deemed libels, for which he was again brought into the star chamber, and severely punished. But in 1640, after about seven years confinement, he was released by an order of the House of Commons, and entered triumphantly into London. He was soon after elected member of Parliament for a borough in Cornwall, and became the chief manager of the trial of Archbishop Laud. However, he had the honesty to speak in defence of the king, for which he was sent to prison. On obtaining his liberty he wrote a great number of books on law and religion. He contributed his endeavours towards the restoration of Charles II, for which he was appointed keeper of the records in the tower, and died 1667.

The defalcated leaves in the ponderous work, which led to these remarks,"contained the whole matter in dispute between the king and the pope in the affair of Thomas a Becket, and the other principal usurpations in Great Britain." [See Memoirs of T. Hollis, Vol. I. p. 314.7

II. The original manuscript of TRENCHARD'3 Essays. Folio, elegantly bound in blue leather.

These papers came into the possession of John Milner, Esq. who left them to Thomas Gordon. He dying in 1750, they were given to Mr. R. Barron, who published them in 1755, and gave the original manuscript to Mr. Hollis with this "Note."

I have been assured by several persons, and one, in particular, that was a relation, that Mr. Trenchard never committed any thing to writing himself; but that his custom

was, after he had meditated and set-
tled his thoughts upon a subject, to
employ any friend at hand, and some-
times a servant, as an amanuensis,
to whom he dictated, for the most
part, standing or walking across the
room.'
R. B.
Mr. Gordon, in his preface to
Cato's letters, gives a long account
of Trenchard; see, also, Hollis's
Memoirs, Vol. II. P. 569-573.

III. Les lecons de la Sagesse, par M. DEBONNAIRE. Paris, 1751. 3 vol. 12mo.

The Abbe Debonnaire was a learned man, and one of the Fathers of the Oratory, successors of the Fathers of Port Royal, who, as well as their predecessors, were exiled and dispersed. He was the author of "Les Devoirs reduits, a leur vrais principes," in 4 vols. 8vo. and the "Lettres analitics," against the miracles of the Abbe Paris.

He was the particular friend of the Abbe P. P. Ll. Anglois, who, at the desire of Mr. Hollis, wrote "Precis de la vie de Messire Louis Debonnaire." This Mr. Hollis transcribed, and prefixed to the copy of the above work, which he sent to our library. As this interesting article of biography has never been published, we propose to translate it for some future number of the Anthology.

IV. Introduction to moral phi. losophy, translated from the Latin. By FRANCIS HUTCHESON. Glasgow, 1753. 2d edit. 12mo.

"The author died at Dublin, 1746, of a fever, occasioned by an anxious concern for his country, at that time vexed and harassed by impious men, rebelling against law and liberty, and appearing in open arms to impose on these nations a popish pretender.

"When the melancholy account of his death reached Glasgow, the

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