distinguished by Obelisks of granite, whose solid masses promised to illustrate it forever.

But the groves have been supplanted by Plebeian hovels; and the Obelisks themselves, after having been overturned, and buried in the dust, have been removed to other Courts, to gratify the pride of other Princes.

Somewhere hereabout were the Gardens of Lucullus, and somewhere there was the Palace of Mecænas, where Virgil may have penned his Æneid, or Horace pointed his Satires, speculating at their ease upon life and manners, under the convenient patronage of the Rich and Great.

Yon

Yon insignificant Turret disguises the spot where Cato reasoned, and Cicero declaimed, in the venerable audience of the Conscript Fathers of Imperial Rome.

In the same direction (though not within sight) are the remains of AppiiForum, and the reputed ruins of the Three Taverns, where the Brethren of Rome met St. Paul, on his arrival from Judea: "whom, when Paul saw," says the Author of the Acts of the Apostles, "he thanked God, and took courage."

Below us is the very street in which the eloquent Apostle of the Gentiles, having appealed to Casar, dwelt two whole years, in his own hired House, and

received

received all that came in unto him-preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence—no man forbidding him.

It was there that, being rejected by the Chief of the Jews,-though bound for the hope of Israel, he prophetically declared the salvation of God was sent unto the Gentiles; and that they would hear it.-A prediction which was marvellously fulfilled upon this very spot; though ten Persecutions afterward oppressed the Church.

*

JUST below me, on the right, is the roof of Santa Maria in Transtevere-a

Church

Church that was built in the year 222, and dedicated by Calixtus, then Bishop of Rome, to the Virgin Mary.

It marks, I believe, the first palpable departure from Primitive purity, in point of worship; though professing Christians had long before enlisted in the Roman Legions-ingloriously deserting the banner of the Prince of Peace.

AROUND me I can still trace several Monuments of the piety-perhaps the policy, of Constantine; when Christianity became the predominating religion of the Empire.

Those

Those fields upon my left were the scene of the pretended Vision of the Cross, on the strength of which the first Christian Emperor actually gained a Victory over his Rival Maxentius, who perished in the Tyber, below yon distant Bridge.

Within the next three centuries were instituted some of the eighty, or a hundred, Convents, that might be counted from where I stand; in which numerous Fraternities of devoted Regulars have dozed away their useless lives, in unbroken succession, for a thousand years.

FROM the Courts of the Vatican, on my left, issued for Ages, the Papal

Bulls,