Sala dei Candelabri. 9 as the steeds, one of which is modern; yet it were difficult to find any grouping more spirited. So four fierce coursers starting to the race Scour thro' the plain and lengthen ev'ry pace; Dryden. It were hardly probable that ancient charioteers should eclipse the improvements of modern whips; yet in this case, instead of the strait bar that keeps together and in pace the horses of a modern curricle, there is, apparently, the same object, but having the shape of a snake with its graceful curves and wreathings. Most appropriately in this chamber, besides the admirable statues of Sardanapalus, or the Bearded Bacchus ; of Alcibiades; of the figure veiled, in the act of sacrificing; &c. &c. there is an ancient Auriga, or Charioteer, and a Discobolus; together with Sarcophagi, sculptured with the beautiful design of little playful loves and genii, indulging in the sports of the circus. La Sala de' Candelabri is one magnificent gallery divided into six compartments by marble columns, &c. It is graced with a collection of the most beautiful, matchless, and unrivalled, regal and sacred candelabras, tripods, vases, cinerary urns, statues, sarcophagi, Egyptian relics, and busts, together with some very ancient and curious maps, &c. &c. To record some few of the further preeminent 10 Various Galleries works of art dispersed around :-Here is the Meleager, asserted as one of the finest sculptures that the world can boast. The Ariadne abandoned; or perhaps more justly Cleopatra ;-but the distinction signifies not; I gaze upon it with delight for its beauty; I see, and I sympathise in the sorrows of a broken female heart thus admirably pourtrayed. Here is the plain, but venerated peperin, or Alban stone, sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus, great grandfather of Scipio Africanus, together with various inscriptions relative to the Scipio race, which amid all the convulsions of Rome, reposed deep in their hallowed tomb from about three centuries before the christian era, till discovered 1780 years after. The unrivalled Stanza delle Maschere has its ceiling painted with the modern classic pencil of Domenico d'Angelis; it is upheld by 16 columns and pilasters of the purest Oriental alabaster, and its pavement is formed of such mosaics representing Masks, &c. as were worthy of the imperial Adrian's villa at Tivoli; mosaics which his eyes may often have gazed upon, and his feet have trodden; and from which same spot was taken the matchless laughing Faun in rosso antico. Here also are the Ganymede, the Venus, the Adonis ; suffice it to say all of them of superlative merit. The Grand Circular Hall has one vast porphyry vase, or basin, in circumference forty-one feet, which overshadows an antique mosaic pavement found at Otriculi, depicting a colossal Medusa's head, together with the combats of the Centaurs and the Lapitha; the whole encircled by another mosaic band found at Scrofano, representing marine monsters. Here also is the frowning bust of Jupiter Serapis, once additionally dignified with the rays of the seven planets; the statue of Imperial Juno as queen of heaven; and again as Juno Sospita, or Lanuvina, arrayed in her goat-skin garb, her conical shoes, and brandishing her dart and buckler. The Hall of the Muses contains the "Heavenly Sisters Nine," with Apollo Musagetes, or Cyterodos. Among this celestial choir are ranged the Hermes of antient poets, and philosophers; the pavement is a mosaic found at Lorium, depicting comic and tragic actors, and the ceiling is upheld by sixteen columns of Carrara marble, whose capitals were taken from Adrian's villa. These invaluable Muses were found in 1774 in Cassius's villa at Tivoli. In the Gallery of Statues are the two sculptures of Menander and Posidippus, and in the Museo Chiaramonti is the Tiberius, found at Piperno, formerly Privernum ;-three sitting statues equally remarkable for their happy expression, and perfect ease of attitude. The magnificent Sala della Croce Greca, built by Pius VI. has its door upheld by two colossal Egyptian Caryatides, formed of red granite, found in Adrian's villa, and, it is presumed, meant to repre 12 Various Sculptures sent, and thus to perpetuate his favourite Antinous. This saloon contains Egyptian idols, sphinxes: Roman cippi, statues, bassi-rilievi: it has the very mosaic pavement of Minerva's head, and arabesques, which, being dug up at Tusculum, allow one to suppose, that it may have belonged to the villa of Cicero; and it further possesses the particularly sumptuous porphyry sarcophagi of Helena and Constantia, mother, and daughter, of Constantine the Great: both of these are the more valuable from their sculptured bassi-rilievi. Add to this imperfect list those further masterpieces, the Thunderer with his vengeful bolts; the majestic Ceres; the beneficent Nerva; and the oft-repeated mystic Mithras, God of Persia, and God of the sun; youthful in appearance, his head bound with the oriental turban, pressing to the earth a prostrate bull, and plunging the dagger in his throat. But I fear it may be tiresome and unmeaning, thus to attempt descriptions of this kind. All arts have their bounds, and writing does not convey a clear idea of these imitative arts. Suffice it then to say, that the galleries of the Vatican exceed in their range every other in Europe, and that those of the Louvre, and of Florence, though deservedly boasted, are not worthy of the slightest comparison:-collections which the world cannot match, and which centuries could not replace. A range of more than a mile and a half (including some doublings unavoidably taken) through galleries of art, where the eye is ever feasted by beauty, and the mind ever excited by diversity. I have not particularised the suites of rooms appropriated to Egyptian antiquities, or to Grecian relics; the corridors of christian inscriptions in the days of persecution, taken from the Catacombs ; and the Roman inscriptions found at various times, now inserted in the walls, and classed as funerary, votive, dedicatory, military, sacred, legal, sacrificial, &c. &c., and which throw so much light upon Roman usages. I have not adequately spoken of the many superb sarcophagi of basalt, granite, porphyry, with their beautiful classical bassi-rilievi sculptures upon them; battles, games, cupids, apotheoses, &c. &c., where death is divested of its terrors, and the tomb of the deceased is a poetic gratification and excitement to the living. I have hardly spoken of the further innumerable bassi, and alti rilievi, historical and poetical; of the valued ancent bathing vessels; of the ancient sacred, and magisterial, seats, and tables; of the mosaic floors and pavements, and pictures of matchless beauty of the unique collection of busts, and Hermes and Termini, and statues without end; all arranged with consummate art, in rooms whose lofty domes are upheld by the exquisite marble columns of the temples of Greece and Rome, and modern grandeurs of faultless purity, and beauty, |