I know not for what reason, sitting upon his Eagle-the sceptre in one hand, and the thunderbolt in the other.

From these Chambers you pass into an open Balcony, lined with Statues, which reconducts you to the upper end of the Gallery, through a Cabinet elegantly decorated with all the refinements of Modern taste, for the reception of some beautiful Statues of Venus, Adonis, Ganymede, &c. with correspondent Bas Reliefs, and a Tesselated Pavement found in the Villa Adriana, within a most beautiful border of fruit and flowers.

You now re-enter the Hall of Rivers, the Vestibule of which leads into the

Chamber of the Muses, a vast and

beautiful Apartment whose ceiling, painted with the Loves and Graces, is supported by sixteen Columns of Carrara marble, with antique capitals from the Villa Adriana.

Here are superbly enshrined Apollo and the fabled Nine. Here are, did I say?—I should have said here were: for Thalia, Urania, Melpomene, Calliope, Polyhymnia, Clio, Erato, and Terpsichore, have been swept away, at a stroke, together with most of the inestimable Termini of the Grecian Sages, by which they were originally accompanied. Some of the latter were with heads, and some of

them without among the latter, alas! Sowithout—among

lon and Pittacus—among the former Plato, Epicurus, Thales, Demosthenes, Diogenes, Euripides, Zeno, and Periander.

Let

Let us go on to the Rotunda, a Hall of fifty feet diameter with ten windows, richly intercolumniated, and a vaulted roof, adorned with stucco, and terminating in a sky-light of flint glass.

Ten colossal Busts of peculiar elegance once stood around this superb apartment, upon blocks of porphyry. The most remarkable of them were those of Adrian and Antinous, of the Sun and the Ocean, of the Geniuses of Tragedy and Comedy, all of which were found in that inexhaustible mine of Antiquities the Villa of Adrian.

All the Colossal Statues intended to adorn this Rotunda were not yet placed in their niches, when the French Depredators decimated this unparalleled Collection

lection to enrich the Gallery of Paris.

The most remarkable of them were those of the goddess Juno, and of the Empe-ror Nerva.

The pavement in black and white mosaic representing Medusa's head, with a border of Sea Monsters, was found at Otricoli: and in the midst, upon a bronze stand, four feet high, is a bason of porphyry, fifteen feet diameter.

From this Imperial Hall you pass into the Chamber, in the shape of a Greek cross, by a bronze door, the jambs of which are of red granite, and they are supported by Egyptian Caryatides of the same imperishable material, twelve feet in height. They stand upon pedestals, and bear vases upon their heads, or ra

ther

ther upon an entablature, the frieze of which is an Antique Bas Relief, representing a Combat of Lions and Gladiators.

The most remarkable Objects in this Room are two prodigious blocks of porphyry, embossed with Figures, the heads of which are in full relief. One of them was brought from the ancient Temple of Bacchus, now the Church of St. Constantia, where it contained the ashes of the Daughter of Constantine. The other was found among the ruins of the tower called Pignatara, a few miles without the gates of Rome, and is supposed to have been the tomb of St. Helena, the Mother of the first Christian EmperorThe pavement is a mosaic that was found at Tusculum.