tity of riches lie dead, and untouched in the midst of fo much poverty and mifery as reign on all fides of them. There is no question, however, but the Pope would make use of these treasures in case of any great calamity that should endanger the holy fee ; as an unfortunate war with the Turk, or a powerful league among the protestants. For I cannot but look on these vast heaps of wealth, that are amaffed together in fo many religious places of Italy as the hidden referves and magazines of the church, that the would open on any preffing occafion for her laft defence and prefervation. If these riches were all turned into current coin, and employed in commerce, they would make Italy the most flourishing country in Europe. The cafe of the holy houfe is nobly designed,and executed by the great mafters of Italy that flourished about an hundred years ago. The ftatues of the Sibyls are very finely wrought each of them in a different air and posture, as are likewise those of the p:ophets underneath them. The roof of the treafury is painted with the fame kind of device. There stands at the upper end of it large crucifix verymuch esteemed,the figure of our Saviour,reprefents him in his last agonies of death, and amidst all the ghaftliness of thevifage has fomething in it very amiable. The gates of the church are faid to be of Corinthian brafs, with many fcripture flories rifing on them in Baffo Relievo. The Pope's ftatue, and the fountain by it, would make a noble showin a place lefs beautifiedwith so many other productions of art. The spicery, the cella and its furniture, the great revenues of the con vent, with the story of the holy houfe,are too well known to be here infifted upon. a Whoever were the first inventors of this impofture they feem to have taken the hint of it from the ve neration neration that the old Romans paid to the cottage o Romulus, which stood on mount Capitol, and was repaired from time to time as it fell to decay. Virgil has given a pretty image of this little thatch'd palace, that reprefents it standing in Manlius's time, 327 years after the death of Romulus. In fummo cuftos Tarpeia Manlius arcis En. Lib. viii. v. 652. High on a rock heroic Manlius flood To guard the temple, and the temple's god: Then Rome was poor, and there you might behold The palace thatch'd with straw. Dryden. From Loretto, in my way to Rome, I paffed thro Recanati, Macerata, Tolentino, and Poligni. In the laft there is a convent of nuns called la Conteffa, that has in the church an incomparable Madonna of Raphael. At Spoletto, the next town on the road, are fome antiquities. The moft remarkable is an aqueduct of a Gothick ftructure, that conveys the water from mount St. Francis to Spoletto, which is not to be equall'd for its height by any other in Europe. They reckon from the foundation of the lowest arch to the top of it 230 yards. In my way hence to Terni I faw the river Clitumnus, celebrated by so many of the Poets for a particular quality in its waters of making cattle white that drink of it. The inhabitants of that country have ftill the fame opinion of it, as I found upon inquiry, and have a great many oxen of a whitifh colour to confirm them in it. It is probable this breed was firft fettled in the country, and continuing still the same species, has made the inhabitants impute it to a wrong caufe; though though they may as well fancy their hogs turn black for fo me reason of the fame nature, because there are none in Italy of any other breed. The river Clitu mnus, and Mevania that ftood on the banks of it, are famous for the herds of victims with which they furnished all Italy. Qua formofa fuo Clitumnus flumina luco Prop. Lib. ii. Eleg. 19. v. 25. Shaded with trees, Clitumnus' waters glide, Virg. Georg. ii. v. 146. There flows Clitumnus thro' the flow'ry plain; Whose waves, for triumphs after profp'rous war, The victim ox, and fnowy fheep prepare. Patulis Clitumnus in Arvis Candentes gelido perfundit flumine Tauros. Sil. Ital. Lib. ii. Its cooling stream Clitumnus pours along, Et fedet ingentem pafcens Mevania taurum, Id. Here fair Mevania's pleasant fields extend, -Nec fi vacuet Mevania valles, Aut præfent niveos Clitumna novalià tauros, Stat. Syl. iv. Lib. i. Tho' fair Mevania should exhaust her field, Pinguior Hifpulla traberetur taurus et ipfa Juv. Sat. xii. ver. 11. A bull high-fed fhould fall the facrifice, Congreve. I fhall afterwards have occafion to quote Clau. dian. Terni is the next town in course, formerly called Interamna, for the fame reason that a part of Asia was named Mefopotamia. We enter at the gate of the the three monuments, fo called, because there flood near it a monument erected to Tacitus the historian, with two others to the Emperors Tacitus and Florianus, all of them natives of the place. These were a few years ago demolished by thunder, and the fragments of them are in the hands of fome gentlemen of the town. Near the dome I was shown a fquare marble, inferted in the wall, with the following infcription. Saluti perpetua Augufta Abenobarbum. Genio municipi Anno poft Ad Cneium Domitium Coff. providentia Ti. Cæfaris Augufti nati ad Eternitatem Romani nominis fublato bofte perniciofiffimo P. R. Fauftus Titius Liberalis VI. vir iterum P. S. F. C. that is, pecunia fua fieri curavit. This ftone was probably set up on occafion of the fall of Sejanus. After the name of Ahenobarbus there is a little furrow in the marble, but fo fmooth and well polifhed, that I fhould not have taken notice of it had not I feen Coff. at the end of it, by which it is plain there was once the name of another conful, which has been induftriously razed out. Lucius Aruncius Camillus Scribonianus was conful, under the reign of Tiberius, and was afterwards put to death for a conspiracy that he had formed against the Emperor Claudius; at *Vid. Faft. Conful. Sicul. which |