The beautiful ruin represented in the plate is only one of a thousand specimens of the splendour which Rome exhibits. Though precluded by our limits from entering into any details of the magnificent edifices with which the ancient city abounded, yet the following account of some of the most remarkable spectacles which the modern city affords will not be considered altogether uninteresting or misplaced. One of the best and most entertaining narratives of the carnival at Rome is given by Sir James Edward Smith. "This entertainment lasts here but nine days, Sundays excluded; and even on those nine days masks are allowed to be worn for only three or four hours in the afternoon. Its first beginning was on the afternoon of Saturday, February 10th; the scene of diversion being the Corso, the principal street of the city, which runs from the Piazza del Popolo, in a straight line almost up to the capitol, which, indeed, ought to be laid open to it. "The middle part of this street, which unluckily is not a very wide one, is in carnival time occupied by three rows of coaches all in procession; those which compose the two outermost going up one side and down the other, and so making a continual circuit, as in Hyde Park. The central row is composed of the coaches of sovereign princes, and I believe cardinals, at least the splendid equipage of the present pope's nephew always moved in that line, but whether in consequence of his rank as cardinal, or as governor of Rome, I am not certain. Here the exiled majesty of England' might be seen every afternoon, lolling in his coach, the very |