, there
stands an old figure that every Abate in the town knows to have been
originally made for the fabulous God of Physic, Esculapius, is prayed to
by many old women and devotees of all ages indeed, just at the Via
Sacra's entrance, and called St. Bartolomeo.

A beautiful Diana too, with her trussed-up robes, the crescent alone
wanting, stands on the high altar to receive homage in the character of
St. Agnes, in a pretty church dedicated to her _fuor delle Porte_, where
it is supposed she suffered martyrdom; and why? Why for not venerating
that _very Goddess Diana_, and for refusing to walk in her procession at
the _New Moon_, like a good Christian girl. "_Such contradictions put
one from one's self_" as Shakespear says.

We are this moment returned home from Tivoli; have walked round Adrian's
Villa, and viewed his Hippodrome, which would yet make an admirable open
Manege. I have seen the Cascatelle, so sweetly elegant, so rural, so
romantic; and I have looked with due respect on the places once
inhabited, and ever justly celebrated by genius, wit, and learning; have
shuddered at revisiting the spot I hastened down to examine, while
curiosity was yet keen enough to make me venture a very dangerous and
scarcely-trodden path to Neptune's Grotto; where, as you descend, the
Cicerone shews you a wheel of some coarse carriage visibly stuck fast in
the rock till it is become a part of it; distinguished from every other
stone only by its shape, its projecting forward, and its shewing the
hollow places in its fellies, where nails were originally driven. This
truly-curious, though little venerable piece of antiquity, serves to
assist the wise men in puzzling out the world's age, by computing how
many centuries go to the petrifying a cart wheel. A violent roar of
dashing waters at the bottom, and a fall of the river at this place from
the height of 150 feet, were however by no means favourable to my
arithmetical studies; and I returned perfectly disposed to think the
world's age a less profitable, a less diverting contemplation, than its
folly.

We looked at the temple of the old goddess that cured coughs, now a
Christian church, dedicated to _la Madonna della Tosse_; it is exactly
all it ever was, I believe; and we dined in the temple of Sibylla
Tiburtina, a beautiful edifice, of which Mr. Jenkins has sent the model
to London in cork, which gives a more exact representation after all
than the best-chosen words in the world.