ntioning his
bust, which so perfectly resembles Hogarth's idle 'Prentice; but why
should they not be alike?

For black-guards are black-guards in every degree,

I suppose, and the people here who shew one things, always take delight
to souce an Englishman's hat upon his head, as if they thought so too.

This morning's ramble let us to see the old grotto, sacred to Numa's
famous nymph, AEgeria, not far from Rome even now. I wonder that it
should escape being built round when Rome was so extensive as to contain
the crowds which we are told were lodged in it. That the city spread
chiefly the other way, is scarce an answer. London spreads chiefly the
Marybone way perhaps, yet is much nearer to Rumford than it was fifty or
sixty years ago.

The same remark may be made of the Temple of Mars without the walls,
near the Porta Capena: a rotunda it was on the road side _then_: it is
on the road side _now_, and a very little way from the gate.

Caius Cestius's sepulchre however, without the walls, on the other side,
is one of the most perfect remains of antiquity we have here. Aurelian
made use of that as a boundary we know: it stands at present half
without and half within the limit that Emperor set to the city; and is a
very beautiful pyramid a hundred and ten feet high, admirably
represented in Piranesi's prints, with an inscription on the white
marble of which it is composed, importing the name and office and
condition of its wealthy proprietor: _C. Cestius, septem vir epulonum_.
He must have lived therefore since Julius Caesar's time it is plain, as
he first increased the number of epulones to seven, from three their
original institution. It was probably a very lucrative office for a man
to be Jupiter's caterer; who, as he never troubled himself with looking
over the bills, they were such commonly, I doubt not, as made ample
profits result to him who went to market; and Caius Cestius was one of
the rich contractors of those days, who neglected no opportunity of
acquiring wealth for himself, while he consulted the honour of Jupiter
in providing for his master's table very plentiful and elegant banquets.

That such officers were in use too among the Persians during the time
their monarchy lasted, is plain from the apocryphal story of Bel and the
Dragon in our Bibles, where, to the joy of every child that reads it,
Daniel detects the fraud of the priests by scattering ashes or saw-dust
in the temple.

But I fear the