Rome, Feb. 20th, 1805.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

BEFORE I quit this city, I anticipate your desire to know something of its topographical situation, and particularly in its relation to the ancient city. I presume that you will feel the same curiosity which I experienced, and that you would ask the same questions. Is modern Rome placed precisely on the same ground with the ancient? Does it cover as large a space? How are its seven hills? Are they still visible? Are they worthy of that name? How is the Tarpeian Rock & Does it respond to the descriptions of it by ancient authors? Or is it that contemptible fragment, which some modern travellers represent it? How is the Tiber at the present day? Is it the roaring Tiber, "chafing with his flood? Or is it a muddy and contemptible rivalet, as some persons pretend? On the whole, is Rome still so magnificent, and does it yet Vol. V. No. VIII.

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bear so much resemblance to the famed mistress of the world, as to satisfy your expectations, and gratify your feelings?

I will endeavour to satisfy your curiosity on all these points, observ ing however, that I follow no former traveller, but rest wholly on my own personal observation, and the best lights I could procure from plans of the ancient and modern cities.

Modern Rome is erected on precisely the same ground, and is of the same general form with the ancient. Its walls have been preserved for many centuries; but there is this dif ference in the two cities; ancient Rome was completely filled with edifices, either for habitation or luxu. ry, while modern Rome contains within its walls vast deserted fields, in which the traveller may be lost, without being able to find a solitary or straggling inhabitant to direct his footsteps.

Ancient Rome, also was surrounded with suburbs, scarcely infe

riour in elegance or population to the city itself. On the northern side they are said to have extended to Otricoli, a distance of forty miles, and to have borne so much the marks of a city, that, when Constantius visited it, he thought himself already arrived in Rome, when he was at the distance of thirteen leagues. The environs of modern Rome, on the contrary, are, as I have formerly noticed, the most desolate and melancholy I ever beheld. If you had known Hounslow Heath in the vicinity of London, I could give you an object of comparison, but in our own country I know not where to find one. The plains The plains of Danvers, or the entrance to Salem over the new turnpike will give a very feeble idea of the horrour of this scenery.

The modern city, like the ancient, is built upon both banks of the Tiber, which, flows through it in a meandering course from north to south.

Much the greater part of the city is now, as well as formerly, built upon the eastern side of the river, though the inhabitants of the western side, a turbulent and intrepid race of men, boast of being the true descendants of the ancient Ro

mans.

Rome is about fourteen miles in circumference, though the inhabited part of it does not amount to more than one quarter, and is principally confined to the vicinity of the ancient Forum Romanum.

You enter the city, in coming from Florence, by the ancient Porta Flaminia, which is now called Porta del Popolo, and which formerly was the termination of the Via Flaminia, the remains of which are in many places still perceived in excellent preservation. The ancient Forum Populi, which you entered on passing the Flaminian gate, is still an

elegant square, called Piazza del Popolo, and is very imposing to a stranger who for the first time visits the city.

Three strait and beautiful streets commence on the south side of this noble square, directly opposite the gate, and go off in diverging lines, one along the banks of the Tiber, another along the centre of the city, and the third toward the celebrated hills, around which are placed the principal beauties of modern Rome.

The surface of Rome, with the exception of the particular quarter, in which the mountains or seven hills are situated, is in general extremely level; the streets are clean, and well paved; the churches and palaces are in a noble style of archi. tecture, and the houses are much superiour to those of most cities on the continent.

This splendid metropolis boasts a vast number of noble squares, which possess two advantages almost peculiar to Rome: I allude to their fountains, and their obelisks. The enterprize and the wealth of modern princes are not equal to such vast undertakings. It is necessary that a whole world should be tributary to an absolute prince, to enable him to execute such magnificent and noble works. Whether the emperour of France will acquire the requisite power and wealth, is yet uncertain; and still more so, whether he or his servants will have the necessary taste. The French, if you will pardon me a

digression, are a people entirely different from the ancient or modern Romans. They want not only the dignity of taste and grandeur of conception, but they lack the perseverance and patience requisite to the execution and perfection of great designs. They prefer something light and airy, which can be executted as soon as it is thought of, and

they are indifferent whether it lasts longer than its novelty.

That they have begun a great number of noble works, cannot be denied; but it has been remarked of them, that they have never completed a single one. I confess I cannot remember one, which appeared to me to be perfect in all its parts; but I can recollect one hundred, which are a daily reproach, and constant monuments of their fickleness and versatility.

I think, from these causes, that Rome will still mock her proud conquerour, and will boast her own superiority in the exhibition of the powers of human genius and enterprize, while she is compelled to surrender the seat of the Cæsars to the descendants of the vanquished Gauls. The seven celebrated hills of ancient Rome, the Palatinus, Capitoli nus, Celius, Aventinus, Quirinalis, Viminalis, and Esquilinus, although somewhat changed by the repeated sackings and overthrows, which the city has experienced from its numer. ous and successive conquerours, still preserve a considerable portion of their beauty and grandeur, and contribute greatly to the ornament of this splendid metropolis.

The Palatine mount has suffered the most of any of them from the changes produced by time and the ravages of the barbarians, and it has now little interesting about it, ex. cept the remains of the palace of the Caesars, which occupied the principal part of this mountain.

The Capitoline hill still maintains a respectable rank, and commands a fine view of the city. The quarter of the town, which takes its name from this celebrated hill, a name connected with the most splendid parts of the Roman history, and therefore interesting to every man of classick taste, may be still consider

ed as the principal and most important part of modern Rome.

This hill is about six hundred feet wide from north to south, and about twelve hundred feet from east to west. Its height and general dimensions appeared to me about the same with those of Beacon hill in Boston.

The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which was placed on the northern side of this hill, has given place to the church called Ara Cæli, which is built chiefly out of its ruins.

The Tarpeian Rock formed the southern defence of this famous hill, and though some travellers are disposed to lessen its importance, and have even intimated that it would now be no punishment to be thrown from this rock, yet my views of the subject are extremely different. You shall however judge for yourself. It is a fact, that the houses in the streets below the rock, are, in general, four and five stories in height, and yet the roofs of them are vastly below you, when you stand on the summit of the rock. It is still a perpendicular precipice of solid stone, of at least sixty or seventy feet in height, and one would not wish an enemy a more certain or awful punishment, than to be precipitated from this eminence.

I have given you this minute detail, because I know that you feel an interest in a subject so often mentioned by the writers, whom you cherished in your youth.

You ascend the Capitoline hill by a beautiful stone stair case, or flight of steps constructed by Michael Angelo. At the foot of the steps are two superb sphinxes of Egyptian basalte, and at the head of it are two colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, each holding a horse by the head, but of coarse and ordinary exécution.

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The square on the top of the hill is ornamented with the celebrated equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. The square itself is surrounded with magnificent' edifices from the designs of Michael Angelo. On the west, fronting the steps is the Senatorial palace, a feeble and miserable attempt to preserve the recollection of their former grandeur. One, who is acquainted with the history of modern Rome, can hardly believe, that its present inhabitants should have the ridiculous vanity to preserve the forms and ceremonies of their ancient government. A wretched, enervated and miserable people, successively the prey of every bold invader, and for centuries governed by a superstitious and feeble priesthood, ought to wish, if they had any pride, that the recollection of the glory of their ancestors might be obliterated from the memory of all mankind. But so inconsistent are men, that these degraded Romans cherish the fame of their ancestors as if it was their own, and they endeavour to preserve their institutions, when the force which maintained them, and the objects for which they were created, are no more. Perhaps, however, this disposition is not more ridiculous than that of the French in celebrating the destruction of the Bastile, after they have passed under a military yoke, infinitely more heavy than the one, from which they fancied that they had escaped.

It is a fact, which may be as new.

to you as it was to me, that the Romans annually elect one Senator,who has his residence in this palace, and that they continue to elect their con. suls, though they have long since ceased to lead their armies to conquest, and indeed have no armies to command. Among the curiosities in this palace, is the register of their consuls, which has been regularly continued, and is engraved with great pomp, in imitation of their ancestors. on tables of marble. Consul Barberini, or Rospigliosi makes as respectable a figure in engraving or sculpture as Cæsar or Cicero: and though they can neither boast the heroism of the one, nor the eloquence of the other, as long as the marble endures, they may hope to be as immortal.

The other edifices on this eclebrated hill are the Museum Capitolinum, and the palace of the Conservators, which, like the other, is a mere name without meaning, and may do very well to rank with the "Palais du Senat Conservatif" of Bonaparte.

One thing these palaces can boast, which those of France cannot, that what they are deficient in modern merit or utility, they make up in ancient beauties. They are filled with fine busts, statues, and relicks of all kinds, as well as with excellent paintings by modern artists. The rest of the topographical description of Rome, I must suspend till I have an opportunity of writing another letter to America.

MARIA ANGELICA KAUFFMAN was born in Coire. the capital of the Grisons, on the 30th Oct. 1740.

She was the only daughter of John Joseph Kauffman, of Swart hemberg, and of Cleophe Lucin, of the sane

place. Her father was a painter of some consideration, and her mother a woman highly respectable for her domestick virtues.

In her very infancy Angelica evinced a strong disposition for the arts of design; for nothing gave her so much delight as examining and copying prints. Her inclination did not escape the observation of her father: her infant genius was accordingly fostered by him with instruction in some principles of the art; and so rapid was her proficiency, that, when only between eight and nine years of age, she already began to paint, first in crayons and then in oil. In these pursuits she laboured under an insurmountable difficulty, as, by the decorums of her sex, she was prevented from resorting to academies, and from thus forming her judgment and taste by naked living figures. But this circumstance by no means discouraged her. By drawing after the most correct models, and by the assiduous study of the works of the best artists, she compensated the unavoidáble deficiency of academick instruc tion. And this, perhaps, ultimately proved an advantage to her; since, free from the danger of taking a bias to any peculiar method, she became more adapted to form an exclusive and original character in painting.

Her progress in the subsequent years was astonishing, and stands, perhaps, unrivalled in the annals of the art. Between the tenth and eleventh year of her age she was already skilled in taking portraits; for it is an authentick and indisputable fact, that in 1751, having ac companied her father to Como, she drew, in crayons, a portrait of Monseigneur Nevroni, bishop of that city, which attracted the admiration of the prelate and of the i.habitants.

In order, however, to give a full developement to her rising talents, in 1754 (the 14th year of her age) she was conducted by her father to Milan, where the gallery of pictures in that metropolis opened to her an ample field of observation and improvement. But whilst she was so assiduous in studying the produc tions of former masters, she did not neglect to exhibit new proofs of her own talents; and at this period she executed portraits of the dutchess of Massa Carrara, of the illustrious count Firmian, the Austrian gov. ernour, and other persons of the highest distinction. The death of her mother, however, obliged her to accompany her father to Swarthemberg, his native place, where he was called to settle some family concerns; and as, during his stay in that place, he had a commission to paint some pictures for his own parish church, that time was not en tirely lost to his daughter, for the twelve apostles, in separate com. partments, were executed by her.

Having settled all family concerns, and being now free from any occasional engagements, Angelica, in 1758, accompanied by her father, returned to Italy, with the purpose of studying and practising her art on a much larger scale. But in her way to that country she found employment in her profession; for, while passing through Constance, Monfort, and other places of note, she was engaged to take portraits of cardinal Casimir de Roch, bishop of Constance, of the count of Monfort and his family, as well as of other persons of distinction. She did not stop long in Milan; for she intended to study, as she actually did, in Reggio, Parma, and Placentia, all the works of Guido, Guercino, and other great masters of the Lombard school. She remained