at earliest as that of Claudius; that is, not till after they had conquered the world, and established their empire on a foundation formed of the crushed arms, and ensigns, and slain bodies of myriads of enemies. In neither case, however, was the Temple of Peace erected till the respective nations had acquired the greatest military glory they ever possessed; but the Greeks worshipped the deity through the best and happiest periods of their history. The most enduring monuments of their fame were raised under her fostering hand; and as the twin sister of their own Athenæ, the power and beauty of her spirit was felt in the breathing of their zephyrs, in the tranquil loveliness of their vine and olive mantled hills, and in the reposing majesty of their marble temples. With the Romans this was not the case. Peace set up

her altars among them when both their vigour and genius were on the decline. There was never any thing grand in the tranquillity of the Roman empire but once, and that was in the time of Augustus, when the repose seemed miraculous, and the whole world lay like a mighty ocean hushed into silence by Heaven.

Great doubt, however, has existed in the minds of modern antiquaries as to the identity of the present ruins with the real Temple of Peace; and the ingenious author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century" has collected into a short compass most of the objections urged against their claims to veneration. "It can neither be made out," says that agreeable writer, "to be a hypothros, like the Pantheon; nor a circular peripleros, like the little Temple of Vesta; nor a prostylos, nor an amphiprostylos; nor a dypteros, nor a pseud-dypteros; nor

any of Vitruvius's fourteen orders of temples; nor any description of temple whatsoever. Nor can they find out any possibility of its ever having had any of the three necessary constituent parts of a temple-the cellar, the portico, and the area; not to mention that it had windows, which they will by no means allow to any temple, except those of Vesta. Certainly its form and the disposition of its parts bear no resemblance to any known temple of antiquity. But how few are there of which the ruins or the description have come down to the present time! Nor did the ancients bind themselves so slavishly to these general rules as modern critics pretend. A thousand aberrations from architectural laws might be instanced; and why should not the form of a temple be one? 'Winkelman, who seems never to question the identity of this ruin with the Temple of Peace, gives it as one instance of temples with three names, and mentions Jupiter Capitolinus as another; adding, that such temples had always vaulted roofs. But even if it were a temple, the antiquaries will not allow that it could be Vespasian's Temple of Peace, because, they say, the style of architecture and the clumsiness of the brickwork prove it to have been an erection of a much later period; and because—which is a much more incontrovertible reason—the Temple of Peace was burnt down in the time of Commodus. I am sorry I cannot remember the authority that was given me for this assertion, nor recover the antiquary that made it. Even if correct, the Temple of Peace might have been rebuilt after that period; and though Procopius speaks of it as a ruin in his time, that does not prove that it is not a ruin in ours. To my humble thinking,

however, this ruin bears a decided resemblance to a basilica; and as the Forum of Peace, like every other forum, must have had a basilica, I thought this might be it, and plumed myself upon the notion. But when I communicated it to some learned antiquaries, they declared, that though the ruin bore every appearance of being the remains of a basilica, it must, from the style of the architecture, be the basilica, not of Vespasian, but of Constantine, who built one on the Via Sacra, and near the Temple of Venus and Rome; and, as its situation exactly corresponds with this, they maintained that, sit curamente, it was the remains of Constantine's basilica, which was pompously described by one of his panegyrists, and adorned with all the magnificence which the arts at that degraded period were capable of exhibiting." In support of the opinion thus hazarded it is further observed, that both the poverty of the architecture and the badness of the masonry-work, for excellency in which the Romans of an earlier age were famous, tend strongly to establish the opinion that the building, whatever was its original character, was erected at a period far posterior to the reign of Vespasian.

If this edifice, however, was in truth the Temple of Peace, it was not only the most splendid in Rome, but the most frequented. Besides the crowds who visited it through curiosity, and the number of learned men who employed themselves in its library, nearly all the sick people of the city, or their relations, frequented it, in order to petition the goddess for a speedy restoration to health. It thus happened, says an old author, that from the great multitudes who were always crowded together

in the courts, the Temple of Peace was not unfrequently a scene of most " uproarious discord."

The attributes ascribed to this deity were nearly the same both in Greece and Rome. In the shrines of the former, she was represented as holding a little image of Plutus in one hand, and some ears of corn, intermixed with olive-leaves, in the other, both wealth and plenty being considered the produce of her smiles. The Romans ornamented her image in a similar manner, and put a caduceus in her hand to indicate her power and divine authority. But in the reign of the Emperor Commodus both the goddess and her temple were suddenly stripped of their glory by lightning, which set fire to the building, and nearly burned it to the ground. All the treasures which had been placed there for security were destroyed with the edifice; and the people regarded the visitation as a prelude to those fearful convulsions which were so shortly to overwhelm the empire itself.

The excavations which were carried on a few years since by the Duchess of Devonshire and some other zealous antiquarians, whom the excellent example of her grace prompted to the design, laid more of this building open to inspection than former inquirers had the opportunity of observing. According to the discoveries thus made, it is supposed to have been erected on the site of some more ancient edifice, the brick-work of which, said to be of much superior workmanship, is traced in an oblique direction across the line of the walls, as is also a portion of antique basaltic pavement. "This vast hall," says the editor of the Classical Tour in his preface to that work, 66 measures about two hundred and seventy

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by eighty-two feet. It was almost precisely similar in dimensions and decorations with the great saloon in the baths of Diocletian; and, like it, the ceiling was supported by eight gigantic columns, except that the material was here of white marble instead of granite. This hall opened, by three arches on each side, into two aisles. The entrance to the building was by means of a low vestibulum at one end of the saloon, towards the Colosseum, or east. at the other end is a semicircular recess or tribunal. The external wall of the north aisle was pierced by six arches, in two tiers, under each of the three great openings connecting it with the nave; but the centre of these three divisions had undergone an alteration, apparently in the progress of the work, and its straight wall was thrown out into a semicircular tribune, with a half cupola ceiling, like that before alluded to at the west end, opposite the original entrance: and this change seems to have been made in consequence of an alteration in the approach; for although the south aisle no longer remains, yet the excavations have laid open a flight of steps, and foundations of a portico of entrance, in the centre of this south side of the building."

This is as full a description, perhaps, as could be given of this ruin; to which we would fain ascribe the honours of its ancient fame, and contemplate it as the remains of the only edifice in which imagination can picture the severe genius of Rome assuming a bland and gentle aspect, and laying aside the splendours of her imperial glory for the simple olive wreath and the white robes of Peace.