o_, and another to _L'Allegro_. If a thing of that
kind was to be done, what would not a man of such a turn give for an
_Il Penseroso_, as this Temple now is?--where sweet melancholy sits,
with a look

"That's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up, without a sound."

The modern fountain of _Nismes_ or rather the Roman fountain recovered,
and re-built, falls just before this Temple; and the noble and extensive
walks, which surround this pure and plentiful stream, are indeed very
magnificent: what then must it have been in the days of the Romans, when
the Temple, the fountain, the statues, vases, &c. stood perfect, and in
their proper order? Though this building has been called the Temple of
Diana, by a tradition immemorial, yet it may be much doubted, whether it
was so. The Temples erected, you know, to the daughter of Jupiter, were
all of the Ionic order, and this is a mixture of the Corinthian, and
Composit. Is it not, therefore, more probable, from the number of niches
in it to contain statues, that it was, in fact, a Pantheon? Directly
opposite to the entrance door, are three great tabernacles; on that of
the middle stood the principal altar; and on the side walls were twelve
niches, six on the right-hand are still perfect. The building is eleven
_toises_ five feet long, and six _toises_ wide, and was thrown into its
present ruinous state during the civil wars of Henry the Third; and yet,
in spite of the modern statues, and gaudy ornaments, which the
inhabitants have bestrewed to decorate their matchless fountain, the
Temple of Diana is still the greatest ornament it has to boast of.

LETTER XII.

MONTPELLIER.

Never was a traveller more disappointed than I was upon entering into
this renowned city; a city, the name of which my ears have been familiar
to, ever since I first heard of disease or medicine. I expected to find
it filled with palaces; and to perceive the superiority of the soft air
it is so celebrated for, above all other places; instead of which, I was
accompanied for many miles before I entered it with thousands of
Moschettos, which, in spite of all the hostilities we committed upon
them, made our faces, hands and legs, as bad in appearance as persons
just recovering from a plentiful crop of the small-pox, and infinitely
more miserable. Bad as these flies are in the West-Indies, I suffered
more in a few days from them at, and near Montpellier, than I did for
some years in Jama