llas and works of arts.[278] For four or five centuries
consecutively, this "headlong stream," as Horace truly called it, has
often remained within its bounds, and then, after so long an interval of
rest, has at different periods inundated its banks again, and widened
its channel. The last of these catastrophes happened 15th Nov. 1826,
after heavy rains, such as produced the floods before alluded to in
Scotland. The waters appear also to have been impeded by an artificial
dike, by which they were separated into two parts, a short distance
above Tivoli. They broke through this dike; and leaving the left trench
dry, precipitated themselves, with their whole weight, on the right
side. Here they undermined, in the course of a few hours, a high cliff,
and widened the river's channel about fifteen paces. On this height
stood the church of St. Lucia, and about thirty-six houses of the town
of Tivoli, which were all carried away, presenting as they sank into the
roaring flood, a terrific scene of destruction to the spectators on the
opposite bank. As the foundations were gradually removed, each building,
some of them edifices of considerable height, was first traversed with
numerous rents, which soon widened into large fissures, until at length
the roofs fell in with a crash, and then the walls sunk into the river,
and were hurled down the cataract below.[279]

The destroying agency of the flood came within two hundred yards of the
precipice on which the beautiful temple of Vesta stands; but fortunately
this precious relic of antiquity was spared, while the wreck of modern
structures was hurled down the abyss. Vesta, it will be remembered, in
the heathen mythology, personified the stability of the earth; and when
the Samian astronomer, Aristarchus, first taught that the earth revolved
on its axis, and round the sun, he was publicly accused of impiety, "for
removing the everlasting Vesta from her place." Playfair observed, that
when Hutton ascribed instability to the earth's surface, and represented
the continents which we inhabit as the theatre of incessant change and
movement, his antagonists, who regarded them as unalterable, assailed
him in a similar manner with accusations founded on religious
prejudices.[280] We might appeal to the excavating power of the Anio as
corroborative of one of the most controverted parts of the Huttonian
theory; and if the days of omens had not gone by, the geologists who now
worship Vesta might r