ificence, and
were filled with amphi theatres, theatres, temples, porticoes, triumphal
arches, baths and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the
devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last mentioned
of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the
enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which they
were subservient, rank the aqueducts among the noblest monuments of
Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital claim a just
preeminence; but the curious traveller, who, without the light of
history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would
very naturally conclude that those provincial towns had formerly been
the residence of some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa
were once covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and
even whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a
perennial stream of fresh water.

We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public works,
of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its
cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter. It
may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative
to that subject without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of
nations and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has
been indifferently bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.

I. Ancient Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and
ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever aera of antiquity the expression
might be intended, there is not any reason to believe the country less
populous in the age of the Antonines, than in that of Romulus. The petty
states of Latium were contained within the metropolis of the empire, by
whose superior influence they had been attracted. * Those parts of Italy
which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and
viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of
war; and the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were
amply compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The
splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains: yet Verona was less
celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. II. The spirit
of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in the woods
of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for
convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of