ater, shade and sun-shine. A few other very inconsiderable places
we passed, and descended into the Campania of Rome, which is almost a
desert. The view of this country in its present situation, cannot but
produce emotions of pity and indignation in the mind of every person
who retains any idea of its antient cultivation and fertility. It is
nothing but a naked withered down, desolate and dreary, almost without
inclosure, corn-field, hedge, tree, shrub, house, hut, or habitation;
exhibiting here and there the ruins of an antient castellum, tomb, or
temple, and in some places the remains of a Roman via. I had heard much
of these antient pavements, and was greatly disappointed when I saw
them. The Via Cassia or Cymina is paved with broad, solid,
flint-stones, which must have greatly incommoded the feet of horses
that travelled upon it as well as endangered the lives of the riders
from the slipperiness of the pavement: besides, it is so narrow that
two modern carriages could not pass one another upon it, without the
most imminent hazard of being overturned. I am still of opinion that we
excel the ancient Romans in understanding the conveniences of life.

The Grand Tour says, that within four miles of Rome you see a tomb on
the roadside, said to be that of Nero, with sculpture in basso-relievo
at both ends. I did see such a thing more like a common grave-stone,
than the tomb of an emperor. But we are informed by Suetonius, that the
dead body of Nero, who slew himself at the villa of his freedman, was
by the care of his two nurses and his concubine Atta, removed to the
sepulchre of the Gens Domitia, immediately within the Porta del Popolo,
on your left hand as you enter Rome, precisely on the spot where now
stands the church of S. Maria del Popolo. His tomb was even
distinguished by an epitaph, which has been preserved by Gruterus.
Giacomo Alberici tells us very gravely in his History of the Church,
that a great number of devils, who guarded the bones of this wicked
emperor, took possession, in the shape of black ravens, of a
walnut-tree, which grew upon the spot; from whence they insulted every
passenger, until pope Paschal II., in consequence of a solemn fast and
a revelation, went thither in procession with his court and cardinals,
cut down the tree, and burned it to ashes, which, with the bones of
Nero, were thrown into the Tyber: then he consecrated an altar on the
place, where afterwards the church was built. You may gu