The inhabitants of Rome may be excused for chusing this situation for their houses, though by so doing, they have deprived us of a view of the Campus Martius. But surely they, or their Governors, ought to show more solicitude for preserving the antiquities than they do; and they might, without inconveniency, find some place for a Cow Market, of less importance than the ancient Forum. It is not in their power to restore it to its former splendor, but they might, at least, have prevented its falling back to the state in which Æneas found it, when he came to visit the poor Evander. Talibus inter se dictis ad tecta subibant Pauperis Evandri: passimque armenta videbant Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire carinis. I have already said, that besides this, there were several Forums in Rome, where Basilicæ were built, justice administered, and business transacted. The Emperors were fond of having such public places named after them. The accounts we have of the Forums of Nerva, and that of Trajan, give the highest idea of their grandeur and elegance; three Corinthian pillars, with their entablature, are all that remain of the former; of the latter, the noble column placed in the middle, still preserves all its original beauty. It consists of twenty-three circular pieces of white marble, horizontally placed one above the other; it is about twelve feet diameter at the bottom, and ten at the top. The plinth of the base is a piece of marble twenty-one feet square. A staircase, consisting of one hundred and eighty-three steps, and sufficiently wide to admit a man to ascend, is cut out of the solid marble, leaving a small pillar in the middle, round which the stair winds from the bottom to the top. I observed a piece broken, as I went up, which shewed, that those large masses of marble have been exquisitely polished on the flat sides, where they are in contact with each other, that the adhesion and strength of the pillar might be the greater. The stairs are lighted by forty-one windows, exceedingly narrow on the outside, that they might not interrupt the connection of the basso relievos, but which gradually widen within, and by that means give sufficient light. The base of the column is ornamented with basso relievos, representing trophies of Dacian armour. The most memorable events of Trajan’s expedition against the Dacians, are admirably wrought in a continued spiral line from the bottom of the column to the top. The figures towards the top, are too far removed from the eye to be seen perfectly. To have rendered them equally visible with those below, it would have been necessary to have made them larger proportionably as they ascended. Viewed from any considerable distance, all the sculpture is lost, and a plain fluted pillar, of the same proportions, would have had as fine an effect. But such a frugal plan would not have been so glorious to the Prince, whose victories are engraven, or so interesting to the legionary soldiers, many of whom, no