must formerly have been very splendid; but it is now falling fast into decay, and its fine gardens are no longer attended to; the fountains in them are dry, and the numberless statues that adorn them have become brown and dirty. After dining at Tivoli we returned to Rome, but stopped for two hours at the Villa Adriana, to view the astonishing ruins of this wonderful spot, where the Emperor Hadrian attempted to unite all the grand and beautiful objects which he had beheld in Greece and Egypt. He here built a Lycæum, an Academy, a Pritaneum, like those he had seen at Athens; he formed the Vale of Tempe, in imitation of the celebrated Thessalian Valley; and not content with earthly subjects, he imagined Tartarus and the Elysian Fields, as described in the ancient mythology. The ruins of this stupendous villa cover a surface of seven miles in circumference, in which are found the remains of circuses, temples, theatres, libraries, baths, palaces, &c. &c., which still present an astonishing proof of the almost inconceivable grandeur and magnificence of the ancient lords of the Roman Empire. The mind that planned and executed this mighty work, and conceived the idea of bringing together into one spot of ground the noblest edifices scattered over the surface of the gigantic empire which he governed, could have been of no common mould, nor can any one dwell upon it as such, whilst wandering amid these now mouldering ruins. Leaving the villa, we proceeded to the Solfatara, Hofrath F---- not having yet seen it, and from thence returned to Rome, where I arrived just in time to read to Sir Humphry, after having spent a day of no common pleasure, which had not been a little heightened by the kind and friendly interest shown me by the Hofrath.