A beautiful Diana too, with her trussed-up robes, the crescent alone wanting, stands on the high altar to receive homage in the character of St. Agnes, in a pretty church dedicated to her fuor delle Porte, where it is supposed she suffered martyrdom; and why?  Why for not venerating that very Goddess Diana, and for refusing to walk in her procession at the New Moon, like a good Christian girl. “Such contradictions put one from one’s self” as Shakespear says.

We are this moment returned home from Tivoli; have walked round Adrian’s Villa, and viewed his Hippodrome, which would yet make an admirable open Manege.  I have seen the Cascatelle, so sweetly elegant, so rural, so romantic; and I have looked with due respect on the places once inhabited, and ever justly celebrated by genius, wit, and learning; have shuddered at revisiting the spot I hastened down to examine, while curiosity was yet keen enough to make me venture a very dangerous and scarcely-trodden path to Neptune’s Grotto; where, as you descend, the Cicerone shews you a wheel of some coarse carriage visibly stuck fast in the rock till it is become a part of it; distinguished from every other stone only by its shape, its projecting forward, and its shewing the hollow places in its fellies, where nails were originally driven.  This truly-curious, though little venerable piece of antiquity, serves to assist the wise men in puzzling out the world’s age, by computing how many centuries go to the petrifying a cart wheel.  A violent roar of dashing waters at the bottom, and a fall of the river at this place from the height of 150 feet, were however by no means favourable to my arithmetical studies; and I returned perfectly disposed to think the world’s age a less profitable, a less diverting contemplation, than its folly.

We looked at the temple of the old goddess that cured coughs, now a Christian church, dedicated to la Madonna della Tosse; it is exactly all it ever was, I believe; and we dined in the temple of Sibylla Tiburtina, a beautiful edifice, of which Mr. Jenkins has sent the model to London in cork, which gives a more exact representation after all than the best-chosen words in the world.  I would rather make use of them to praise Mr. Jenkins’s general kindness and hospitality to all his country-folks, who find a certain friend in him; and if they please, a very competent instructor.

In order however to understand the meaning of some spherical pots observed in the Circus of Caracalla, I chose above all men to consult Mr. Greatheed, whose correct taste, deep research, and knowledge of architecture, led me to prefer his account to every other, of their use and necessity:  it shall be given in his own words, which I am proud of his permission to copy.