In a preface to this poem addressed to the Cardinal Aldobrandini, Castaglio expresses his conviction that the flood was sent by God as a punishment for the sins of the people, which he proceeds to describe in detail. The Tiber here is no longer personified, represented as endowed with feelings, and acting on its own impulses, but described as an instrument in the hands of the Deity to accomplish his Own purposes.

The river, he says, began to overflow its banks on the night of the eighth Cal. Jan., or twenty-fourth of December, increasing slowly that night, and the following morning. It then rose suddenly, and rushed with such violence through the streets, that in many of them people were afraid to trust themselves to the boats. The river rose to the first storey of the houses, and in many places even higher. On Christmasday nearly all the people were confined in their houses, and unable to attend divine service, which was performed only in the churches on the hills.

On the fifth day the river retired within its bed, leaving the city in such a state that there was scarcely a street in which houses might not be observed in a falling state or propped up with timbers.* The Pons Senatorius, the same as the Pons Emilius, and commonly called in those times Ponte di Santa Maria, was partly carried away, as I have already mentioned; the bricks in the upper part of the Ponte St. Angelo were displaced, and the shops, which then, as on the old bridges of London and Florence, encumbered the structure, were broken up.

It has been before observed that the wide-spread destruction among Roman buildings, especially farm-houses (agros Tiberis super ripas effusus maxime ruinis villarum vastavit.-Livy, IV. 49.) was owing, probably, to the material (sun-dried bricks) of which they were built, and the flimsiness of their construction. To the same cause was due the frequent collapse of houses in the middle ages. "Houses of poor people in those times were slightly built, of inferior materials, and their foundations laid but a short distance below the earth. They lived either in houses of one storey or on the lowest floor of higher buildings. Hence so many are recorded to have been drowned."-Pamphlet by Sigre. Aubert.

In his poem Castaglio describes the same incidents of the flood, and extols the benevolence of the Pope, and his unwearied exertions to save those who were in danger of drowning, and to supply food and shelter to all. In the inscription on the tablet which I have given, the Pope is described as cursing the river. I presume that this is a mere form of words, and that no formal imprecation was pronounced upon it. But Castaglio tells us that the Pope lifted up his eyes to heaven, and prayed to God that he would lay aside his wrath, and ward off destruction from the sacred city. He then stretched forth his hands in the form of a cross, on which the Tiber straightway stayed the violence of his course, and shrunk within his bed.

Nam crucis in speciem simul atque extendere dextram

In se te Tibris sensit, violenta repressit

Agmina continuo, notumque recessit in alveum.

This was doubtless when the flood had nearly subsided, and when all the mischief had been done. It was a pity he did not perform the miracle at an earlier stage.

The details of the flood of 1660, which scarcely equalled in height that of 1870, may be passed over, as differing in no respect from those which have been recounted. But the observations of Bonini upon the Jews of the Ghetto, and an incident which he relates, will serve to illustrate the feelings entertained by the Christians of the time towards the Jews, and the hatred with which the Jews returned the scorn of the Christians. "That obstinate nation, says the author, derived, however, some benefit from the inundation; for while it refused to wash in the water of baptism the uncleanness of the soul, it beheld, cleaned away by that of the Tiber, the impurities of its body, and of its rooms, which, owing to the stench and to the filth, were in some places almost unapproachable. Yet the authorities, pitying even this reprobate people, ordered that an opening should be made into the Ghetto on the side of the Signori Cenci, that &c."

"It was a fine answer, says the same author, but envenomed with the native arrogance of the people, which was returned by

She was an ecclesiastic. a Jewess, to a wretched woman, almost immersed in the water, and the ecclesiastic exhorted her to withdraw herself from the danger with his aid, and to place her life in security from the fragments which were floating about. "No," she replied; "I have no need of the aid of the Christians, since it suffices the Hebrew to call upon the name of God; and at all times and in all places He will return The ecclesiastic smiled and left an answer to his prayers."

her in the water.

INUNDATION OF 1870.

The flood of 1870 will complete the series of inundations in modern times; for, if not the highest since 1598, it is the highest of which we have any details.

Of this inundation it cannot be said, in the words of Bonini, that "there were no indications by which it might have been foreseen," for none ever gave clearer warning of its approach. A flood into the Ripetta is usually the result of the last great fall of rain, that which closes a long spell of rainy days; after which the wind generally changes to the north-east, dispersing the rainy clouds, and arresting the melting of the snows on the mountains. But, on this occasion, when the river was three feet deep, the Ripetta had already invaded the lower portions of the town, and was still slowly rising, meanwhile, the weather, instead of clearing up, became worse than ever. On the Monday night (December 26) preceding the Wednesday, when the flood was at its height, the rain descended in torrents, accompanied with violent thunder and lightning. One clap was so loud that it shook the houses like an earthquake, and the lightning is said to have struck the Vatican, passing through the roof of the Pope's chapel and destroying a picture at the altar. Now, any one who has studied the phenomena of the weather, and the relation which they bear to the height of the floods, cannot fail to have remarked that the greatest rise of the river takes place after heavy rains accompanied by thunder and lightning; either because thunder and lightning indicate rains of abnormal violence in the Apennines, or because a given quantity of rain falls in a shorter time, and, therefore, less of it is lost by percolation and evaporation before it finds its way into the streams. If the war of elements were so great at Rome, it might have been inferred that it would be still more violent

त्रि

among the mountains, and along the valleys through which the tributaries of the Tiber flow. Yet no warning voice was heard from the Collegio Romano, nor was the note of alarm sounded from the Capitol; though at both places meteorological observations are made. Nor had any one sufficient intelligence to infer what would be the effect of the addition to the swollen river of such a quantity of rain extending, in all probability, over the whole seven thousand square miles of the basin of the Tiber. The flood, therefore, which followed the rain at an interval of twenty-four hours, took everybody by surprise; the Corso was a river, and the shops of the tradespeople were invaded by the water, and their property damaged or destroyed, before they were well awake. On the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth the city presented a singular spectacle. The Corso, and the streets which branch from it, instead of noisy carriages, were traversed by boats, rafts, pontoons, and even tubs, which, gliding silently along, conveyed bread and other provisions, candles and firewood, to the people imprisoned by the waters. As the boats approached, from every storey were lowered buckets, baskets, and towels, tied up at the corners by those who eagerly sought to obtain some small portion of the stores that were being distributed, such as a loaf of bread or a scrap of meat.

During the inundation the post-office was closed for nearly sixty hours, and for two nights, the twenty-eighth and twentyninth, the city was in darkness, owing to the flooding of the gas-works and the immersion of the pipes.

Nothing certain is known about the loss of life, the estimates varying from three to seventeen, and part of those who perished were drowned by the oversetting of a raft.

When the inundation had subsided on the thirty-first, and Victor Emmanuel paid his first visit to Rome, nothing could be more dismal than the aspect of the town. A cold rain was falling, the streets, abandoned by the Tiber, were ancledeep with mud, and strewn with delicate articles irreparably damaged by the flood, while the foot-pavement was encumbered by piles of carpets, silks, velvets, and other costly fabrics