city near the lake of the same name, in the Campagna di Roma, in the Papal territories. It is much admired for the picturesque scenery around it. It is well built, and the Roman aqueduct and other monuments of antiquity are in tolerable preservation. The city contains a cathedral, four monasteries, a nunnery, and 5600 inhabitants. Long. 12. 43. 47. E. Lat. 41. 48. 50. N.

Albano, Lake of, about thirteen miles S.E. from Rome, is of a beautiful oval form, surrounded with high wooded banks, and about seven miles in circumference. It has long been a favourite object to the painter and the traveller; and on a cliff overhanging the lake is Castel Gandolfo, the only summer residence of the sovereign pontiffs, to which they retire during the unwholesome season at Rome. It has evidently been the crater of an extinct volcano. In the fourth century of ancient Rome, during the siege of Veii, the rise of the waters of this lake was so extraordinary, that the oracle of Delphi was consulted, and it gave no hope of success against Veii, while the Alban lake was allowed thus to swell. This prompted the Romans to drain the lake by an emissary or tunnel cut through the rock, a mile and a half in length, 4 feet wide, and 6 high, which is still perfect. As the nature of the peperino rock is crumbling, the cut is carefully cased with solid masonry. Its upper end is about the level of the ordinary surface of the lake, which is 920 feet above the level of the sea. Ten years after this work was finished, Veii succumbed to her hated rival.

Albano is also a town in the kingdom of Naples, remarkable for the fertility of the surrounding territory, and for the nobility of the inhabitants.

Albans, St., a market-town of Hertfordshire, stands on the north side of the Ver, on the opposite side to the Roman city of Verulamia. It is chiefly remarkable for its immense Abbey church, the longest ecclesiastical structure in Great Britain. It was founded by the king of Mercia on his conversion to Christianity in the year 790; but the present building contains specimens of every style of English architecture. In the older portions, we find heavy circular arches, devoid of all ornament, springing from rude square piers, and sometimes large arches, divided by two interior arches, that rest on a low circular pier. This style is by some termed Saxon; but our best antiquaries now consider it as only early Norman. Some of the piers are clustered, showing a much later kind of architecture. This church is 556 feet long, by 174 feet in breadth at the transepts. The tower which surmounts it is only 150 feet in height; but from being on a moderate hill in a flat country, is visible from a great distance. The vast quantity of Roman bricks used in this structure is very striking; these were derived from the remains of the Roman Verulamia, which were extensively destroyed by the 8th and 9th abbots of St Albans, Ealdred and Edmer, who rebuilt the church, and whose researches, according to Camden, were rewarded by the discovery in the ruins of great treasures of gold and silver, coins, and ancient MSS. Among the latter was said to be the famous Book of St Albans, the life of the saint in British, afterwards translated by a monk into Latin. The church contained, it is said, the bones of St Alban, but certainly those of Offa, and of the good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, whose tomb was discovered in the last century. His bones show him to have been tall and vigorous. The town is divided into three parishes, St Albans, St Michaels, and St Peters. In St Michael's church, a small structure within the precincts of the ancient Verulam, is the tomb of the illustrious Lord Bacon; and in St Peter's church were deposited the bodies of the nobles who fell in the two battles of St Albans, in the civil wars of the two Roses. St Albans is twenty miles from London, in Lat. 51. 46. Long. 0. 21. W. The population in 1851 was 7000; and the number of inhabited houses 1361. It has hitherto returned two members to parliament; but in consequence of the gross corruption practised in electing the members, it is believed that it will shortly be deprived of that privilege, if not altogether disfranchised.