I was made to observe at Rome some vestiges of an ancient custom very proper in those days--it was the parading of the streets by a set of people called _Preciæ_, who went some minutes before the _Flamen Dialis_ to bid the inhabitants leave work or play, and attend wholly to the procession; but if ill omens prevented the pageants from passing, or if the occasion of the show was deemed scarcely worthy its celebration, these _Preciæ_ stood a chance of being ill-treated by the spectators. A Prefatory introduction to a work like this, can hope little better usage from the Public than they had; it proclaims the approach of what has often passed by before, adorned most certainly with greater splen…
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