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round an arena with his bowels trailing on the ground, and turns from the spectacle and the spectators with horror and disgust.

62.

Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head.

Stanza exliv. line 6.

Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was particularly gratified by that decree of the senate, which enabled him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. A stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed at the motive, nor should we without the help of the historian.

63.

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand.

Stanza cxlv. line 1.

This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: and a notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the Historical Illustrations to the IVth Canto of Childe Harold.

64.

spared and blest by time.

Stanza cxlvi. line 3. "Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated fires, though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so well preserved as this rotundo. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian Altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a model in the Catholic church."

Forsyth's Remarks, &c. on Italy, p. 147. sec. edit.

65.

And they who feel for genius may repose

Their eyes on honour'd forms, whose busts around them close. Stanza cxlvii. lines 8 and 9. The Pantheon has been made a receptacle for the busts of mo dern great, or, at least, distinguished, men. The flood of light which once fell through the large orb above on the whole circle of divinities, now shines on a numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or two of whom have been almost deified by the veneration of their countrymen.

66.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light. Stanza cxlviii. line 1. This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of the Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller, by the site or pretended site of that adventure, now shown at the church of St. Nicholas in carcere. The difficulties attending the full belief of the tale are stated in Historical Illustrations, &c.

67.

Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high. Stanza elii. line 1. The castle of St. Angelo. See-Historical Illustrations.

68. Stanza cliii.

This and the six next stanzas have a reference to the church of St. Peter's. For a measurement of the comparative length of this basilica, and the other great churches of Europe, see the pavement of St. Peter's, and the Classical Tour through Italy, vol. ii. page 125. et seq. chap. iv.

69.

the strange fate

Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns.

Stanza clxxi. lines 6 and 7. Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V. a hermit; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious and unhappy.

70.

Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills.

Stanza clxxiii. line 1.

The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has pre served to this day its distinctive appellation of The Grove. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.

71.

And afar

The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
The Latian coast, &c. &c.

Stanza clxxiv. lines 2, 3, and 4. The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cited stanza: the Mediterranean; the whole scene of the latter half of the Eneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina.

The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata, or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Buonaparte.

The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as may be seen from Middleton's Life of Cicero. At present it has lost something of its credit. except for the Domenichinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the adjoining villa is a cardinal's summer house. The other villa. called Ruficella, is on the summit of the hill above Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been found there, besides seventy two statues of different merit and preservation, and seven busts.

From the same eminence are seen the Sabine hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There are several circumstances which tend to establish the identity of this valley with the "Ustica" of Horace; and it seems possible that the mosaic pavement which the peasants uncover by throwing up the earth of a vineyard, may belong to his villa. Rustica is pronounced short, not according to our stress upon- Ustica cubantis."-It is more rational to think that we are wrong than that the inhabitants of this secluded valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition of the consonant prefixed is nothing: yet it is necessary to be aware

that Rustica may be a modern name which the peasants may have caught from the antiquaries.

The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll covered with chesnut trees. A stream runs down the valley, and although it is not true, as said in the guide books, that this stream is called Licenza, yet there is a village on a rock at the head of the valley which is so denominated, and which may have taken its name from the Digentia. Licenza contains 700 inhabitants. On a peak a little way beyond is Civitella, containing 300. On the banks of the Anio, a little before you turn up into Valle Rustica, to the left, about an hour from the villa. is a town called Vico-varo, another favourable coincidence with the Varia of the poet. At the end of the valley, towards the Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town called Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza flows, and is almost absorbed in a wide sandy bed before it reaches the Anio. Nothing can be more fortunate for the lines of the poet, whether in a metaphorical or direct sense:

"Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus.

Quem Mandela bibit rugosus frigore Pagus."

The stream is clear high up the valley, but before it reaches the hill of Bardela, looks green and yellow like a sulphur rivulet.

Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's walk from the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does seem to be the site of the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription found there tells that this temple of the Sabine victory was repaired by Vespasian.* With these helps, and a position corresponding exactly to every thing which the poet has told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our site.

The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Campanile, and by following up the rivulet to the pretended Bandusia, you come to the roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. Singularly enough, the only spot of ploughed land in the whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia rises,

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The peasants show another spring near the mosaic pavement which they call "Oradina," and which flows down the hills into a tank, or mill dam, and thence trickles over into the Digentia.

But we must not hope

"To trace the Muses upwards to their spring"

by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in search of the Bandusian fountain. It seems strange that any one should have thought Bandusia a fountain of the Digentia-Horace has not let drop a word of it; and this immortal spring has in fact been disco

MP. CESAR VESPASIANVS
PONTIFEX MAXIMVS. TRIB.
POTEST. CENSOR. EDEM

VICTORIE VETVSTATE ILLAPSAM.
SVA. IMPENSA, RESTITVIT.

vered in possession of the holders of many good things in Italy, the monks. It was attached to the church of St. Gervais and Protais near Venutia, where it was most likely to be found. We shall not be so lucky as a late traveller in finding the occasional pine still pen. dant on the poetic villa. There is not a pine in the whole valley, but there are two cypresses, which he evidently took, or mistook, for the tree in the ode. The truth is, that the pine is now, as it was in the days of Virgil, a garden tree, and it was not at all likely to be found in the craggy acclivities of the valley of Rustica. Ho. race probably had one of them in the orchard close above his farm, immediately overshadowing his villa, not on the rocky heights at some distance from his abode. The tourist may have easily supposed himself to have seen this pine figured in the above cypresses, for the orange and lemon trees which throw such a bloom over his description of the royal gardens at Naples, unless they have been since displaced, were assuredly only acacias and other common gar den shrubs. The extreme disappointment experienced by choos ing the Classical Tourist as a guide in Italy must be allowed to find vent in a few observations, which, it is asserted without fear of contradiction, will be confirmed by every one who has selected the same conductor through the same country. This author is in fact one of the most inaccurate, unsatisfactory writers that have in our times attained a temporary reputation, and is very seldom to be trusted even when he speaks of objects which he must be presumed to have seen. His errors, from the simple exaggeration to the downright misstatement, are so frequent as to induce a suspicion that he had either never visited the spots described, or had trusted to the fidelity of former writers Indeed the Classical Tour has every characteristic of a mere compilation of former notices, strung together upon a very slender thread of personal observation, and swelled out by those decorations which are so easily supplied by a symptomatic adoption of all the common places of praise, applied to every thing, and therefore signifying nothing.

The style which one person thinks cloggy and cumbrous, and unsuitable, may be to the taste of others, and such may experience some salutary excitement in ploughing through the periods of the Classical Tour. It must be said. however, that polish and weight are apt to beget an expectation of value. It is amongst the pains of the damned to toil up a climax with a huge round stone.

The tourist had the choice of his words, but there was no such latitude allowed to that of his sentiments. The love of virtue and of liberty, which must have distinguished the character, certainly adorns the pages of Mr. Eustace, and the gentlemanly spirit, so re. commendatory either in an author or his productions, is very conspicuous throughout the Classical Tour. But these generous qua. lities are the foliage of such a performance, and may be spread about it so prominently and profusely, as to embarrass those who wish to see and find the fruit at hand. The unction of the divine, and the exhortations of the moralist, may have made this work something more and better than a book of travels, but they have not made it a book of travels; and this observation applies more especially to that enticing method of instruction conveyed by the

*See Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto, p. 43. † See Classical Tour, &c. chap. vii. p. 250. vol. ii.

"Under our windows, and bordering on the beach, is the royal garden, laid out in parterres, and walks shaded by rows of orange trees." Classical Tour, &c. chap. xi., vol. ii. oct. 365.

VOL. I.-CC

perpetual introduction of the same Gallic Helot to reel and bluster before the rising generation, and terrify it into decency by the display of all the excesses of the revolution. An animosity against atheists and regicides in general, and Frenchmen specifically, may be honourable and may be useful, as a record; but that antidote should either be administered in any work rather than a tour, or, at least, should be served up apart, and not so mixed with the whole mass of information and reflection, as to give a bitterness to every page; for who would choose to have the antipathies of any man, however just, for his travelling companions? A tourist, unless he aspires to the credit of prophecy, is not answerable for the changes which may take place in the country which he describes; but his reader may very fairly esteem all his political portraits and deduetions as so much waste paper, the moment they cease to assist, and more particularly if they obstruct, his actual survey.

Neither encomium nor accusation of any government, or governors, is meant to be here offered, but it is stated as an incontrover tible fact, that the change operated, either by the address of the late imperial system, or by the disappointment of every expectation by those who have succeeded to the Italian thrones, has been so considerable, and is so apparent, as not only to put Mr. Eustace's Antigallican philippies entirely out of date, but even to throw some suspicion upon the competency and candour of the author himself. A remarkable example may be found in the instance of Bologna, over whose papal attachments and consequent desolation, the tour ist pours forth such strains of condolence and revenge, made louder by the borrowed trumpet of Mr. Burke. Now Bologna is at this moment, and has been for some years, notorious among the states of Italy for its attachment to revolutionary principles, and was almost the only city which made any demonstrations in favour of the unfortunate Murat. This change may, however, have been made since Mr. Eustace visited this country; but the traveller whom he has thrilled with horror at the projected stripping of the copper from the cupola of St. Peter's, must be much relieved to find that sacrilege out of the power of the French, or any other plunderers, the cupola being covered with lead.

If the conspiring voice of otherwise rival critics had not given considerable currency to the Classical Tour, it would have been unnecessary to warn the reader, that however it may adorn his library, it will be of little or no service to him in his carriage; and if the judgment of those critics had bitherto been suspended, no attempt would have been made to anticipate their decision. As it is, those who stand in the relation of posterity to Mr. Eustace, may be permitted to appeal from cotemporary praises, and are perhaps more likely to be just in proportion as the causes of love and hatred are the further removed. This appeal bad, in some measure, been made before the above remarks were written; for one of the most respectable of the Florentine publishers, who had been persuaded by the repeated inquiries of those on their journey southwards to

*What, then, will be the astonishment, or rather the horror, of my reader, when I inform him the French Committee turned its attention to Saint Peter's, and employed a company of Jews to estimate and purchase the gold, silver, and bronze that adorn the inside of the edifice, as well as the copper that covers the vaults and dome on the outside." Chap. iv. p. 130. vol. ii. The story about the Jews is positively denied at Rome.

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