TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JOHN LORD BROWNLOW, LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF LINCOLN, &c. &c. &c. AS A MONUMENT OF AN INSTRUCTIVE AND PLEASANT TOUR, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S FELLOW-TRAVELLER AND MOST SINCERE FRIEND, JOHN CHETWODE EUSTACE. DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES. MAP OF ITALy, to face thE TITLE-PAGE OF VOL. I. CHURCH OF ST. Clement, TO FACE PAGE.... BASILICA LIBERIANA, OR STA. MARIA MAGGIORE BASILICA LATeranensis, or ST. JOHN LAteran BASILICA SANCT CRUCIS IN JERUSALEM, CHURCH BASILICA VATICANA, OR ST. PETER'S. PREFACE THE Author presents the following pages to the public with diffidence. He is aware that the very title of "a Tour through Italy" is sufficient in itself to raise expectation, which, as he has learned from the fate of similar compositions, is more frequently disappointed than satisfied. To avoid as much as possible this inconvenience, he thinks it necessary to state precisely the nature and object of the present work, that the reader may enter upon its perusal with some previous knowledge of its contents. The Preliminary Discourse is intended chiefly for the information of young and in VOL. I. a experienced travellers, and points out the qualities and accomplishments requisite to enable them to derive from an Italian Tour, its full advantages. The Reader then comes to the Tour itself. The epithet Classical sufficiently points out its peculiar character, which is to trace the resemblance between Modern and Ancient Italy, and to take for guides and companions in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the writers that preceded or adorned the first. Conformably to that character, the Author may be allowed to dwell with complacency on the incidents of ancient history, to admit every poetical recollection, and to claim indulgence, if in describing objects so often alluded to by the Latin writers, he should frequently borrow their expressions; Materiæ scripto conveniente suæ*. Ovid, Trist, 1. v. i. * Their expressions being appropriate to his subject. |