They leave Ravenna and the mouths of Po,
That all the borders of the town o'erflow;
And spreading round in one continued lake,
A spacious, hospitable harbour make.
Hither the seas at stated times resort,
And shove the loaden vessels into port:
Then with a gentle ebb retire again,
And render back their cargo to the main.
So the pale moon the restless ocean guides,
Driven to and fro by such submissive tides.
Fair Fortune next, with looks serene and kind,
Receives 'em in her ancient fane enshrined;
Then the high hills they cross, and from below
In distant murmurs hear Metaurus flow;
Till to Clitumno's sacred streams they come,
That send white victims to almighty Rome;
When her triumphant sons in war succeed,
And slaughtered hecatombs around 'em bleed.
At Narni's lofty seats arrived from far
They view the windings of the hoary Nar;
Through rocks and woods impetuously he glides,
While froth and foam the fretting surface hides.
And now the royal guest, all dangers passed,
Old Tiber and his nymphs salutes at last;
The long, laborious pavement here he treads,
That to proud Rome the admiring nations leads :
While stately vaults and towering piles appear,
And show the world's metropolis is near.

Silius Italicus, who has taken more pains on the geography of Italy than any other of the Latin poets, has given a catalogue of most of the rivers that I saw in Umbria, or in the borders of it. He has avoided a fault (if it be really such) which Macrobius has objected to Virgil, of passing from one place to another, without regarding their regular and natural situation, in which Homer's catalogues are observed to be much more methodical and exact than Virgil's.

Cavis venientes montibus Umbri,

Hos Esis Sapisque lavant, rapidasque sonanti
Vortice contorquens undas per saxa Metaurus,
Et lavat ingentem perfundens flumine sacro
Clitumnus taurum, Narque albescentibus undis
In Tibrim properans, Tineæque inglorius humor,
Et Clanis, et Rubico, et Senonum de nomine Senon.
Sed pater ingenti medios illabitur amne
Albula, et immotâ perstringit mænia ripâ,
His urbes arva, et latis Mevania pratis,
Hispellum, et duro monti per saxa recumbens
Narnia, &c.

SIL. IT. lib. viii.

Since I am got among the poets, I shall end this chapter with two or three passages out of them, that I have omitted inserting in their proper places.

Sit cisterna mihi quam vinea malo Ravennæ,
Cùm possim multo vendere pluris aquam.
Lodged at Ravenna, (water sells so dear,)
A cistern to a vineyard I prefer.

Callidus imposuit nuper mihi caupo Ravennæ ;
Cum peterem mixtum, vendidit ille merum.

By a Ravenna vintner once betrayed,
So much for wine and water mixed I paid;

But when I thought the purchased liquor mine,
The rascal fobbed me off with only wine.

Stat fucare colus nec Sidone vilior Ancon,
Murice nec Tyrio.

The wool when shaded with. Ancona's dye,
May with the proudest Tyrian purple vie.

MAR. lib. v.

Id.

SIL. IT. lib. viii.

Fountain water is still very scarce at Ravenna, and was probably much more so when the sea was within its neighbourhood.

FROM ROME TO NAPLES.

Upon my arrival at Rome, I took a view of St. Peter's and the Rotunda, leaving the rest till my return from Naples, when I should have time and leisure enough to consider what I saw. St. Peter's seldom answers expectation at first entering it, but enlarges itself on all sides insensibly, and mends upon the eye every moment. The proportions are so very well observed, that nothing appears to an advantage, or distinguishes itself above the rest. It seems neither extremely high, nor long, nor broad, because it is all of them in a just equality. As on the contrary, in our Gothic cathedrals, the narrowness of the arch makes it rise in height, or run out in length; the lowness often opens it in breadth, or the defectiveness of some other particular makes any single part appear in great perfection. Though every thing in this church is admirable, the most astonishing part of it is the cupola. Upon my going to the top of it, I was surprised to find that the dome, which we see in the church, is not the same that one looks upon without-doors, the last of them being a kind of case to the other, and the stairs lying betwixt

them both, by which one ascends into the ball. Had there been only the outward dome, it would not have shown itself to an advantage to those that are in the church; or had there only been the inward one, it would scarce have been seen by those that are without; had they both been one solid dome of so great a thickness, the pillars would have been too weak to have supported it. After having surveyed this dome, I went to see the Rotunda, which is generally said to have been the model of it. This church is at present so much changed from the ancient Pantheon, as Pliny has described it, that some have been inclined to think it is not the same temple; but the Cavalier Fontana has abundantly satisfied the world in this particular, and shown how the ancient figure, and ornaments of the Pantheon, have been changed into what they are at present. This author, who is now esteemed the best of the Roman architects, has lately written a treatise on Vespasian's Amphitheatre, which is not yet printed.

After having seen these two master-pieces of modern and ancient architecture, I have often considered with myself whether the ordinary figure of the heathen or that of the Christian temples be the most beautiful and the most capable of magnificence, and cannot forbear thinking the cross figure more proper for such spacious buildings than the rotund. I must confess the eye is better filled at first entering the rotund, and takes in the whole beauty and magnificence of the temple at one view. But such as are built in the form of a cross, give us a greater variety of noble prospects. Nor is it easy to conceive a more glorious show in architecture than what a man meets with in St. Peter's when he stands under the dome. If he looks upward he is astonished at the spacious hollow of the cupola, and has a vault on every side of him, that makes one of the beautifullest vistas that the eye can possibly pass through. I know that such as are professed admirers of the ancients, will find abundance of chimerical beauties the architects themselves never thought of, as one of the most famous of the moderns in that art tells us, the hole in the roof of the Rotunda is so admirably contrived, that it makes those who are in the temple look like angels, by diffusing the light equally on all sides of them.

In all the old high-ways that lead from Rome, one sees

several little ruins on each side of them, that were formerly so many sepulchres; for the ancient Romans generally buried their dead near the great roads.

Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ. Juv. Sat. 1. None but some few of a very extraordinary quality having been interred within the walls of the city.

Our Christian epitaphs, that are to be seen only in churches, or church-yards, begin often with a Siste Viator, Viator precare salutem, &c., probably in imitation of the old Roman inscriptions, that generally addressed themselves to the travellers; as it was impossible for them to enter the city, or to go out of it, without passing through one of these melancholy roads, which for a great length was nothing else but a street of funeral monuments.

In my way from Rome to Naples, I found nothing so remarkable as the beauty of the country, and the extreme poverty of its inhabitants. It is indeed an amazing thing to see the present desolation of Italy, when one considers what incredible multitudes of people it abounded with during the reigns of the Roman emperors: and notwithstanding the removal of the imperial seat, the irruptions of barbarous nations, the civil wars of this country, with the hardships of its several governments, one can scarce imagine how so plentiful a soil should become so miserably unpeopled in comparison of what it once was. We may reckon, by a very moderate computation, more inhabitants in the Campania of old Rome, than are now in all Italy. And if we could number up those prodigious swarms that had settled themselves in every part of this delightful country, I question not but that they would amount to more than can be found, at present, in any six parts of Europe of the same extent. This desolation appears nowhere greater than in the pope's territories, and yet there are several reasons would make a man expect to see these dominions the best regulated and most flourishing of any other in Europe. Their prince is generally a man of learning and virtue, mature in years and experience, who has seldom any vanity or pleasure to gratify at his people's expense, and is neither encumbered with wife, children, or mistresses; not to mention the supposed sanctity of his character, which obliges him in a more particular manner to consult the good and happiness of mankind. The direction

of church and state are lodged entirely in his own hands, so that his government is naturally free from those principles of faction and division which are mixed in the very composition of most others. His subjects are always ready to fall in with his designs, and are more at his disposal than any others of the most absolute government, as they have a greater veneration for his person, and not only court his favour, but his blessing. His country is extremely fruitful, and has good havens, both for the Adriatic and Mediterranean, which is an advantage peculiar to himself and the Neapolitans above the rest of the Italians. There is still a benefit the pope enjoys above all other sovereigns, in drawing great sums out of Spain, Germany, and other countries that belong to foreign princes, which one would fancy might be no small ease to his own subjects. We may here add, that there is no place in Europe so much frequented by strangers, whether they are such as come out of curiosity, or such who are obliged to attend the court of Rome on several occasions, as are many of the cardinals and prelates, that bring considerable sums into the pope's dominions. But notwithstanding all these promising circumstances, and the long peace that has reigned so many years in Italy, there is not a more miserable people in Europe than the pope's subjects. His state is thin of inhabitants, and a great part of his soil uncultivated. His subjects are wretchedly poor and idle, and have neither sufficient manufactures nor traffic to employ them. These ill effects may arise, in a great measure, out of the arbitrariness of the government, but I think they are chiefly to be ascribed to the very genius of the Roman Catholic religion, which here shows itself in its perfection. It is not strange to find a country half unpeopled, where so great a proportion of the inhabitants of both sexes is tied under such vows of chastity, and where at the same time an inquisition forbids all recruits out of any other religion. Nor is it less easy to account for the great poverty and want that are to be met with in a country which invites into it such swarms of vagabonds, under the title of pilgrims, and shuts up in cloisters such an incredible multitude of young and lusty beggars, who, instead of increasing the common stock by their labour and industry, lie as a dead weight on their fellow-subjects, and consume the charity that ought to support the sickly, old, and decrepid. The many hospitals that are everywhere