worried by certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff and voice. Nor was I astonished, for I have had proof of the rigour of your mind, and I know you have fallen on that unaccommodating incapable race of mortals, who, whatever they either like not, or know not, or cannot do, are sure to reprehend in others; and on those occasions only put on a show of learning and eloquence, but otherwise are entirely dumb*."

It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood do not resemble those of Certaldo, and that one of them who did not possess the bones of Boccaccio would not lose the opportunity of raising a cenotaph to his memory. Bevius, canon of Padua, at the beginning of the 16th century, erected at Arquà, opposite to the tomb of the Laureate, a tablet, in which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honours of Dante and of Petrarch.

STANZA LX.

What is her pyramid of precious stones?

Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and expires with his grandson; that stream is pure only at the source; and it is in search of some memorial of the virtuous republicans of the family that we visit the church of St. Lorenzo at Florence. The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pavement slab, simply inscribed to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medicit. It was very natural for Corinna‡ to suppose that the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de' depositi was intended for his great namesake; but the magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepulchral peace which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning families in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing, but a faithful picture. "Notwithstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. Amongst other things, it is remarkable, that when Philip the Second of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, his embassador then at Rome sent him word, that he had given away more than 650,000 subjects; and it is not believed there are now 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more

Animadverti alicubi librum ipsum canum dentibus lacessitum, tuo tamen baculo egregiè tuâque voce defensum. Nec miratus sum: nam et vires ingenii tui novi, et scio expertus esses hominum genus insolens et ignavum, qui quicquid ipsi vel nolunt vel nesciunt, vel non possunt, in aliis reprehendunt; ad hoc unum docti et arguti, sed elingues ad reliqua.". Epist. Joan. Boccatio. Opp. tom. i. p. 540. edit. Basil.

+ Cosmus Medices, Decreto Publico, Pater Patriæ.

Corinne, Liv. xviii. chap. iii. vol. iii. page 248.

mu my had been ) ng trated with seines, tumults. most part ingespenas, they el retabel sith streach. VIII fFnare, bing visited as a friend with his while Z naguered the kings an of Naples, thigght to master them the perçin, same ama, struck such a teme into him, that he was pat - separ ape na sam rodties as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports that a thar the Fear if on with the Val D'Arc, a small temམགས 384 tu my mood in a few boars by de und da bell, bring TALK THE ; TÖHIVA D. w that city, with all the others auror car, are besuar si soch beg.able weakness, emptiness, poverty, zi tega, dut ter na seher most the gprosties of their own prince, ne defend him or Demeines i dey were assaulted by a forum enemy. The Im cu 10 Examed ve bere med and the best faciles eat to sek halitaDe a Tom SDL ice. Nigus, and Lam This is the effect of mit it pestlenes ; they enjoy a perfem peace, and sofer n. cher place than the a torment by in mirti" Fra the wiper Como Lan to the mberli tasr 1 ve kok a na fr any of those zzzɔei qualities which should rase a parter to the nommand of his 60w cities. The Grand Imam unë pareilary the tard lost had pented so entire a change in the isein manner that the mandit F. centies, in este fome imperfections a the pelleter på som é Leopold are obliged to enfess that the smann was the dy lvni su ali basics. Yet that excellent prore beef bad a chers cre of a national assemby, than of a body to ngower the wants and wakes, at the will of the people.

The site of the battle & Tinaxbete > but to be mistaken. The traveller from the volage under C er ca 1: Casa Paase, the next stake in the way 1. & cm bas to the first tw: three miles, arend him, but more particulang to the nên, thus far hand who A Hammibal laid waste in crier to in face the Caval Flames to mine fin Anema. On his left, and in front of him, saniz CL Molng dan kwark the like of Tansizere, called by cceciw named the Gualan ira. The his be Ith the itineranes pretend to have been so

denominated from the bones found there but there have been no bones found there, and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into the roots of the mountains until the sixty-seventh milestone from Florence. The ascent thence is not steep, but perpetual, and continues for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, with Borghetto, a round tower, close upon the water; and the undulating hills partially covered with wood, amongst which the road winds, sink by degrees into the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal placed his horse*, in the jaws of or rather above the pass, which was between the lake and the present road, and most probably close to Borghetto, just under the lowest of the "tumulit." On a summit to the left, above the road, is an old circular ruin, which the peasants call "the Tower of Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon him as he descends the Gualandra. He soon finds himself in a vale inclosed to the left, and in front, and behind him by the Gualandra hills, bending round in a segment larger than a semicircle, and running down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the right and forms the chord of this mountain arc. The position cannot be guessed at from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely inclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It then, indeed, appears "a place made as it were on purpose for a snare," locus insidiis natus. "Borghetto is then found to stand in a narrow marshy pass, close to the hill, and to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at the opposite turn of the mountains than through the little town of Passignano, which is pushed into the water by the foot of a high rocky acclivity." There is a woody eminence branching down from the mountains into the upper end of the plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a white village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this eminence as the one on which Hannibal encamped, and drew out his heavy-armed Africans and Spaniards in a conspicuous position §. From this spot he despatched his Balearic and lightarmed troops round through the Gualandra heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an ambush amongst the broken acclivities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Flaminius came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset; and, without sending any spies before him, marched through the pass the next morning before the day had quite broken, so that he perceived nothing of the horse and light troops above and about him, and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front on the hill of Torre ||. The

Equites ad ipsas fauces saltus tumulis apte tegentibus locat." T. Livii, lib. xxii. cap. iv. "Ubi maxime montes Cortonenses Thrasimenus subit." Ibid.

"Inde colles assurgunt." Ibid.

8. Τὸν μὲν κατὰ πρόσωπον τῆς πορείας λόφον αὐτὸς κατελάβετο, καὶ τοὺς Λίβυας καὶ τοὺς Ιβηρας éxшv Èπ' abтov KаTEσTраTоTÉÕEVσe. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 83. The account in Polybius is not so easily reconcilable with present appearances as that in Livy: he talks of hills to the right and left of the pass and valley; but when Flaminius entered he had the lake at the right of both.

"A tergo et super caput decepere insidia." T. Liv. &c.

consul began to draw out his army in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in ambush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto. Thus the Romans were completely inclosed, having the lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills filled with the light-armed on their left flank, and being prevented from receding by the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, and all the different corps in ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. At the same moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Romans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy amongst them, on every side, and before they could fall into their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile further on, is called "the bloody rivulet ;" and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the "Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is covered with thick-set olive-trees in corn-grounds, and is nowhere quite level, except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most probable, that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain, and to pierce through the main army of Hannibal.

The Romans fought desperately for three hours, but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and the name of the "stream of blood.”

Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some painter is the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil *. To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown; but the postilions on that road have been taught to show the very spot where il Console Romano was slain. Of all who fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian himself has,

* About the middle of the XIIth century the coins of Mantua bore on one side the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d'Italia, pl. xvii. i. 6. . . Voyage dans le Milanais, &c. par A. Z. Millin,

tom. ii. pag. 294. Paris, 1×17.

besides the generals and Maharbal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale. It is hardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the President Dupaty, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to Rome.

STANZA LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus !

No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, p. 35.

STANZA LXXI.

—a matchless cataract,

Charming the eye with dread,

I saw the "Cascata del marmore of Terni twice, at different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, &c. are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it.

STANZA LXXII.

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,

Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of Iris, the reader will see a short account in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like "the hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial-this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake, called Pie' di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe*, and the ancient naturalist, amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinust. A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone ‡.

STANZA LXXIII.

The thundering lauwine

In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine.

*"Reatini me ad sua Tempe duxerunt." Cicer. epist. ad Attic. xv. lib. iv.

t "In eodem lacu nullo non die apparere arcus." Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. cap. lxii.

Ald. Manut. de Reatina Urbe Agroque, ap. Sallengre Thesaur. tom. i. p. 773.