fervice of the emperor Charles the Fifth, as he fcaled the walls of Rome.

It is remarkable that France, a nation which values itself so much on an affectionate attachment to its princes, and places loyalty at the head of the virtues, fhould have produced, in the course of the two laft centuries, fo many illuftrious rebels; Bourbon, Coligni, Guife, Turenne, and the Condés; all of them were, at some period of their lives, in arms against their fovereign.

That it is the duty of fubjects to preferve their allegiance, however unjustly and tyrannically their prince may conduct himself, is one of the most debafing and abfurd doctrines that ever was obtruded on the understanding of mankind. When Francis forgot the services which the gallant Bourbon had rendered him at Mirignan; when, by repeated acts of oppreffion, he forgot the duty of a king; Bour

bon

bon fpurned at his allegiance, as a fubject. The Spanish nobleman, who declared that he would pull down his house, if Bourbon fhould be allowed to lodge in it, either never had heard of the injurious treatment which that gallant foldier had received, or he betrayed the fentiments of a flave, and meant to infinuate his own implicit loyalty to the Emperor. Mankind in general have a partiality for princes. The fenses are imposed on by the splendour which furrounds them; and the respect due to the office of a king, is naturally converted into an affection for his perfon: there must therefore be fomething highly unpopular in the character of the monarch, and highly oppreffive in the measures of government, before people can be excited to rebellion. Subjects feldom rife through a defire of attacking, but rather from an impatience of fuffering. Where men are under the yoke of feudal lords, who can force them to fight in any cause, it may be otherwise; but when general difcontent pervades

VOL. II.

I

pervades a free people, and when, in confequence of this, they take arms against their prince, they must have justice on their fide. The highest compliment which subjects can pay, and the beft fervice they can render, to a good prince, is, to behave in fuch a manner, as to convince him that they would rebel against a bad one.

From Mola we were conducted by the Appian way, over the fertile fields washed by the filent Liris:

Rura quæ Liris quieta

Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis *.

This river bounded Latium. On its banks are ftill feen fome ruins of the ancient Minturnæ. After Manlius Torquatus, in what fome will call a phrenzy of virtue, had offered up his fon as a facrifice to military discipline; and his colleague Decius, immediately after, devoted himself in a battle against the Latins; the broken army

-The rich fields that Liris laves,

Where filent roll his deep'ning waves. FRANCIS.

of

of that people affembled at Minturnæ, and were a second time defeated by Manlius, and their lands divided by the fenate among the citizens of Rome. The firft battle was fought near Mount Vefuvius, and the second between Sinueffa and Minturnæ. In the moraffes of Minturnæ, Caius Marius, in the feventieth year of his age, was taken, and brought a prisoner to that city, whose magiftrates ordered an affaffin to put him to death, whom the fierce veteran disarmed with a look. What

mortal, fays Juvenal, would have been thought more fortunate than Marius, had he breathed out his afpiring foul, furrounded by the captives he had made, his victorious troops, and all the pomp of war, as he defcended from his Teutonic. chariot, after his triumph over the Cimbri ?

Quid illo cive tuliffet

Natura in terris, quid Roma beatius unquam ? Si circumducto captivorum agmine, et omni Bellorum pompâ, animam exhalâsset opi

mam,

Cum de Teutonico vellet defcendere curru. Several

I 2

Several writers, in their remarks on Italy, obferve that it was on the banks of the Liris that Pyrrhus gained his dearbought victory over the Romans. They have fallen into this mistake, by confounding the Liris with the Siris, a river in Magna Græcia, near Heraclea; in the neighbourhood of which Pyrrhus defeated the Romans by the means of his elephants.

Leaving Garilagno, which is the modern name of the Liris, we pass the rifing ground where the ancient Sinueffa was fituated; the city where Horace met his friends Plotius, Varius, and Virgil. The friendly glow with which this admirable painter has adorned their characters, conveys an amiable idea of his own:

Animæ, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit; neque queis me fit devinctior alter.

O, qui complexus et gaudia quanta fuerunt! Nil ego contulerim jucundo fanus amico *.

* Pure spirits thefe; the world no purer knows; For none my heart with such affection glows.

Do

How