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It is impoffible to view those skeletons, and reflect on this dreadful catastrophe, without horror and compaffion. We cannot think of the inhabitants of a whole town being deftroyed at once, without imagining that their fate has been uncommonly fevere. But are not the inhabitants of all the towns then exifting, of whom we think without any emotion of pity, as completely dead as thofe of Pompeia? And could we take them one by one, and confider the nature of their deaths, and the circumftances attending that of each individual; fome destroyed by painful bodily difeafes, fome by the torture of the executioner, fome bowed to the grave by the weight of accumulated forrow, and the flow anguish of a broken heart, after having fuffered the pangs of diffolution, over and over again, in the death of thofe they loved, after having beheld the dying agonies of their children; could all this, I fay, be appraised, calculated, and compared, the balance of

fuffering

fuffering might not be found with the inhabitants of Pompeia, but rather with thofe of the contemporary cities, who, perhaps at that time, as we do now, lamented its fevere fate.

LETTER LX.

Naples.

A

SI fauntered along the Strada Nuova lately, I perceived a groupe of people liftening, with much attention, to a perfon who harangued them in a raised, folemn voice, and with great gefticulation.. I immediately made one of the auditory, which increased every moment; men, women, and children bringing feats from the neighbouring houses, on which they placed themselves around the orator. He repeated ftanzas from Ariofto, in a pompous, recitativo cadence, peculiar to the natives of Italy; and he had a book in his hand, to affift his memory when it failed. He made occafional commentaries in profe, by way of bringing the Poet's expreffion nearer to the level of his hearers' capacities. His cloak hung loofe from one shoulder;

his right arm was difengaged, for the purpofes of oratory. Sometimes he waved it with a flow, fmooth motion, which accorded with the cadence of the verses ; fometimes he preffed it to his breaft, to give energy to the pathetic fentiments of the Poet. Now he gathered the hanging folds of the right fide of his cloak, and held them gracefully up, in imitation of a Roman fenator; and anon he fwung them acrofs his left fhoulder, like a citizen of Naples. He humoured the ftanza by his voice, which he could modulate to the key of any paffion, from the boisterous bursts of rage, to the foft notes of pity or love. But, when he came to defcribe the exploits of Orlando, he trufted neither to the powers of his own voice, nor the Poet's genius; but, throwing off his cloak, and grafping his cane, he affumed the warlike attitude and ftern countenance of that hero; representing, by the moft animated action, how he drove his fpear through the bodies of fix of his enemies at once; the

point at the fame time killing a feventh, who would also have remained transfixed with his companions, if the fpear could have held more than fix men of an ordinafize upon it at a time.

ry

Il Cavalier d' Anglante ove pui fpeffe
Vide le genti e l'arme, abbaffò l'asta,
Ed uno in quella, e pofcia un altro meffe
E un altro, e un altro, che fembrar di pasta,
E fino a fei ve n'infilzò, e li reffe

Tutti una lancia; e perche' ella non basta
A piu Capir, lafciò il fettimo fuore
Ferito fi che di quel colpo muore.

This ftanza our declaimer had no occafion to comment upon, as Ariofto has thought fit to illuftrate it in a manner which feemed highly to the tafte of this audience. For, in the verse immediately following, Orlando is compared to a man killing frogs in marshy ground, with a bow and arrow made for that purpose; an amufement very common in Italy, and ftill more fo in France.

Non altrimente nell' eftrema arena
Veggiam le rane de' canali e foffe

Dal

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