eyes of the spectators, and nobody chufing to contradict what every body wished, he had been allowed to cover up the phial, and carry it back to the Chapel, with the contents, in the fame form they had come abroad. How far this account is exactly true, I will not take on me to affert; I was not near enough to see the tranfaction myself, and I have only the authority of this perfon, having heard no other body fay they had obferved the fame.

LETTER LXV.

Naples.

T

HE tomb of Virgil is on the mountain of Paufilippo, a little above the grotto of that name; you afcend to it by a narrow path which runs through a vineyard; it is overgrown with ivy leaves. and fhaded with branches, shrubs, and bushes; an ancient bay-tree, with infinite propriety, overhangs it. Many a folitary walk have I taken to this place. The earth, which contains his afhes, we expect to find clothed in the brightest verdure. Viewed from the magic fpot, the objects which adorn the bay become doubly interefting. The Poet's verfes are here recollected with additional pleafure; the verses of Virgil are interwoven in our minds with a thousand interefting ideas, with the memory of our boyish years, or the fportive

fcenes

fcenes of childhood, of our earliest friends and companions, many of whom are now dead; and those who ftill live, and for whom we retain the firft impreffion of affection, are at fuch a diftance as renders the hopes of feeing them again very uncertain. No wonder, therefore, when in a contemplative mood, that our steps are often directed to a spot fo well calculated to create and cherish fentiments congenial with the state of our mind. But then comes an antiquarian, who, with his odious doubts, difturbs the pleafing fource of our enjoyment; and from the fair and delightful fields of fancy, conveys us in a moment to a dark, barren, and comfortlefs defert;-he doubts, whether this be the real place where the ashes of Virgil were depofited; and tells us an unfatiffactory story about the other fide of the bay, and that he is rather inclined to believe that the Poet was buried fomewhere there, without fixing on any particular fpot.

Would to heaven those doubters would keep their minds to themselves, and not ruffle the tranquillity of believers!

But, after all, why fhould not this be the real tomb of Virgil? Why should the enthufiafts, who delight in pilgrimages to this fpot, be deprived of that pleasure? Why should the Poet's ghoft be allowed to wander along the dreary banks of Styx, till the antiquarians erect a cenotaph in his honour? Even they acknowledge that he was buried on this bay, and near Naples; and tradition has fixed on this fpot, which, exclufive of other prefumptions, is a much stronger evidence in its favour than their vague conjectures against it.

In your way to the claffic fields of Baia and Cume, you pafs through the grotto of Paufilippo, a fubterraneous paffage through the mountain, near a mile in length, about twenty feet in breadth, and thirty or forty in height, every where, except at the two extremities, where it is much higher.

I

higher. People of fashion generally drive through this paffage with torches, but the country people and foot paffengers find their way without much difficulty by the light which enters at the extremities, and at two holes pierced through the mountain near the middle of the grotto, which admit light from above.

Mr. Addison tells us, that the common people of Naples in his time believed that this paffage through the mountain was the work of magic, and that Virgil was the magician. But this is the age of fcepticism; and the common people, in imitation of people of fashion, begin to harbour doubts concerning all their old established opinions. A Neapolitan Valetde-place asked an English gentleman lately, Whether Signior Virgilio, of whom he had heard fo much, had really, and bona fide, been a magician or not? "magician," replied the Englishman;

"A

ay, that he was, and a very great