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 sixteenth century, erected at Arqua, opposite to the tomb of the Laureate, a tablet, in which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honours of Dante and of Petrarch. 34. What is her pyramid of precious stones? man in his dominions. Yet that excellent prince him- An earthquake reel'd unheededly away. "And such was their mutual animosity, so intent were they upon the battle, that the earthquake, which overthrew in great part many of the cities of Italy, which turned the course of rapid streams, poured back the sea upon the rivers, and tore down the very mountains, was not felt by one of the combatants.”* Such is the description of Livy. It may be doubted whether modern tactics would admit of such an abstraction. Stanza Ix. line 1. 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, The site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be misunfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mau- taken. The traveller from the village under Cortona soleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns to Casa di Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of has for the first two or three miles, around him, but contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, more particularly to the right, that flat land which whilst the pavement slab, simply inscribed to the Father Hannibal laid waste in order to induce the Consu of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici.* Flaminius to move from Arezzo. On his left, and in It was very natural for Corinnat to suppose that the front of him, is a ridge of hills bending down towards statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de' the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy "montes Cordepositi was intended for his great namesake; but the tonenses," and now named the Gualandra. These hills magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itineranes hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tus- pretend to have been so denominated from the bones cany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the found there: but there have been no bones found there, sepulchral peace which succeeded to the establishment and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. of the reigning families in Italy, our own Sidney has From Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does given us a glowing, but a faithful picture. "Notwith-not pass into the roots of the mountains until the sixtystanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of seventh milestone from Florence. The ascent thence Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, is not steep but perpetual, and continues for twenty Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued minutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space with Borghetto, a round tower close upon the water; of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable and the undulating hills partially covered with wood, reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine among which the road winds, sink by degrees into the parts in ten of the people of that province. Among marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, down other things it is remarkable, that when Philip the to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal Second ci Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, placed his horse,† in the jaws of or rather above the n's embassador then at Rome sent him word, that he pass, which was between the lake and the present road, had given away more than 650,000 subjects; and it is and most probably close to Borghetto, just under the not believed there are now 20,000 souls inhabiting that lowest of the "tumuli." On a summit to the left, above city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and the road, is an old circular ruin which the peasants call other towns, that were then good and populous, are in "the Tower of Hannibal the Carthagenian." Arrived the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than at the highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial any. When that city had been long troubled with sedi-view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon him as he tions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unprosperous, descends the Gualandra. He soon finds himself in a vale they still retained such strength, that when Charles VIII. enclosed to the left and in front and behind him by the of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole Gualandra hills, bending round in a segment larger than army, which soon after conquered the kingdom of Na- a semicircle, and runnit down at each end to the lake, ples, thought to master them, the people, taking arms, which obliques to the right and forms the chord of this struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart mountain arc. The position cannot be guessed at from upon such conditions as they thought fit to impose. the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely Machiavel reports, that in that time Florence alone, enclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. with the Val d'Arno, a small territory belonging to that It then, indeed, appears "a place made as it were on city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring purpose for a snare," locus insidiis natus. "Borghetto together 135,000 well-armed men, whereas now that is then found to stand in a narrow marshy pass close to city, with all the others in that province, are brought to the hill and to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet such despicable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and at the opposite turn of the mountains than through the baseness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of little town of Passignano, which is pushed into the water their own prince, nor defend him or themselves if they by the foot of a high rocky acclivity."§ There is a were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are woody eminence branching down from the mountains dispersed or destroyed, and the best families sent to into the upper end of the plain nearer to the side of seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Naples, and Passignano, and on this stands a white village called Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence; Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this eminence as they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the government they are under." From the uu.per Cosmo down to the imbecile Gaston, we look in vain for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a patriot to the command of his fellow-citizens. The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cosmo, had operated so entire a change in the Tuscan character, that the candid Florentines, in excuse for some imper-agenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit." fections in the philanthropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the sovereign was the only liberal Cosmus Medlices, Decreto Publico, Pater Patrie. 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 "Tantusque fuit ardor animorum, adeo intentus pugnæ auimus, ut eum terræ motum qui multarum urbium Italiæ magnas partes prostravit, avertitque cursu rapido amnes, mare fluminibus invexit, montes la pas Tit. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. "Equites ad ipsas fauces saltus tumulis apie tegentibus locat." T Livii, lib xxii. cap. iv. Ubi maxime montes Cortonenses Thrasimenus subit." Ibid. lude colles assurgunt." Ibid. Η Τὸν μὲν κατὰ πρόσωπον τῆς πορείας λόφου αυτός κατελάβετο κα τοὺς Λίβυας, καὶ τοὺς Ἰβήνας, ἔχων ἐπ ̓ ἀυτού κατεστρατοπεί στην Hist. lib. iii. cap. 53. The account in Poivbins is not so easily recouc 1 On Government, chap, ii, sect. xxvi. pag. 208. edit. 1751. Sidney is,able with present appearances as that in Live: he talks of hills to lea ogether with Locke and Hoadley, one et Mir. Hume's "despicable" right and left of the pass and valley; but when Flaminias entered be lead writers. the lake at the right of both. 36. But thou, Clitumnus. and light-armed troops round through the Gualandra enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an Annibale. It is hardly worth while to remark that a ambush among the broken acclivities which the road French travel writer, well known by the name of the now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank President Deputy, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Boland above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass sena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna behind. Flaminius came to the lake near Borghetto at to Rome. sunset; and, without sending any spies before him, marched through the pass the next morning before the Jay had quite broken, so that he perceived nothing of Stanza Ixvi. line 1. the horse and light troops above and about him, and No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front on the hill of Torre. The consul began to draw out his temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto, army in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in and no site, or scenery even in Italy, is more worthy ambush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto.a description. For an account of the dilapidation of Thus the Romans were completely inclosed, having this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustra the lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre tions of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, 37. Charming the eye with dread,-a matchless cataract. front, the Gualandra lalls filled with the light-armed on their left flank, and Leing prevented from receding by the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the I saw the "Cascata del marmore" of Terni twice, at lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, the high lands were in the sunshine, and all the different and again from the valley below. The lower view is corps in ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and only; but in any point of view, either from above or moved down from his post on the height. At the same below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in Switzerland put together the Staubach, Reichenbach, the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards as it were with Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, &c. are rills in comparaone accord into the plain. The Romans, who were tive appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the speak, not yet having seen it. shouts of the enemy among 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. 38. An iris sits amidst the infernal surge. Stanza Ixxii. line 3. Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris the reader may have seen 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 cas cades in Europe should be artificial-this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recom mended 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, among other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus.† A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone.Į 39. The thundering lauwine. Stanza lxxiii. line 5. In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are 40. The Romans fought desperately for three hours, but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general known by the name of lauwine. 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." I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word. Stanza Ixxv. lines 6, 7, and 8. These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-n Homo," &c. Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. some painter is the usual genius of the place, and the I wish to express that we become tired of the task be foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with fore we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by her native Virgil. To the south we hear of Roman rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is names. Near Thrasimene tradition is still faithful to worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage the fame of an enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown; but the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance postillions on that road have been taught to show the with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to very spot where Il Console Romano was slain. Of all reason upon. For the same reason we never can be who fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of historian himself has, besides the generals and Mahar- Shakspeare, ("To be, or not to be," for instance,) from bal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overthe habit of having them hammered into us at eight take the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. years old, as an exercise not of mind but of memory: The antiquary, that is, the hostler, of the posthouse at so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious "A tergo et super caput decepere insidis." T. Liv. &c. † About the middle of the X11th century the coins of Mantua bore on ene side the image and figure of Virgil. Żecca d'Italia, pl. xvii. i. 6.. Voyage dans le Milanuis, &c. par. A. Z. Millin. tom. if. pag. 294. Paris, 1817. "Reatini me ad sua Tempe duxerunt." Cicer. epist. ad Attic. xv. lib. v. ↑ "In eodem lacu nullo nor die apparere arcus." Plin. Hist. Nat lib. ii. cap. Ixii. Ald. Manut. die Renúna unbe agroque, ap. Saliengre, Theunur. tor i. p. 773. CANTO IV. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD. The re is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the the amphitheatre, and to facilitate its transport suffered honour upon his instructer. 41. The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now, 42. The trebly hundred triumphs. 43. Stanza lxxxii. line 2. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, &c. Stanza lxxxiii. line 1. Certainly were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonement of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.* 44. or taken down. Part of the Pompeian shade,¶ the 46. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! Stanza lxxxviii, line 1. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded mos probably with images of the foster-mother of her founder but there were two she-wolves of whom history makes particular mention. One of these, of brass in ancient work, was seen by Dionysiust† at the temple of Roniulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, as having been On the third of September, Cromwell gained the vic-made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, tory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 45. Stanza Ixxxvi. line 4. and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree. The other was that which Cicero§§ has celebrated both in cords as having suffered the same accident as is alluded prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also reto by the orator. The question agitated by the anti • Storia delle Arti, &c. In. x. cap. 1. pag. 321, 322. tom. ii. † Cicer. Epist. ad Atticum, xi. 6. ช Published by Causeus in his Museum Romanum. Sueton. in vit. August. cap. 31, and in vit. C. J. Cæsar. cap. 88 And thou, dread statue! still existent in The austerest form of naked majesty. Stanza lxxxvii. lines 1 and 2. The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Decline Appian says it was burnt down. See a note of Piticus to Suetonius, pag. and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it 224. in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, and it may be added to his mention of it that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hundred crowns for the statue; and presented it to Cardinal Capo di Ferro, uberibus lupe posuerunt." Liv, Hist. lib. x. cap. lxix. This was in the "Tum statua Natte, tum simulacra Deorum, Romulus,ue et Re who had prevented the judgment of Solomon from being mus cum altrice bellua vi fulminis ictis conciderunt." De Divinat. ii executed upon the image. In a more civilized age this statue was exposed to an actual operation: for the 20. "Tactus est ille etiam qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inau French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coli-ratum in Capitolio parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem seum resolved that their Cæsar should fall at the base fuisse meministis." In Catilin. u. 8. of that Pompey, which was supposed to have been • Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idées de la facon dont je vous + Memorie, nim, Ivii. pag. 9. ap. Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum. • Roma instaurata, lib. ii. fo. 31. Η Χάλκεα ποιηματα παλαιᾶς ἐργασίας. Antig. Rom. lib. 1. year U. C. 455, or 457. "Hic silvestris erat Romani nominia altrix De Consulatu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat. cap. ii.) !!!! Ἐν' γὰρ τῷ καπητολίῳ ἀνδριάντες τὲ πολλοὶ ὑπὸ κεραυνών συνεχωνεύθησαν, καὶ ἀγάλματα αλλα τε, καὶ διὸς ἐπὶ κίονος ίδρυμ ένον, άκων τέ τις λυκαινης σὺν τε τῷ 'Ρωμῳ καὶ σὺν τῷ Ρωμύλῳ 1548. He goes on to mention that the letters of the columns on which the lčovμivn theon. Dion. Hist. lib. xxxvii. pag. 37. edit. Reb. Steph. laws were written were liquefiel and become dμvôçà. All that the quaries is, whether the wolf now in the conservators' that the statue was not then standing ir. its former posi palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, tion. Winkelmann has observed, that the present or whether it is neither one nor the other. The earlier twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius Faunus* are marks of gilding on the wolf which might therefore says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is im- be supposed to make part of the ancient group. It is possible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius known that the sacred images of the Capitol were not Ursinust calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were talks of it as the one mentioned by Cicero. To him put into certain under-ground depositaries called favisRycquius tremblingly assents.§ Nardini is inclined to see.* It may be thought possible that the wolf had suppose it may be one of the many wolves preserved in been so deposited, and had been replaced in some con ancient Rome; but of the two rather bends to the Cice- spicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by ronian statue. Montfaucon mentions it as a point espasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, without doubt." Of the latter writers the decisive Win- tells that it was transferred from the Comitium to the kelmann** proclaims it as having been found at the Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it was church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was found near the arch of Severus, it may have been one the temple of Romulus, and consequently makes it the of the images which Orosiust says was thrown down in wolf of Dionysius. His authority is Lucius Faunus, the Forum by lightning when Alaric took the city. That who, however, only says that it was placed, not found, it is of very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, by which he proof; and that circumstance induced Winkelmann to does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theo- believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline wolf. dore. Rycquius was the first to make the mistake, and however, may have been of the same early date as that Winkelmann followed Rycquius. at the temple of Romulus. Lactantius asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period§ after every other observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired. This may account for the preservation of the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of Paganism. Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the wolf with the twins was found†† near the arch of Septimius Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is of the same opinion with that learned person, and is incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning, or otherwise injured. Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularize the Romulus and the Remus, especially the first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed; and Dion only mentions that it fell down, without alluding as the Abate has made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows Romans did was to erect a large statue to Jupiter, looking towards the fast: no mention is afterwards made of the wolf. This happened in A U. C 689. The Abate Fea, in noticing this passage of Dion (Storia delle Aru, &c. tom. i. pag. 202. note x.) says, Non ostante, aggiunge Dione, che fisse ben fermata (the wolf,) by which it is clear the Abate translated theylandro-Leunclavian version, which puts quamvis stabilita for the original ispupen, a word that does not mean ben fermata, but only raise 1, as inay be distinctly seen from another passage of the same Dion: Η βενλήθη μεν ουν δ' Αγρίππας καὶ τὸν Αύγουστον ἐνταῦθα ιδρύσαι. Hist. lib. vi. Dion says that Agrippa "wished to raise a statue of Augustus in the Pantheon." In eadem porticu ænea lupa, cujus uberibus Romulus ac Remus lactantes inhiant, conspicitur: de hac Cicero et Virgilius semper intellexere. Livius hoc signum ab Edilibus ex pecuniis quibus mulctati essen feneratores, positum innuit. Antea in Comitis ad Ficum Ruminalern, quo loco pueri fuerant expositi locatum pro certo est." I.uc. Faupi de Antiq. Urb. Rom. lib. ii. cap. vii. ap. Sallengre, tom. i. p. 217. to his XVIIth chapter he repeats that the statues were there, but not that they were found there. It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which they make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had probably never heard of such a person before, who came, however, to play a considerable, though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial combat with St. Peter at Rome; notwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god, called Semo Sangus or Fidius.|| Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been abandoned, it was thought expedient to humour the habits of the good matrons of the city by sending them with their sick infants to the church of Saint Theo dore, as they had before carried them to the temple of Romulus. The practice is continued to this day; and the site of the above church seems to be thereby iden tified with that of the temple: so that if the wolf had been really found there, as Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present statue being that seen by Dionysius.** But Faunus, in saying that it was at the Ficus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and even if he had been remarking where it was found, would not have alluded to the church of Saint Theodore, but Luc. Faun. ibid. † See note to stanza LXXX. in Historical Illustrations. anima! ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant. de Falea Religione To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," says Baronius [Ann. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 496.,] "viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelassii tempora, quæ fuere ante exordia urbis aliata in Italiam Lupercalia ?" Gelasius wrote a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up. † Ap. Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. Marliani Urb. Rom, topograph. lib. i cap. ix. He mentions another wolf and twins in the Vatican. lib. v. cap. xxi. "Non desunt qui hanc ipsam esse putent, quam adpinximus, quæ è emitio in Basilicam Lateranum, cum nonnullis aliis antiquitatum reli Η Eusebius has these words: καὶ ἀνδριάντι παρ' ὑμῖν ὡς θεὸς τετί quiis, atque hine in Capitolium postea relata sit, quamvis Marlianus auti. μηται, ἐν τῷ Τίβερ, ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρῶν, ἔχων ἐπι qram Capitolinam esse maluit à Tullio descriptam, cui ut in re nimis. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story before; but Baronius γραφήν 'Ρώμα κην ταύτην Σίμωνι ενω Σαγκτων Eccles. Hipt. 116, dubia, trepite adsentimur." Just. Rycquii de Capit. Roman. Comm. himself was obliged to detect this fable. See Nardini Roma Vet. lib. vii, cap. xxiv. pag. 250. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696. cap. xii. percali istituiti in onore di Romolo, introdussero l'uso di pertarvi BamIn essa gli antichi pontefici per toglier la memoria de' giochi Lu. questo Santo, come di continuo si sperimenta." Rione xii. Ripa accu bini oppressi da infermità occulte acciò si liberino per l'intercessione ci Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostrat ædibus, cum vestigio fulminis quo ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium Italic. tom. i. p. 174. Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. iii. cap. iii. § ii. note 10. Winkelmann has made a strange blowder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was o in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so." 11" Latsai dire, che l'Ercolo di bronzo, che oggi si trova nella sala di Nardini, lib. v. cap. 11. convicts Pomponius Lætus crassi erroris. Campidogas, fu trovato nel foro Romano appresso l'arco di Settimio: ein putting the Ruminal fig-tree at the church of Saint Theodore: it as fu trovata anche la lupa di bronzo che allata Romolo e Remo, e stå neila Logg: de conservatori." Livy says the wolf was at the Ficus Ruminalis, and Dionysius at the tem Flam. Vacca, Memorie, num. iii. pag-ple of Romulus, he is obliged (cap. iv.) to own that the two were dow ap. Montfaucon, Diar. Ital. toin. i. rata e succincta descrizione, &c. di Roma Moderna dell' Ab. Riloff, Venti, 1766. together, as well as the Lupercal cave, shaded, as it wire, by the fig-tree. CANTO IV. NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD. to a very different place, near which it was then thought percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; angustos sensus; It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up, and perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting relics of the ancient city,† and Is certainly the figure, if not the very animal to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses: "Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 47. For the Roman's mind Was model'd in a less terrestrial mould. Stanza xc. lines and 4. 49. There is a stern round tower of other days. 50. Prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favourites-early death. Stanza cii. lines 5 and 6. Ον οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνήσκει νέος. Τὸ γὰρ θανεῖν οὐκ αἰσχρὸν, ἀλλ ̓ αἰσχρῶς θανεῖν. 51. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as p. 231, edit. 1784. composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. Stanza cvii. line 9. even of the Romans themselves. The first generalthe only triumphant politician-inferior to none in eloThe Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the quence comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever appeared formed of crumbled brickwork. Nothing has been told, in the world-an author who composed a perfect spe- nothing can be told, to satisfy the belief of any but a cimen of military annals in his travelling carriage at Roman antiquary. See-Historical Illustrations, p320 one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing 206. a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his cotemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages, who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial coun trymen: HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.|| Stanza cviii. lines 1, 2, and 3. The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion entertained of Britain by that orator and his cotemporary Romans, has the following eloquent passage: "From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty, enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and reli..omnes pene veteres ; qui nihil cognosci, nihil gious imposture: while this remote country, anciently 48. What from this barren being do we reap? mam, hoc est, mammam, docente Varrone, suxerant olim Romulus et quam hodie in capitolio videmus." • "Ad comitium ficus olim Ruminalis germinabat, sub qua lupe ruRemus; non procul a templo hodie D. Mariæ Liberatricis appellato ubi forsan inventa nobilis illa tenea statua lupa geminos puerulos lactantin, Olai Borrichi Antiqua Urbis Ro mante Facies cap. x. See also cap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini † Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antonines Pius. in 1687. Ap. Græv, Antiq. Rom. tom. iv. p. 1522. En. viii. 631. See-Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who In his tenth book, Lucan shows his prinkled with the blood of Pharsalia in the arms of Cleopatra, laclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. Sanguine Thessalice cladis perfuaus adulter After feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse with Spes sit mihi certa videndi Immediately afterwards, he is fighting again and defending every the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running perhaps the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth and corruption of morals: till, by a total degeneracy and to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline, loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing every thing that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original barbarism."† t The History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vi. vol. i. p. 102. "Jure casus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimation of his cha actor, and raking use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's tim. "Melima jure cegum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine The contrast has been reversed in a late extraordinary instance. A that he was not an Englishman, but only a Roman. See "Interesting asons fuit:" [lib. iv. cap. 48.1 and which was continued in the legal gentleman was thrown into prison at Paris; efforts were made for his demes's procounced in justifiab. homicies, such as killing house-release. The Freach muster continued to detain am, nuder the pretend Facts relating to Joachim Murat." pag. 139. reakers. See Sueton. in Vit. C. J. Cresar vith the commentary of Patisers, p. 184. |