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the road, on the right, the lone woody promontory of Cir cello looks as if it might contain as many prowling monsters, as the Trojan hero found in its wilds; and still nearer on the left, the lofty, glittering rocks of Anxur, exhibiting both at the base and upon the summit ruins of the ancient city, shoot out into cliffs several hundred feet in height, and overhang the sea. Directly in front, the modern town of Terracina is seated upon the shore, so near the water that its foundations are washed by the waves. We reached this place at 11 o'clock, and after breakfast passed an hour in looking at the few antiquities it contains. Among these is the old Roman harbour, in the form of a crescent--an immense work in its day. It was repaired for the last time by Antoninus Pius, and is now choked with sand, skirted with wild bushes. There is still the shadow of a port, into which a small stream flows and the swells of the Mediterranean roll with a good deal of grandeur. A hard sandy beach offers as many accommodations for bathing as ever. Near the harbour stands a monstrous shell of a palace, built and inhabited a part of the year by Pius VI. while engaged in draining the Pontine Marshes. Its only interest arises from that circumstance. It is now used as a store-house.

On the perpendicular cliffs five or six hundred feet above the town, the traveller sees the ruins of the temple of Apollo; as also the remains of the Castle of the Emperor Theodoric. The latter crown the summit of an insulated, pyramidal rock, (on which once stood the temple of Jupiter,) forming the extreme point of the promontory, the sides of which have been partly faced with artificial masonry, to prevent the loosened scales from falling into the road. Terracina is half unpeopled, and the few remaining inhabitants appear to be in a state of indolence, poverty, and starvation. As Forsyth, the most authentic of our guide-books, informed us that " every fifth man is here an assassin or a sbirro,” we felt no anxiety to prolong our stay beyond the time required for the horses to rest, after travelling near forty miles during the morning. This town and its environs have been the most common haunts of banditti, who have frequently led travellers captive into the neighbouring mountains, and then entered into formal stipulations with their friends to redeem them for a certain sum. * These freebooters once had an

* One of our Italian Consuls informed me, that some years ago a Neapolitan of liberal education failing in his professional pursuits, turned his

accredited agent or minister at the papal court, to conduct the negotiations and manage the foreign affairs of the mountain clan. But if any of their descendants still exist, they had the complaisance to let us pass unmolested. The most common mode of robbery is to make one passenger descend from the coach at a time, and stretch himself upon the ground, lying still till his pockets are picked, and his baggage pillaged.

On leaving Terracina, the road makes a bold sweep towards the east, and traverses a beautiful plain, bounded on one side by an amphitheatre of hills, and on the other by inlets from the sea. The country is richly wooded, green, and flowery; but notwithstanding all its charms, it is said to be unhealthy, owing to the quantity of stagnant water in the vicinity. At the distance of two or three miles, passing under the arch of the Torre de'Confini, (the Border Tower,) we left the patrimony of St. Peter behind, and entered the kingdom of Naples. A swarm of custom-house officers were lounging upon the boundary, and the sentinel soldiers thickened along the path, almost within call of one another. The delay in the examination of our passports and trunks was much shorter and less vexatious than had been anticipated.

At Fondi, the first town in the Neapolitan dominions, the principal street runs along the old Appian Way, just as it was two thousand years ago, furnishing a perfect specimen of its construction. It is composed of large blocks of stone, rather rudely adjusted, and by no means answering my expectations of this far-famed road. The pavements of Florence far surpass it in material, workmanship, strength, and beauty. The old town of Itri is romantically situated in the wildest part of this defile, the houses straggling up the steep ac

attention to others in which patronage was less voluntary. He was soon promoted to the head of a band of robbers, whose fastnesses in the depth of the Apennines long eluded discovery. At length a village girl was observed going to an unfrequented pass in the mountains with a basket of fowls, and the police entertaining some suspicions of her errand, secretly followed her. She was soon met by the chief of the brigands, who came to receive the provisions. He was shot dead upon the spot, and his clan taken prisoners. They had a luxurious residence in the caverus, filled with the spoils of wealthy travellers. A physician was released from captivity, after having been long a prisoner without the means of paying his ransom. Other captives have fared worse in having their ears cropped, or in being cut in quarters!

clivities on either hand. In the walls of the buildings, along the narrow, dirty, beggarly streets, specimens of substantial masonry are seen, said to be older than the foundations of Rome itself. Our coach was here so beset with swarms of mendicants, that it was absolutely necessary to close the windows, to avoid their importunate cries, which could not have been hushed without exhausting our purses. Such is the distress of a population in a country apparently teeming with plenty. The hills are crowned with olives, and the vales produce corn and wine in abundance. But between the oppressions of the government and the indolence of the subject, the peasantry are more degraded and wretched than even the inhabitants of the papal dominions.

Just before sunset we paused opposite an old tower on the right of the road, and three labourers, at work in a field near the base, informed us that it was the Mausoleum of Cicero. Such an object was not to be passed unnoticed. One of the peasants led the way, and kindly lent us a helping hand in climbing up the exterior of its crumbling walls. It is two stories high, of a rude construction, the basement being composed of blocks of Travertine, and the upper story of brick and mortar, intermingled with stone. The interior is

hollow, with niches for statues, and a column rising in the centre, apparently to support the shattered roof, which is tottering to its fall, and richly mantled with shrubs and wild flowers. It is supposed to stand upon the very spot where the great Roman orator was overtaken and assassinated by Herennius, an emissary of Antony, while the former was endeavouring to escape in a litter, from his Formian Villa to the sea shore, at the distance of a mile.

From the Mausoleum of Cicero, a most magnificent sunset view opened upon us towards the south, embracing a range of mountains extending along the shore of the Mediterranean to the bay of Naples, with the top of Vesuvius in the distance the blue expanse of the sea washing a long line of coast-and the lofty promontory of Gaeta, projecting out several miles at the western extremity of the bay. This bold headland immortalized in both Greek and Roman song, exceeds in picturesque beauty any thing I have seen even in Italy, the land of enchantment as it regards distant views. An artist of the finest fancy could not select and group objects to more advantage, than they have been fortuitously combined by the hand of nature and art, in the midst of a

population destitute of taste, who have not wittingly contributed an iota to the embellishment of their landscapes. From the extreme point of Gaeta, the shore sweeps with a bold and graceful curve to Mola, a distance of four or five miles to the east. The old town extends from the end of the cape half way round the bay, the white buildings rising from the edge of the water up the declivity. On the summit of the promontory are seen the antique castle of colossal dimensions, and the mausoleum of Lucius Plancus, the friend of Horace and the founder of Lyons. To the north the woody tops of mountains form a wild and rural back-ground. Such are a few of the elements of a picture, which, brightened by skies and waters rivelling each other in the splendour of their hues, and embellished by the fresh luxuriance of spring, wholly baffles the powers of description. It seemed so much like enchantment, and formed such a fine image to be preserved unbroken in the mind, that we did not in this instance give chase to the rainbow, till its tints vanished amidst beggars and their dirty habitations.

In our ride of a mile or two from the Mausoleum of Cicero to the little town of Mola di Gaeta, situated upon the very margin of the sea, the ruins of the ancient town of Formiæ were seen strewed along the road. We took lodgings for the night at a large and comfortable hotel, called La Villa di Cicerone, said to occupy the site of Cicero's house, though the tradition does not appear to be very well grounded. At any rate, its location is enchanting. The declivity between the court-yard and the sea is covered with magnificent groves of the citron and orange. Most of the trees were laden with golden fruit, while the blossoms of others filled the air with fragrance. The landlord unlocked the gates of this garden of the Hesperides, and bade us welcome to any portion of its contents. We however did not avail ourselves of his liberality, but permitted the bending branches and rich clusters to hang unmolested, too beautiful to the eye to be profaned by the grosser senses.

Below the terrace of the garden, the ruins of the ancient Villa are scattered along the rocks on the beach, and even extending for some distance into the bay, a few feet beneath the surface of the water. Descending from the wall by a ladder, we examined by twilight, (with the aid of a young moon hanging her silver horn above Mount Cæcubus,) the remains of baths, porches, and subterranean arches, still in a

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state of tolerable preservation. The solitude of the shore is unbroken, save only by the murmurs of the sea, which here seems to feel all the indolence of the climate, and rolls in its sluggish billows upon the wreck of Roman luxury. In a retreat so absolutely enchanting, with high hills rising on one hand, and the hollow port described in the Odyssey, spreading on the other amidst scenery enriched by the prodigality of nature, and hallowed by the muse of Homer and Virgil and Horace, as well as associated with the name of Tully-my readers must indulge me in a little romance of feeling. Prompted by the pages of the ancient poets, fancy recalled the images of other ages, when old Ulysses, mooring his fleet in the bay, went on shore perhaps with his crew, to frolic with the peasant girls of Læstrygonia; or when at a subsequent period, the Orator of Rome, retiring to the classic shades of Formiæ, gave his attic nights to the pursuits of eloquence and philosophy. His vigils were scarcely protracted to a later hour than my own. The citron groves, peeping through the windows of my apartment, were the last to bid me good night, and the first to greet me on the morrow.

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LETTER LXII.

ROUTE FROM GAETA TO NAPLES-MINTURNE--RIVER LIRISCAPUA-AVERSA ARRIVAL AT NAPLES-ASPECT

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THE CITY PRINCIPAL STREETS—SKETCH OF THE BAY, ISLANDS, SHORES, HARBOUR, AND OTHER OUTLINES-ROYAL GARDEN TOMBS OF VIRGIL AND SANNAZARO.

May, 1826.—At 5 o'clock on the morning of the 10th, we resumed our journey towards Naples, passing through the large modern town of Mola di Gaeta, the filth and poverty of which present a perfect contrast to the rural charms of the Villa just left with regret. The country onward preserves its picturesque character, though in a less degree than the scenery already described. A ride of an hour brought us to the ruins of old Minturnæ, scattered over a green plain on the right bank of the Liris. In a field on the left of the road, are seen the remains of a Roman aqueduct, which extended from the brow of an neighbouring hill to the town, and supplied it with water. The walls of the amphitheatre, similar

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