conjectures when he comes to estimate the pro. bable merits of the Christian clergy who are said to have been so instrumental during the dark ages in preserving the relics of Rome. The Abate of Cortona talks with indignation of the offence', and concludes with a prayer to Benedict the Fourteenth to recover the pillage, and replace the columns and marbles on their ancient base. Indeed the spoilers were guilty not only of a crime against the antiquary, but of sacrilege. Clitumnus could not be expected to deter brother Hilarion and brother Paul, but the name of our Saviour might. Benedict the Fourteenth did not listen to the Abate, and we see the temple as it was left by the honest hermit.

.

It should seem then that the little portico and the form at least of the cell belong to an ancient temple, and probably to that of the Clitumnus, if not to one of the many chapels which were near the principal fane". There were formerly vestiges of two other small ancient structures3, which had not entirely disappeared when Venuti wrote, and had given to

"E quello non hanno fatto i Goti nelle incursione, l'hanno fatto quelli, che non s'intendono d'antichità." Osservazioni, &c. ut sup.

Plin. epist. &c.

2 "Sparsa sunt circa sacella complura." Holstenius Annot. ad Geog. Cluv. pag. 123.

a spot above the church the name ad sacraria. The counts Valenti di Trevi found also the statue of a river god near the chapel, and placed it in their collection. Add to this that the names' still seen on the roof of the subterranean cell belonged probably to those who had consulted the oracle, and that there can be no doubt of the antiquity of that adytus, although it is half blocked up and defaced by the excavations of brother Paul. The cypress grove which shaded the hill above the source of the river has disappeared, but the water still preserves the ancient property of producing some of the finest trout to be met with in Italy.

Stanza LXXVII.

Yet fare thee well; upon Soracte's ridge we part.

The pilgrim may take leave of Horace upon Soracte; not so the antiquary, who pursues him to the city and country, to Rome and Tivoli, and hunts him through the windings of the Sabine valley, till he detects him pouring forth his flowers over the glassy margin of his Bandusian fount. Before, however, the discreet traveller girds himself for such a tour, he is requested to

'T. SEPTIMIVS
PLEBEIVS

BIDIA. L. F.

POLLA

The temple of the oracle of Memnon in Upper Egypt wa full of such inscriptions. See Osservazioni, &c. page 56.

lay aside all modern guide books, and previously to peruse a French work called "Researches after the house of Horace." This will undeceive him as to the Bandusian fountain, which he is not to look for in the Sabine valley, but on the Lucano-Appulian border where Horace was born.

Lucanus an Appulus anceps.

The vicissitude which placed a priest on the throne of the Cæsars has ordained that a bull of Pope Paschal the second should be the decisive document in ascertaining the site of a fountain which inspired an ode of Horace'. The traveller must not be alarmed at the three or four volumes which compose these researches after a single house: the establishment of identity in these cases is absolutely necessary even as a basis for the enthusiasm of which classical recollections are the cause, or at least the excuse. The fixing localities and determining the

1 Confirmamus siquidem vobis Cænobium ipsum et omnia, quæ ad illud pertinent, monasteria sive cellas cum suis pertinentiis: videlicet Ecclesiam S. Salvatoris cum aliis ecclesiis de Castello Bandusii. The bull is addressed to the Abbot Monasterii Bantini in Apulia Acheruntin, and enumerating the churches, goes on, Ecclesiam sanctorum martyrum Gervasii et Protasii in Bandusino fonte apud Venusiam. The date of the bull is May 22, 1103. [See Bullarium Romanum, Paschalis, P. P. secundus, num. xvii. tom. ii, pag. 123, edit. Roma, 1739.]

claims of those antiquities whose chief interest is derived from the story attached to them, is generally supposed the peculiar province of dull plodding writers: but as the man most willing to give scope to his imagination would hardly choose to have any other foundation for his feeling than truth, and as he would be incensed at having been entrapped by an ignorant enthusiastic declaimer into an admiration of objects whose authenticity may be questioned by the first cool examinant, it is but fair that he should accept the labours of the professed topographer and antiquary with their due share of complacency and praise. The common opinion that blind belief is the most convenient viaticum is contradicted by the experience of every traveller in Italy. He who begins his journey

with such entire confidence in common fame and common guide books, must have the conviction of imposture and mistake forced upon him at every turn. He is likely then to slide into the contrary extreme, and, if he is averse to all previous examination, will subside at last into complete scepticism and indifference. We may apply a literal sense to the words of Erasmus in praise of Italy. "In that country the very walls are more learned and more eloquent than our men'.' But the immense variety of

1 Lib. 1. epist. 4. to Rob. Fisher.

antiquarian objects, the innumerable details of historical topography belonging to every province, the national inclination to fable, and, it may be said, to deception, suggest themselves to every considerate traveller, and induce him to a caution and reserve which, with wonders less multiplied and guides more faithful, he might deem superfluous and embarrassing.

A very

little experience is sufficient to convince him how small is the proportion of those antiquities whose real character has been entirely ascertained. From his first view of Soracte he rapidly advances upon Rome, the approach to which soon brings him upon debateable ground. At Civita Castellana he will find himself amongst the Veians when in the market-place of Leo the Tenth, but going on the town bridge he is told by Pius the Sixth that he is at Falerium. After he has caught the first view of St. Peter's from the height beyond Baccano, he hopes that the remaining fifteen miles may furnish him at every other step with some sign of his vicinity to Rome: he palpitates with expectation, and gazes eagerly on the open undulating dells and plains, fearful lest a fragment of an aqueduct, a column, or an arch, should escape his notice.

Gibbets garnished with black withered limbs, and a monk in a vetturino's chaise, may remind him that he is approaching the modern capital;