even when most positive, to balance doubts and choose between difficulties. If the Abbé Barthelemy had pursued his original plan of writing an Italian Anacharsis for the age of Leo X., he might have been more useful at Rome than he is in Greece. As it is, the Abbe's cursory but learned observations are distinguished by the quotation of a very singular document, the original of which has never been found', and his ingenious countrymen had not extended their literary empire to the illustration of sites and monuments in their rival Italy, until their political dominion had embraced the soil itself. Our own writers, with the exception of Mr. Forsyth, whose sketch makes us regret the loss

It refers to the Coliseum, and will be remarked in its proper place. See Mem. de l'academie des belles lettres, tom. xxviii. pp. 519. 599. A separate volume has been printed.

Mr. Millin has published four volumes on Upper Italy, (Voyage en Savoie, en Piemont, à Nice et à Gènes, 1816; and Voyage dans le Milanais à Plaisance, Parme, &c. 1817.) and is to continue his work down to the straits of Messina, and into Calabria. He should be warned that he is charged by the Italians with never having been in some of the spots he describes as a spectator. His compilation does not apply to present appearances. It is as clear that he never has been at Parma, as that Bonaparte was at the battle of Lodi, which, by the account given by this conserver of the king's medals, it would appear he was not. See Voyage dans le Milanais, &c. pp. 57, 58. chap. xvi.

of the taste and learning he might have brought to bear on a regular survey, have done nothing in this laborious line, absolutely nothing. The last of them seems to have thought it of little importance that the capitol was ever inhabited by any others than the monks of Ara-cœli, or that the court of Augustus preceded that of the Popes. The insufficiency of all latter labours, and the necessity of some new guide, may be collected from the expedient at last adopted of republishing Nardini'. What has been said of the embarrassment of a stranger at Rome, must appear more singular when it is recollected, that besides the casual efforts of natives and foreigners, there is an archæological society constantly at work upon the antiquities of the city and neighbourhood, and that not a few persons of liberal education are in the exercise of a lucrative profession, having for object the instruction and conduct of travellers amidst the wrecks of the old town and the museums of the

new.

'It has been undertaken by Mr. Nibby, a respectable young man, one of the professional antiquaries of Rome, who is likewise employed on a translation of Pausanias. The volume on the Basilica of St. Paul, under the name of Monsignor Niccolai, is by this gentleman.

Stanza LXXX.

The Goth, the Christian, &c.

A comment on these verses will naturally embrace some remarks on the various causes of the destruction of Rome, a subject on which, it is said with the utmost deference, the last chapter of our great historian has furnished a hasty outline rather than the requisite details'. The

'Let it not be thought presumptuous to say that this last chapter should have been his first composition, written while his memory was freshly stamped with the image of the ruins which inspired his immortal labours. In the present case his researches do not bear the mark of having been at all corrected by his Italian travels; and indeed, in more than one instance, his erudition has completely effaced his experience. It is not meant to attach undue importance to trifles, but an author, whose accuracy was his pride, and who is generally allowed to have descended to the minutest details, particularly in topography, might hardly be expected to have made the following mistake: "The Roman ambassadors were introduced to the tent of Attila as he lay encamped at the place where the slow winding Mincius is lost in the foaming Benacus, and trampled with his Scythian cavalry the farms of Catullus and Virgil;" and below, note 63, "The Marquis Maffei (Verona illustrata, part i. pp. 95, 129, 221, part ii. pp. 2-6.) has illustrated with taste and learning this interesting topography. He places the interview of Attila and St. Leo near Ariolica or Ardelica, now Peschiera, at the conflux of the lake and the river." Decline and Fall, cap. xxxv. p. 131. tom. vi. oct. Extraordinary! The Mincius flows from the Benacus at Peschiera, not into it. The country is on a de

enquiry has partaken of the fate of all disputed points. The exculpation of the Goths and Vandals has been thought prejudicial to the Christians, and the praise of the latter regarded as an injustice to the barbarians; but, forgetting the controversy and following the order prescribed in the cited verse, perhaps we shall find both the one and the other to have been more active despoilers than has been confessed by their mutual apologists.

A learned Tuscan, the friend of Tasso, wrote

scent the whole way from the Veronese hills, according to the quotation from Virgil cited by Mr. Gibbon himself:

Incipiunt.

66

qua se subducere colles,

More strange still is the reference to Maffei, who, so far from alluding to a conflux of the river and lake, says at the close of the very sentence respecting the interview between Attila and St. Leo, Chi scrisse il luogo di così memorabil fatto essere stato ove sbocca il Mincio nel Po, d'autore antico non ebbe appoggio." Verona illustrata, parte i. p. 424. Verona 1732. The other references, parte ii. p. 3, 10, 11, of the same edition, say nothing of the course of the river. It is just possible Mr. Gibbon thought Maffei meant to deny that the Mincio fell into the Po: but at all events he might have seen at Peschiera that it runs through sluices out of the Benacus. Maffei, however, in another place actually mentions the outlet of the lake into the Mincio: “ Peschiera .... all' esito del lago sul Mincio." Veron, illust. edit, cit.

par.

iii.

P. 510.

a treatise expressly on this subject, and positively asserted that from Alaric to Arnulphus no damage was done by the barbarians to any of the public edifices of Rome'.

He owned that such an opinion would appear paradoxical, and so indeed will it be found after a cursory survey, and even as he treats the enquiry. It is certain that Alaric did burn a part of Rome. Orosius', by making the comparison between the former great fires and that of the Goths, shews that such a comparison might be suggested by the magnitude of the latter calamity. He adds also that after the people were returned the conflagration had left its traces, and in re

1

Angelio Pietro da Barga de privatorum publicorumque ædificiorum urbis Romæ eversoribus epistola ad Petrum Usimbardum, &c. Ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. iv. p. 1870. Edit. Venet. 1732. " sed tamen quod ad publicorum ædificiorum et substructionum ruinas pertinet nihil omnino incommodi passa est."

2 "Tertia die Barbari, quam ingressi fuerint urbem, sponte discedunt, facto quidem aliquantarum ædium incendio, sed ne tanto quidem, quantum septingesimo conditionis ejus anno casus effecerat." He compares the Gallic and Neronic fires, and says they were greater than the Gothic. Hist. Lib. vii, cap. xxxix. "Cujus rei quamvis recens memoria sit, tum si quis ipsius populi Romani et multitudinem videat et vocem audiat, nihil factum, sicut ipsi etiam fatentur, arbitrabitur, nisi aliquantis adhuc existentibus ex incendio ruinis forte doceatur." Lib. vii. сар. xl.