greater part of its wealth! Of FAITH, indeed, we have a superabundancebut of GOOD WORKS, a lamentable scarcity. Is not the latter a natural consequence of the former? Faith renders good works unnecessary, and procures absolution for bad ones. Christ died to atone for the sins of all; but the Catholic-I mean the ROMAN Catholic, crucifies him hourly for his own private ends. Hence we see the finger perpetually tracing the holy cross on the outside of the head, while the devil is prompting all kinds of bad thoughts and actions within! Hence we behold every transaction in life commence and terminate with a religious ceremony-from the vetturino, who crosses himself before he begins to cheat you in the morning, to the brigand who mutters a prayer to the Virgin, before he murders you in the mountains.

All effects must have their causes. If this lax morality and skin-deep religion be not the consequence of that implicit faith in plenary indulgence and easy absolution, which the army of martyrs, the legions of saints, and the redundancy of priests deal out to supplicant, not repentant, sinners, we can, in no other way, account for the evil.

So much for the spiritual effects of these gorgeous temples, with the treasures which they enshrine, and the countless multitudes which they nurture in idleness! the incalculable masses of gold, and the inconceivable amount of labour which must have been wrung from an impoverished land, to erect that splendid tabernacle, and the ten thousand other edifices of a similar kind in this holy territory, offer a convincing but melancholy explanation of that abject poverty and extreme exhaustion, every where visible around these magnificent mansions of the gods. The moment we enter their portals, we are dazzled by a blaze of diamonds, agates, chrysolites, porphyries, and every species of precious stone, encircling and emblazoning the most exquisite productions of the painter and sculptor. The moment we issue from these sanctuaries, we are engulphed in a chaos of human wretchedness, squalid mendicity-and sometimes of loathsome depravity! In Rome, we are alternately led through paradise and purgatory. In the VATICAN, we associate with Gods in the human form, and men in the attitudes of the gods. In the streets we awake to the sad reality of man's first disobedience-his fall—and all the variety of human woe!

ALBANO.

After a three hours' drive, we at last breathe a purer and keener air, and experience a corresponding increase of mental energy and corporeal vigour. From this height, we have a complete view of the dreary Campagna, girt by a crescent of rugged Apennines on one side, and laved by the placid Mediterranean on the other. The monotony of this scene of desolation is only broken occasionally by mouldering tombs, lonely watch-towers, tottering

aqueducts, and the narrow winding Tiber. In the centre is ROME herself, weeping and drooping, like Niobe, in the midst of her fallen and lifeless children. Her hills are bald from age and misfortune-or partially covered with ornaments that betray rather than conceal the ravages of Time! We eagerly turn from the depressing prospect, to linger round the shores of a tranquil and glassy lake, perched on this airy eminence, and capable of being easily turned through the streets of the Eternal City, to wash away every particle of her impurities—or pursue our journey amid hanging woods, romantic dells, and giddy precipices that command extended views of the pestilent maremma, smooth and untenanted as the wide ocean that bounds the western horizon. Albano is the Hampstead of Rome, and the inhabitants may be distinguished from their more sickly Roman visitors, by some slight appearance of health. But although the air is less oppressive here in Summer, than on the level of the Campagna; yet the vicinity, on three sides, of highly malarious grounds, renders Albano a precarious residence during the almost tropical temperature of Summer or Autumn. The crater of an immense extinct volcano is now the lake of Albano; and the ancient subterranean conduit of its waters to the plain, may shame the modern, and even compete with the ancient aqueducts. The sepulchral vases, dug from beneath a flood of lava that ran from the now silent volcano, long before Æneas landed on the Latian shores, form one of the greatest curiosities at Albarrofar more ancient, but far less intelligible, than the relics of Pompeii.

After climbing up some steep and woody acclivities, we reach that dilapidated and miserable MAN-ROOST, LA RICCIA, overlooking the deadly plain that stretches away to the almost uninhabitable Ostia. The complexions and features of the wretched inhabitants prove, beyond all doubt, that they are not beyond the range of the malaria, however elevated above its source. Their physiognomy alone, unaided by recent and too authentic tale or history, would excite a suspicion that we are here within the sphere of a more dangerous evil than malaria-BRIGANDISM! From Albano, indeed, to Velletri, (the first night's rest on the road to Naples,) the country presents a wild and tumultuous scenery that, under better auspices, would be beautiful or even romantic. The tranquil, or the moderately excited mind of the traveller, would recal, at every step, the most pleasing recollections. LAVINIUM, with all its Virgilian associations, would rise on his view-while Horace's journey to Brundusium, along the same road, would induce him to saunter with slow step, rather than to accelerate his pace, over the most classical ground in Italy. But, alas! that noble, god-like, rational, immortal-villainous animal, MAN,

Wild as the raging main,

More fierce than tygers on the Lybian plain,

banishes, by the memory and the terror of his atrocities, every sense of

pleasure every feeling of security, till we labour up the eminence, on which stands the bandit town-the Volscian City-the birth-place and patrimony of Augustus !

VELLETRI---PONTINE FENS---TERRACINA.

From the principal inn of this eagle's nest, we have a most magnificent view of the Pontine Marshes in front, stretching away to the verge of the horizon, at Terracina-the Volscian Mountains, on the left, rising abruptly, and somewhat fantastically, from the Pontine Fens; crescented and crowned with villages, whose exteriors are as white as their interiors are dark and dismal-whose inhabitants were lately robbers, and are now beggars! To the right, the eye wanders over an almost interminable plain of Maremma, supplying abundant nutriment for every animal but MAN, against whom the plains of Italy seem to have waged eternal warfare!

From Velletri we started at the dawn of day; and the groups of terrible figures, through which we passed, at the corners of the streets, apparently in close divan, and scowlingly examining the carriages, as they cautiously descended the steep defiles, were not at all calculated to tranquillize, much less exhilarate the mind of the traveller, advancing towards a scene of desolation and death, that has been the theatre of murder and robbery for two thousand years. Yet the remembrance of several incidents, that seemed ominous or even alarming at the time, but which proved to be quite fallacious in the end, deprived the Velletri bandits of half their terrors. One of these incidents I shall here relate, as it may save some unpleasant emotions in the minds of others.

When ascending the mountain of Radicofani, at the close of evening, we were startled by the sound of a horn from a neighbouring mountain on the right. On directing our eyes to that quarter, we saw three gaunt figures striding down the side of a hill, and waving their caps. The postillions (three in number) immediately stopped, and answered the signal. They then alighted-got into close conference-and allowed the horses to creep up the mountain at a snail's pace. The three strangers soon joined them, and entered into earnest consultation with the postillions, frequently eyeing the carriages, and even pointing to them. The courier had gone forward to the inn, and we had no protection whatever. The strangers took out bottles, and plied the postillions with rosoglio freely. After half an hour's confabulation among these parties, the postillions mounted, and the strangers, after making us some obsequious bows, darted off the road to the right, and soon disappeared. During this scene, we preserved perfect composure, and neither asked the drivers any questions, nor urged them forward on the journey. After supper, at the Caravansera on the summit of the mountain, and while

C C

taking our wine, we hazarded many sapient remarks on the occurrence which had happened;-and in the midst of these ruminations, who should burst into our room but the leader of the trio whom we had seen a few hours previously on the mountain's side!

The denouement was rapid and satisfactory. The suspected robbers were merely dealers in petrefactions, that abound in a neighbouring mountain, and who keep a sharp look-out for English travellers, whom they regularly visit at Radicofani.

PONTINE MARSHES.

"Et quos pestifera Pomptini uligine Campi."

The brigand-looking groups of Velletri proved as harmless as the mountaineers of Tuscany-we safely descended to the marshes-and were soon in sight of the TORRE DE TRÉ PONTI, where we observed, at some distance, the squalid caliban borderers collecting wild beasts from the fens, and beating as well as swearing them into office, as post-horses, for our accommodation!

Four of these savage and unseemly creatures being pinioned to the large, and two to the small carriage, away they flew-kicking, flinging, plunging, and snorting-curveting in fitful and fearful sallies from side to side of the road-one moment within an inch of dashing us to pieces against the trunk of an elm or a poplar-the next, within an ace of hurling us headlong over a perpendicular bank into the yawning canal below-keeping us in perpetual, and not the most agreeable suspense, between a broken neck and a watery grave! Thus we darted across the Pontine Fens, with little less velocity than that of an arrow from a bow-traversing a space of 28 miles (nearly the distance between London and Chatham) in two hours and forty minutes—a journey which, in the Augustan age, and in the pride of the VIA APPIA, occupied Horace during sixteen tedious hours, while listening to the croaking of frogs, the brawlings of boat-men, the maledictions of muleteers-the buzzing of gnats—

Mali culices ranæque palustres

and what was far worse, while submitting to the depredations on personal property inflicted by those douaniers of antiquity, the bugs, the fleas and a certain animal

Quod versu dicere non est.

And here I would venture to make a remark or two on the famous "journey to Brundusium," so much of which is dedicated to the passage across the Pontine Marshes. Horace places it among his satires-and it is one of

the keenest of the Roman poet. It is in my humble opinion, a satire on itineraries and itinerants in general. It is almost entirely taken up with INNS and EGOTISM, the everlasting topics of travellers. First, the favourite of Augustus and flatterer of Tiberius-the poet-laureat of at least two reignsacquaints posterity that he was badly accommodated at Aricia-that his fellow-traveller was one of the most learned of the Greeks-that the water was detestible at the Forum Appii-that the gnats and frogs prevented his sleep in the passage-boat-that he mixed with the best society at Terracina—that CAPITO treated him to a luxurious supper at Mamurræ-that he and Virgil met the next day, and beslavered each other for half an hour

"O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt !"

that Mecenas went to play at tennis, while he and Virgil went to sleep-that he was highly delighted with the low buffoonery of two mountebanks at the villa of Cocceius, and protracted his supper to a tolerably late hour-that he was burnt out at Beneventum by the chimney taking fire-that the water was bad, and the bread excellent at Æquotuticum-that the rains had rendered the road very heavy between Rubi and Barium—and finally that, having put all these most interesting events on record, he arrived at the end of his journey-BRUNDUSIUM.

I have passed over the indecencies of the itinerary, because most of the English printers refuse to soil their types with them. Of the personal indelicacies, a single specimen is sufficient. It was important for posterity to know that one of the most renowned bards of antiquity had got bleared eyes, and applied a black-wash to them on the journey to Brundusium!

"Hic oculis EGO nigra meis Collyria Lippus
"Illinere,"

That Horace meant all this as a biting irony on the itineraries of travellers, I have not the smallest doubt. Why else should the “ITER AD Brundusium" be placed as his fifth satire? To my mind it indicates that travellers should rather exhibit their thoughts than their persons-reflections on surrounding objects, rather than little petty details of their dinners and suppers on the road, the honours they received, or the personal inconveniences which they experienced. In an itinerary, it is impossible to entirely avoid these personal adventures, and some egotism-I only mean to say that they should not be too often or too minutely detailed.

But, however rapid was our course across this pestiferous tract-this anomaly in Nature-where earth and ocean have been contending for mastery since the flood of Noah, we had ample opportunities of observing the dire effeets of man's impolitic interference in the conflicts of belligerent elements ! Had he allowed land and water to carry on their intestine warfare in this