forward, host upon host, in such rapid succession, that the impression left by the whole is as that of a vacant theatre, where an unceasing variety of noble events have been fictitiously represented, rather than that of a scene where the presence of that which is enduring and unchanging realises to the mind of the spectator that which was fortuitous and transitory. I remember to have experienced this feeling, in a fainter degree, on the plain of the Marchfeld, thrice eventful to the house of Hapsburg*: but here the indistinctness of association is immeasurably greater; for even could the position of each battle be accurately determined, they are so numerous, and the different inequalities of the plain so totally without individual features, that it is almost impossible to get beyond the simple consciousness, that we are passing over a great charnel-field of humanity. It is perhaps the circumstance of the most important conflicts being decided in flat districts, that renders the impressions of the places of their occurrence so little vivid. All battles, at least to the eye of the imagination, are so like one another, and so few plains have any peculiar character, that to give an ideal life to this twofold monotony, is as difficult for the poet as for the painter; it is as hard for the one to give truth and energy to so vague an image in his own mind, as for the other to invest it with any high interest in art.

The spot which an uncertain tradition has consecrated to the disasters of Cannæ, has nevertheless something definite about it. The modern town of Canosa, built on a bleak sand-hill, rises out of the solitude with a picturesque solemnity, and prepares you for the scene.

* In 1260-1278, and at Wagram.

Save where Garganus, with low-ridgèd bound,
Protects the North, the eye outstretching far
Surveys one sea of gently-swelling ground,
A fitly-moulded "Orchestra of War."
Here Aufidus, between his humble banks

With wild thyme plotted, winds along the plain,
A devious path, as when the serried ranks
Past over it, that past not back again.

The long-horned herds enjoy the cool delight,
Sleeping half-merged, to shun the deep sun-glow,
Which, that May-morning*, dazed the Roman sight,
But fell innocuous on the subtler foe.

We feel the wind upon our bosoms beat,

That whilom dimmed with dust those noble eyest, And rendered aimless many a gallant feat,

And brought disgrace on many a high emprise.
And close beside us rests the antient well ‡,
Where at the end of that accursed day,
Apulian peasants to their grandsons tell,
The friend and follower of wise Fabius lay;

* The battle was fought on the 21st of May, B. C. 216. Vulturnus, a south-east wind, probably a local name.

The only localities preserved in the tradition are this large fountain which goes by the name of the "Consul's Well," and "The Place of Blood," a farm-house on the other side of the river, where they say the Roman prisoners were massacred.

Here fainting lay, compelled by fate to share
Shame not his own,-here spurned the scanty time
Still left for flight, lest, living, he might bear

Hard witness to his colleague's generous crime*.
I have seen many fields where men have fought
With mightier issues, but not one, I deem,
Where history offers to reflecting thought,
So sharp a check of greatness so supreme.

The bronze doors of the tomb of "Boemond," in the church at Canosa, are covered with quaint figures and strange devices: one of the inscriptions has some vigor of expression :

"Vicit opes regum Boemundus opesque potentum,

Et meruit dici nomine jure suo :

Intonuit terris, cui cum succumberet orbis,

Non hominem possum dicere, nolo Deum.

The Neapolitans, by a terrible distortion of taste, consider the "Terra di Bari" the most favored spot of their splendid country, and even bring its beauty into comparison with that of

.....

privatimque

* Abi, nuncia publice patribus urbem Romam muniant Fabio, L. Æmilium præceptorum ejus memorem extitisse, et vixisse, et adhuc mori; et tu me, in hac strage militum meorum, patere exspirare, ne ut reus inteream, causáque consulatus accusator college existam, ut alieno crimine innocentiam meam protegam. Liv. xxii.

the western shore. It is a sort of practical parody of its pendant plain of Lombardy; the vines, instead of being led into festoons and trellice-work, fall into dull and shapeless clumps, not unlike gooseberry-bushes, and interminable olive-grounds, of a thin and stunted growth, are the foliage. The only objects to divert the wearisomeness of the road are the specimens of Gothic architecture which adorn almost every petty town. And not only for their own merit are they remarkable, but as a lesson of the reciprocation of national intelligences which evolves the moral history of the world. The temples of Pæstum remain the solitary native memorials of "Great Greece," while these expressions of the northern mind have naturalised themselves in its hamlets and cities; but time has swept the latter artists from the land of their conquests, even as it annihilated the monuments of the antient race; and though each might seem to have existed in a world of its own, the shadow of the past lies upon both, not equally dark, but always a shadow.

The host of the inn at Otranto told me, that "he was perfectly aware of the important part the 'Castle' of that town played in English history;" the merest fictions of one nation often become its history in the estimation of another, but the ambition of H. Walpole, probably, never contemplated so absolute an identification of the work of his fancy with the nation it was written to amuse.

From a Letter.

When I tell you that, instead of looking forward with joyous expectation to the great and bright things I am about to see, I never felt sadder at heart, I hope you will esteem my feelings

aright. It may be that the "true poet is no picture-maker;" that his anticipations of beauty are most modest; that he comes both to nature and to art, "with a wise passiveness," and holds in his creative power, till, having possessed himself of the real, he informs it with the ideal, and produces one glorious concordant whole. But I cannot think that this mode of mind is applicable to those objects which have been decorated with the spring-flowers of youthful fancy, and the more solid ornaments of mature imagination. If the philosophic poet at last found, that the "genuine image" of "Yarrow," rivalled * " in the light of day “the delicate creation” of his mind, yet his joy is tempered by a "pensive recollection," and it is only now, and one might fancy not willingly even now, that he ventures to make the comparison; it is eleven years † since he past by the spot, and feeling as I do at this moment left it unvisited :

"Be Yarrow stream, unseen, unknown,—

It must, or we shall rue it,

We have a vision of our own,

Ah! why should we undo it?"

The apple is hanging "fair frae the rock," but he leaves "it growing." Is it a mere vanity, to love, with something of a parent love, those dear imaginations, to which our own minds have given birth, which have waited upon our sickness and sorrow, and given us pleasant companionship in darkness and solitude? Is it weakness to regret to exchange these creations, which, being born of the spirit alone, seem to partake of a higher

* Vide Wordsworth's "Yarrow visited," and "Yarrow unvisited." The dates of the two poems are 1803 and 1814.