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Sylvarum fugit pastor, juga per deserta,
Ah, miser! increpitans sæpè altâ voce per umbram
Nequicquam natos, creditque audire sequentes.
Atque ille excelso rupis de vertice solus

To save the reader trouble, I here insert the passage referred to.-" West of Cicero's Villa stands the eminent Gaurus, a stony and desolate mountain, in which there are diverse obscure caverns, choaked almost with earth, where many have consumed much fruitless industry in searching for treasure. The famous Lucrine lake extended formerly from Avernus to the aforesaid Gaurus: but is now no other than a little sedgy plash, choaked up by the horrible and astonishing eruption of the new mountain; whereof, as oft as I think, I am easy to credit whatsoever is wonderful. For who here knows not, or who elsewhere will believe, that a mountain should arise (partly out of a lake and partly out of the sea), in one day and a night, unto such a height as to contend in altitude with the high mountains adjoining? In the year of our Lord 1538, on the 29th of September, when for certain days foregoing, the country hereabout was so vexed with perpetual earthquakes, as no one house was left so entire as not to expect an immediate ruin; after that the sea had retired two hundred paces from the shore (leaving abundance of fish, and springs of fresh water rising in the bottom), this mountain visibly ascended, about the second hour of the night, with an hideous roaring, horribly vomiting stones and such store of cinders as overwhelmed all the building thereabout, and the salubrious baths of Tripergula, for so many ages celebrated; consumed the vines to ashes, killing birds and beasts: the fearful inhabitants of Puzzol flying through the dark with their wives and children; naked, defiled, crying out, and detesting their calamities. Manifold mischiefs have they suffered by the barbarous, yet none like this which Nature inflicted. This new mountain, when newly raised, had a number of issues; at some of them smoking and sometimes flaming; at others disgorging rivulets of hot waters; keeping within a terrible rumbling; and many miserably perished that ventured to descend into the hollowness above. But that hollow on the top is at present an orchard, and the mountain throughout is bereft of his terrors."--Sandy's Travels, book iv. page 275. 277, and 278.

Respectans notasque domos, et dulcia regna,
Nil usquàm videt infelix præter mare tristi
Lumine percussum, et pallentes sulphure campos,
Fumumque, flammasque, rotataque turbine saxa.

Quin ubi detonuit fragor, et lux reddita cœlo:
Mæstos confluere agricolas, passuque videres
Tandem iterum timido deserta requirere tecta :
Sperantes, si forte oculis, si forte darentur.

Uxorum cineres, miserorumve ossa parentum,
(Tenuia, sed tanti saltem solatia luctus)
Una colligere et justâ componere in urnâ.

Uxorum nusquam, cineres, nusquam ossa parentum
(Spem miseram!) assuetosve Lares, aut rura videbunt.
Quippe ubi planities campi diffusa jacebat;
Mons novus: ille supercilium, frontemque favilla
Incanum ostentans, ambustis cautibus, æquor
Subjectum, stragemque suam, mæsta arva, minaci
Despicit imperio, soloque in littore regnat.

Hinc infame loci nomen, multosque per annos
Immemor antiquæ laudis, nescire labores
Vomeris, et nullo tellus revirescere cultu.
Non avium colles, non carmine matutino
Pastorum resonare; adeò undique dirus habebat
Informes latè horror agros saltusque vacantes.
Sæpius et longé detorquens navita proram
Monstrabat digito littus, sævæque revolvens
Funera narrabat noctis, veteremque ruinam.

Montis adhuc facies manet hirta atque aspera saxis :

Sed furor extinctus jamdudum, et flamma quievit,

Quæ nascenti aderat; seu forté bituminis atri
Defluxere olìm rivi, atque effœta lacuna
Pabula sufficere ardori, viresque recusat;
Sive in visceribus meditans incendia jam nunc
(Horrendùm) arcanis glomerat genti esse futuræ
Exitio, sparsos tacitusque recolligit ignes.

Raro per clivos haud secius ordine vidi
Canescentem oleam: longum post tempus amicti
Vite virent tumuli; patriamque revisere gaudens
Bacchus in assuetis tenerum caput exerit arvis
Vix tandem, infidoque audet se credere cœlo.

There was a certain little ode* set out from Rome, in a letter of recommendation to you, but possibly fell into the enemies' hands, for I never heard of its arrival. It is a little impertinent to inquire after its welfare; but you, that are a father, will excuse a parent's foolish fondLast post I received a very diminutive letter; it

ness.

The Alcaic Ode inserted in Letter XXI.

made excuses for its unentertainingness, very little to the purpose; since it assured me, very strongly, of your esteem, which is to me the thing; all the rest appear but as the petits agrémens, the garnishing of the dish. P. Bougeant, in his Langage des Bétes, fancies that your birds, who continually repeat the same note, say only in plain terms, "Je vous aime, ma chere; ma chere, je vous aime;" and that those of greater genius indeed, with various trills, run divisions upon the subject; but that the fond, from whence it all proceeds, is "toujours je vous aime." Now you may, as you find yourself dull or in humour, either take me for a chaffinch or nightingale; sing your plain song, or shew your skill in music, but in the bottom let there be, toujours, toujours de l'Amitié.

As to what you call my serious letter, be assured, that your future state is to me entirely indifferent. Do not be angry, but hear me; I mean with respect to myself. For whether you be at the top of Fame, or entirely unknown to mankind; at the council-table, or at Dick's Coffee-house; sick and simple, or well and wise; whatever alteration mere accident works in you (supposing it utterly impossible for it to make any change in your sincerity and honesty, since these are conditions sine quá non), I do not see any likelihood of my not being

yours ever.

XXVIII. MR. GRAY TO HIS FATHER.

Florence, Oct. 9, 1740.

THE beginning of next spring is the time determined for our return at farthest; possibly it may be before that time. How the interim will be employed, or what route we shall take, is not so certain. If we remain friends with France, upon leaving this country we shall cross over to Venice, and so return through the cities north

of the Po to Genoa; from thence take a felucca to Marseilles, and come back through Paris. If the contrary fall out, which seems not unlikely, we must make the Milanese, and those parts of Italy, in our way to Venice; from thence pass through the Tirol into Germany, and come home by the Low-countries. As for Florence, it has been gayer than ordinary for this last month, being one round of balls and entertainments, occasioned by the arrival of a great Milanese lady; for the only thing the Italians shine in, is their reception of strangers. At such times every thing is magnificence: the more remarkable, as in their ordinary course of life they are parsimonious even to a degree of nastiness. I saw in one of the vastest palaces in Rome (that of Prince Pamfilio) the apartment which he himself inhabited, a bed that most servants in England would disdain to lie in, and furniture much like that of a soph at Cambridge, for convenience and neatness. This man is worth 30,000/ sterling a year. As for eating, there are not two cardinals in Rome that allow more than six paoli, which is three shillings a day, for the expense of their table; and you may imagine they are still less extravagant here than there. But when they receive a visit from any friend, their houses and persons are set out to the greatest advantage, and appear in all their splendour; it is, indeed, from a motive of vanity, and with the hopes of having it repaid them with interest, whenever they have occasion to return the visit. I call visits going from one city of Italy to another; for it is not so among acquaintance of the same place on common occasions. The new Pope has retrenched the charges of his own table to a sequin (ten shillings) a meal. The applause which all he says and does meets with, is enough to encourage him really to deserve fame. They say he is an able and honest man; he is reckoned a wit too. The other day, when the senator of Rome came to wait upon

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XXIX. MR. GRAY TO HIS FATHER.

Florence, Jan. 12, 1741. WE still continue constant at Florence, at present one of the dullest cities of Italy. Though it is the middle of the carnival there are no public diversions; nor is masquerading permitted as yet. The Emperor's obsequies are to be celebrated publicly the 16th of this month; and, after that, it is imagined every thing will go on in its usual course. In the mean time, to employ the minds. of the populace, the government has thought fit to bring into the city in a solemn manner, and at a great expense, a famous statue of the Virgin, called the Madonna dell' Impruneta, from the place of her residence, which is upon a mountain seven miles off. It never has been practised but at times of public calamity; and was done at present to avert the ill effects of a late great inundation, which it was feared might cause some epidemical distemper. It was introduced a fortnight ago in procession, attended by the council of regency, the senate, the nobility, and all the religous orders, on foot and bare-headed, and so carried to the great church, where it was frequented by an infinite concourse of people from all the country round. Among the rest I paid my devotions almost

* Between the date of this and the foregoing letter the reader will perceive an interval of full three months: as Mr. Gray saw no new places during this period, his letters were chiefly of news and common occurrences, and are therefore omitted.

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