There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile further on, is called "the bloody rivulet," and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is covered with thick set olive-trees in corn-grounds, and is nowhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most probable, that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain and to pierce through the main army of Hannibal.

The Romans fought desperately for three hours, but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and the name of the "stream of blood."

Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some painter is the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil. To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown; but the posțilions on that road have been taught to show the very spot where Il Console Romano was slain. Of all who fought and fell in the battle of

About the middle of the XIIth century the coins of Mantua bore on one side the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d'Italia, pl. xvii. i. 6... Voyage dans le Milanais, &c. par A, Z. Millin. tom. ii. pag. 294. Paris, 1817.

Thrasimene, the historian himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler, of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale. It is nardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the President Dupaty, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to Rome.

36.

But thou, Clitumnus.

Stanza lxvi. line 1.

No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy a description. For an account of the dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.

37.

Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract.
Stanza lxxi. line 9.

I saw the "Cascata del marmore" of Terni twice, at different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, &c. are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it.

38.

An iris sits amidst the infernal surge.

Stanza Ixxii. line 3.

Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris the reader may have seen a short account in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like "the hell of waters" that

Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial-this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake, called Pie' di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe*, and the ancient naturalist, amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus †. A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone +.

39.

The thundering lauwine.

Stanza lxxiii. line 5.

In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are nown by the name of lauwine.

40.

I abhorr'd

Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,

The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word.

Stanza lxxv. lines 6, 7, and 8.

These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-n Homo," &c. but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Shak

*"Reatini me ad sua Tempe duxerunt." Cicer. epist. ad Attic. xv. lib. iv.

"In eodem lacu nullo non die apparere arcus." Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. cap. lxii.

Ald. Manut. de Reatina urbe agroque, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tom. i. p. 773.

speare ("To be, or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind but of memory: so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one could, or can be more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason;-a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor (the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury) was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late-when I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration-of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely following his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor.

41.

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now.

Stanza lxxix. line 5.

For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.

42.

The trebly hundred triumphs.

Stanza lxxxii. line 2.

Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the number of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers.

43.

Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, &c.
Stanza lxxxiii. line 1.

Certainly were it not for these two traits in the life of

Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonement of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul *.

44.

And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.

Stanza lxxxvi. line 4.

On the third of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died.

45

And thou, dread statue! still existent in

The austerest form of naked majesty.

Stanza lxxxvii. lines 1 and 2.

The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca†, and it may be added to his mention of it that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hundred crowns for the statue; and presented it to Cardinal Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judgment of Solomon from being executed upon the image. In a more civilized age this statue was exposed to an actual operation: for the French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coliseum resolved that their Cæsar should fall at the base of that

Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idées de la façon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucun amour pour la gloire: je voyois bien que votre âme étoit haute; mais je ne soupçonnois pas qu'elle fut grande."Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate.

+ Memorie, num, lvii, pag. 9. ap. Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum.