As to the modern Romans, Duclos appears to have been sarcastic when he calls them the Italians of Rome. I am of opinion that there is still among them the materials, requisite towards the formation of no common peo ple. When the Italians are closely examined, great sense, courage, patience, genius, and deep traces of their ancient manners are to be discovered in them, with a kind of superior air, and some noble customs, which still partake of royalty. Before you condemn this opinion, which may appear to you singular, you must hear my reasons for it, and at present I have not time to send them.

What a number of observations I have to make upon Italian literature! Do you know that I never saw Count Alfieri but once in my life, and can you guess in what situation? I saw him put into his coffin. I was told that he was scarcely at all altered. His countenance appeared to me noble and grave; but death had doubtless imparted some additional degree of severity to it. The coffin being rather too short, a person bent his head over his breast, which caused a most disagreeable motion on the part of the body. Through the kindness of one who was very dear to Alfieri, and the politeness of a gentleman at Florence, who was also the Count's friend, I am in possession of some curious particulars as to the posthumous works, life and opinions of this celebrated man. Most of the public papers in France have given vague and mutilated accounts of the subject. Till I am able to commu

seen the statue. We know too from Seneca, Cicero, and Pliny, that the other tomb, namely the family vault of the Scipios, was actually in existence at one of the gates of Rome. It has been discovered during the pontificate of Pius VI, and the inscriptions, appertaining to it, were conveyed to the museum of the Vatican. Among the names of the members, composing the family of Scipio, which appear upon this monument of their consequence, that of Africanus is wanting.

nicate these particulars, I send you the epitaph which Alfieri made for his noble mistress, at the same time that he composed his own.

* Sic inscribendum me, ut opinor et opto, præmoriente; sed aliter, jubente Deo, aliter inscribendum :

Qui. juxta. eam, sarcophago, uno.

Conditus. erit. quamprimum.

Here lies Eloisa E. St. Countess of Al, illustrious by her ancestry, the graces of her person, the elegance of her manners, and the incomparable candour of her mind; buried near Victor Alfieri and in the same grave; (a) he preferred her during twenty-six years to every thing in the world; and though mortal, she was constantly honoured and revered by him as if she had been a divinity. She was born at Mons, lived.... and died on

(a) To be thus inscribed, if I die first, as I believe and hope I shall; but if God ordain it otherwise, the inscription to be thus altered, after the mention of Alfieri,

Who will soon be inclosed in the same tomb with her.

The simplicity of this epitaph, and particularly of the note which accompanies it, appears to me very affecting.

For the present I have finished. I send you a heap of ruins--do what you like with them. In the description of the different objects, of which I have treated, I do not think that I have omitted any remarkable circumstance, unless it be that the Tiber is still the "flavus Tiberinus." It is said that it acquires its muddy appearance from the rains which fall in the mountains, whence it descends. I have often, while contemplating this discoloured river in the serencst weather, represented to myself a life begun amidst storms. It is in vain that the remainder of its course is passed beneath a serener sky; the stream continues to be tainted with the waters of the tempest, which disturbed it at its source.

41

VISIT TO MOUNT VESUVIUS.*

ON the 5th of January, I left Naples at seven o'clock in the morning, and proceeded to Portici. The sun had chased away the clouds of night, but the head of Vesuvius is always wrapt in mist. I began my journey up the mountain with a Cicerone, who provided two mules, one for me and one for himself.

The ascent was at first on a tolerably wide road, between two plantations of vines, which were trained upon poplars. I soon began to feel the cold wintry air, but kept advancing, and at length perceived a little below the vapours of the middle region, the tops of some trees. They were the elms of the hermitage. The miserable habitations of the vine-dressers were now visible on both sides, amidst a rich abundance of Lachrymæ Christi. In other respects, I observed a parched soil, and naked vines intermixed with pine-trees in the form of an umbrella, some aloes in the hedge, innumerable rolling stones, and not a single bird.

"

* The following observations were not intended for the public eye, as will easily be perceived from the particular character of the reflections which they contain. They were principally written in pencil as I ascended to the crater of the volcano. I have not chosen to correct any part of this short journal, that I might not in any degree interfere with the truth of the narrative; but for the reasons mentioned the reader is requested to peruse it with indul. gence.

F

On reaching the first,level ground of the mountain, a naked plain lay stretched before me, and I had also in view the two summits of Vesuvius-on the left the Somma, on the right the present mouth of the Volcano. These two heads were enveloped in pale clouds. I proceeded. On one side the Somma falls in, and on the other, I began to distinguish the hollows made in the cone of the volcano, which I was about to climb. The lava of 1766 and 1769 covered the plain, which I was crossing. It is a frightful smoky desert, where the lava, cast out like dross from a forge, displays its whitish scum upon a black ground, exactly resembling dried moss

Leaving the cone of the volcano to the right and following the road on the left, I reached the foot of a hill, or rather a wall, formed of the lava, which overwhelmed Herculaneum. This species of wall is planted with vines on the borders of the plain, and on the opposite side is a deep valley, filled by a copse. The air now began to "bite shrewdly."

I climbed this hill in order to visit the hermitage which I perceived from the other side. The heavens lowered; the clouds descended and flew along the surface of the earth like grey smoke, or ashes driven before the wind. I began to hear a murmuring sound among the elms of the hermitage.

The hermit came forth to receive me, and held the bridle of my mule while I alighted. He was a tall man with an open countenance and good address. He invited me into his cell and placed upon the table a repast of bread, apples and eggs. He sat down opposite to me, rested both his elbows on the table, and calmly began to converse while I eat my breakfast. The clouds were collected all round us, and no object could be distinguished through the windows of the hermitage. Nothing was heard in this dreary abyss of vapour, but the whistling of the wind,