within the steam of these vapours, and have a continual moisture hanging upon them. On the south of Ischia lies a round lake of about three-quarters of a mile diameter, separate from the sea by a narrow tract of land. It was formerly a Roman port. On the north end of the island stands the town and castle, on an exceeding high rock, divided from the body of the island, and inaccessible to an enemy on all sides. This island is larger, but much more rocky and barren than Procita. Virgil makes them both shake at the fall of part of the Mole of Baja, that stood at a few miles' distance from them.

Qualis in Euböico Bajarum littore quondam
Saxea pila cadit, magnis quam molibus ante
Constructam jaciunt pelago: Sic illa ruinam
Prona trahit, penitusque vadis illisa recumbit;
Miscent se maria et nigræ attolluntur arenæ ;
Tum sonitu Prochita alta tremit, durumque cubile
Inarime, Jovis Imperiis imposta Typhæo.

Not with less ruin than the Bajan Mole
(Raised on the seas the surges to control)

At once comes tumbling down the rocky wall,
Prone to the deep the stones disjointed fall

Off the vast pile; the scattered ocean flies;

EN. ix.

Black sands, discoloured froth, and mingled mud arise.
The frighted billows roll, and seek the shores :
Trembles high Prochyta, and Ischia roars:
Typhæus roars beneath, by Jove's command,
Astonished at the flaw that shakes the land,
Soon shifts his weary side, and, scarce awake,

With wonder feels the weight press lighter on his back. DRYD.

I do not see why Virgil in this noble comparison has given the epithet of alta to Procita, for it is not only no high island in itself, but is much lower than Ischia, and all the points of land that lie within its neighbourhood. I should think alta was joined adverbially with tremit, did Virgil make use of so equivocal a syntax. I cannot forbear inserting in this place the lame imitation Silius Italicus has made of the foregoing passage.

Haud aliter structo Tyrrhena ad littora saxo,
Pugnatura fretis subter cæcisque procellis
Pila immane sonans, impingitur ardua ponto;
Immugit Nereus, divisaque cærula pulsu
Illisum accipiunt iratą sub æquore montem.
So a vast fragment of the Bajan Mole,
That, fixed amid the Tyrrhene waters, braves
The beating tempests and insulting waves,

Lib. iv,

Thrown from its basis with a dreadful sound,
Dashes the broken billows all around,

And with resistless force the surface cleaves,

That in its angry waves the falling rock receives.

The next morning going to Cuma through a very pleasant path, by the Mare Mortuum, and the Elysian Fields, we saw in our way a great many ruins of sepulchres, and other ancient edifices. Cuma is at present utterly destitute of inhabitants, so much is it changed since Lucan's time, if the poem to Piso be his.

Acidaliâ quæ condidit Alite muros
Euboicam referens fœcunda Neapolis urbem.
Where the famed walls of fruitful Naples lie,
That may for multitudes with Cuma vie.

They show here the remains of Apollo's Temple, which all the writers of the antiquities of this place suppose to have been the same Virgil describes in his sixth Æneid, as built by Daedalus, and that the very story which Virgil there mentions, was actually engraven on the front of it.

Redditus his primùm terris tibi Phoebe sacravit
Remigium Alarum, posuitque immania templa.
In foribus lethum Androgeo, tum pendere pœnas
Cecropidæ jussi, miserum! Septena quotannis
Corpora natorum: stat ductis sortibus urna.

Contra elata mari respondet Gnossia tellus, &c. Æn. vi.
To the Cumean coast at length he came,
And, here alighting, built his costly frame
Inscribed to Phoebus, here he hung on high
The steerage of his wings that cut the sky;
Then o'er the lofty gate his art embossed
Androgeo's death, and offerings to his ghost,
Seven youths from Athens yearly sent to meet
The fate appointed by revengeful Crete;
And next to those the dreadful urn was placed,

In which the destined names by lots were cast. DRYDEN.

Among other subterraneous works, there is the beginning of a passage, which is stopped up within less than a hundred yards of the entrance, by the earth that is fallen into it. They suppose it to have been the other mouth of the Sibyl's grotto. It lies, indeed, in the same line with the entrance near the Avernus, is faced alike with the opus reticulatum,

and has still the marks of chambers that have been cut into the sides of it. Among the many fables and conjectures which have been made on this grotto, I think it is highly

probable, that it was once inhabited by such as, perhaps,
thought it a better shelter against the sun than any other
kind of building, or at least that it was made with smaller
trouble and expense. As for the Mosaic and other works that
may be found in it, they may very well have been added in
later ages, according as they thought fit to put the place to
different uses. The story of the Cimmerians is indeed clogged
with improbabilities, as Strabo relates it, but it is very likely
there was in it some foundation of truth. Homer's descrip-
tion of the Cimmerians, whom he places in these parts, answers
very well to the inhabitants of such a long, dark cavern.
The gloomy race, in subterraneous cells,

Among surrounding shades and darkness dwells;
Hid in the unwholesome covert of the night,
They shun the approaches of the cheerful light:
The sun ne'er visits their obscure retreats,
Nor when he runs his course, nor when he sets.
Unhappy mortals !—

Tu quoque littoribus nostris, Ænëia nutrix,
Æternam moriens famam Cajeta dedisti:

ODYSS. lib. x,

Et nunc servat honos sedem tuus, ossaque nomen

Hesperiâ in magnâ, si qua est ea gloria, signat.

And thou, O matron, of immortal fame,

EN. vii.

Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name:
Cajeta still the place is called from thee,
The nurse of great Æneas' infancy.

Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia's plains;
Thy name ('tis all a ghost can have) remains.

Dryden.

I saw at Cajeta the rock of marble said to be cleft by an earthquake at our Saviour's death. There is written over the chapel door, that leads into the crack, the words of the evangelist, Ecce terra-motus factus est magnus. I believe every one who sees this vast rent in so high a rock, and observes how exactly the convex parts of one side tally with the concave of the other, must be satisfied that it was the effect of an earthquake, though I question not but it either happened long before the time of the Latin writers, or in the darker ages since, for otherwise I cannot but think they would have taken notice of its original. The port, town, castle, and antiquities of this place have been often described. We touched next at Monte Circeio, which Homer calls Insula Æea, whether it be that it was formerly an island, or that the Greek sailors of his time thought it so. It is certain they might easily have been deceived by its appearance, as

being a very high mountain joined to the main-land by a narrow tract of earth, that is many miles in length, and almost of a level with the surface of the water. The end of this promontory is very rocky, and mightily exposed to the winds and waves, which, perhaps, gave the first rise to the howlings of wolves and the roarings of lions, that used to be heard thence. This I had a very lively idea of, being forced to lie under it a whole night. Virgil's description of Æneas passing by this coast, can never be enough admired. It is worth while to observe how, to heighten the horror of the description, he has prepared the reader's mind, by the solemnity of Cajeta's funeral, and the dead stillness of the night.

At pius exequiis Æneas rite solutis

Aggere composito tumuli, postquam alta quiêrunt
Equora, tendit iter velis, portumque relinquit.
Adspirant auræ in noctem, nec candida cursus
Luna negat: splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.
Proxima Circeæ raduntur littora terræ:

Dives inaccessos ubi solis filia lucos
Assiduo resonat cantu, tectisque superbis

Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum,
Arguto tenues percurrens pectine telas :
Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum

Vincla recusantum, et serâ sub nocte rudentum :

Setigerique sues, atque in præsepibus ursi

Sævire, ac formæ magnorum ululare luporum:

Quos hominum ex facie Dea sæva potentibus herbis

Induerat Circe in vultus ac terga ferarum.

Quæ nè monstra pii paterentur talia Troes

Delati in portus, neu littora dira subirent

Neptunus ventis implevit vela secundis :

Atque fugam dedit, et præter vada fervida vexit. Æn. lib. vii.

Now, when the prince her funeral rites had paid,

He ploughed the Tyrrhene seas with sails displayed.

From land a gentle breeze arose by night,

Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright,
And the sea trembled with her silver light.
Now near the shelves of Circe's shores they run,
(Circe the rich, the daughter of the sun,)
A dangerous coast: the goddess wastes her days
In joyous songs, the rocks resound her lays :
In spinning, or the loom, she spends her night,
And cedar brands supply her father's light.
From hence were heard (re-bellowing to the main)
The roars of lions that refuse the chain,

The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears,

And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailor's ears.
These from their caverns, at the close of night,
Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.

DRYDEN.

Darkling they mourn their fate, whom Circe's power, (That watched the moon, and planetary hour,) With words and wicked herbs, from human kind Had altered, and in brutal shapes confined. Which monsters, lest the Trojan's pious host Should bear, or touch upon the enchanted coast, Propitious Neptune steered their course by night With rising gales, that sped their happy flight, Virgil calls this promontory Eës Insula Circes in the third Æneid, but 'tis the hero, and not the poet, that speaks. It may, however, be looked upon as an intimation, that he himself thought it an island in Æneas's time. As for the thick woods, which not only Virgil, but Homer mentions, in the beautiful description that Plutarch and Longinus have taken notice of, they are most of them grubbed up since the promontory has been cultivated and inhabited, though there are still many spots of it which show the natural inclination of the soil leans1 that way.

The next place we touched upon was Nettuno, where we found nothing remarkable besides the extreme poverty and laziness of the inhabitants. At two miles' distance from it lie the ruins of Antium, that are spread over a great circuit of land. There are still left the foundations of several buildings, and what are always the last parts that perish in a ruin, many subterraneous grottoes and passages of a great length. The foundations of Nero's port are still to be seen. It was altogether artificial, and composed of huge moles running round it, in a kind of circular figure, except where the ships were to enter, and had about three-quarters of a mile in its shortest diameter. Though the making of this port must have cost prodigious sums of money, we find no medal of it, and yet the same emperor has a medal struck in his own name for the port of Ostia, which in reality was a work of his predecessor Claudius. The last pope was at considerable charges to make a little kind of harbour in this place, and to convey fresh water to it, which was one of the artifices of the Grand Duke, to divert his Holiness from his project of making Civita-vecchia a free port. There lies between Antium and Nettuno a cardinal's villa, which is one of the pleasantest for walks, fountains, shades, and prospects, that I ever saw.

1 The natural inclination of the soil leans,] i. e. inclination inclines-he should have said—lies that way—or, the nature of the soil leans that way.