ing on the top of a bleak mountain, and a little while after basking in a warm valley, covered with violets, and almond-trees in bloffom, the bees already fwarming over them, though but in the month of February. Sometimes our road led us through groves of olives, or by gardens of oranges, or into feveral hollow appartments among the rocks and mountains, that look like to many natural green houses; as being always fhaded with a great variety of trees and fhrubs that never lofe their verdure.
I fhall fay nothing of the Via Flaminia, which has been spoken of by most of the voyage-writers that have paffed it, but fhall fet down Claudian's account of the journey that Honorius made from Ravenna to Rome, which lies moft of it in the fame road that I have been describing.
·Antiquæ muros egreffa Ravenna
Signa movet,, jamque ora Padi portufque relinquit
Flumineos, certis ubi legibus advena Nereus
Eftuat, et pronas puppes nunc amne fecundo,
Nunc redeunte vebit, nudataque littora fluctu
Deferit, Oceani Lunaribus æmula damnis ;
Latior binc Fano recipit Fortuna vetufto
Defpiciturque vagus prærupta valle Metaurus,
* Qua mons arte patens vivo fe perforat Arcu,
Admifitque viam fece per vifcera rupis.
Exuperans delubra Jovis, faxoque minantes
Appenninigenis cultas paftoribus aras:
Quin et Clitumni facras vi&oribus undas,
Candida que Latiis præbent armenta triumphis,
An highway made by Vefpafian, like the Grotto Obfcuro near Naples.
Vifere cura fuit. Nec te miracula Fontis *
Prætereunt: tacito passu quem fi quis adiret,
Lentus erat; fi voce gradum majore citaffet,
Commiftis fervebat aquis: cumque omnibus una
Sit natura vadis, fimiles ut corporis umbras
Oftendant, hæc fola novam jactantia fortem
Humanos properant imitari flumina mores.
Celfa debinc patulum profpectans Narnia compum
Regali calcatur equo, rarique coloris
Non procul amnis adeft urbi, qui nominis auctor
Ilice fub denfa fylvis ardatus opacis
Inter utrumque jugum tortis anfractibus albet.
Inde falutato libatis Tibride Nymphis,
Excipiunt arcus, operofaque femita, vaftis
Melibus, & quicquid tantæ præmittitur urbi.
They leave Ravenna, and the mouths of Po,
That all the borders of the town o'erflow ;
And fpreading round in one continu'd lake,
A fpacious hofpitable harbour make.
Hither the feas at itated times refort,
And shove the loaden veffels into port;
Then with a gentle ebb retire again,
And render back their cargo to the main.
So the pale moon the reftiefs ocean guides,
Driv'n to and fro by such submissive tides
Fair Fortune next with looks ferene and kind,
Receives 'em, in her ancient fane enfhrin'd;
Then the high hills they crofs, and from below
In diftant murmurs hear Metaurus flow,
'Till to Clitumno's facred ftreams they come,
That fend white victims to almighty Rome;
When her triumphant fons in war fucceed,
And flaughter'd hecatombs around 'em bleed.
At Narni's lofty seats arriv'd, from far
'They view the windings of the hoary Nar;
Through rocks and woods impetuously he glides,
While froth and foam the fretting furface hides.
And now the royal gueft, all dangers pass'd,
Old Tyber and his nymphs falutes at last;
The long laborious pavement here he treads,
That to proud Rome the admiring nation leads;
While stately vaults and tow'ring piles appear,
And fhow the world's metroplis is near.
Silius Italicus, who has taken more pains on the geography of Italy than any other of the Latin Poets, has given a catalogue of most of the rivers that I faw in Umbria, or in the borders of it. He has avoided a fault (if it be really fuch) which Macrobius has objected to Virgil, of paffing from one place to another, without regarding their regular and natural fituation, in which Homer's catalogues are observed to be much more methodical and exaЯ than Virgil's.
-Cavis venientes montibus Umbri,
Hos Efis Sapifque lavant, rapidafque fonanti
Vortice contorquens undas per faxa Metaurus:
E. lavat ingentem perfundens flumine facro
Clitumnus taurum, Narque albefcentibus undis
In Tibrim properans, Tiniæque inglorius humor,
Et Clanis, et Rubico, et Senonum de nomine Senon.
Sed pater ingenti medios illabitur amne
· Albula, et immota perftringit mania ripa,
His urbes, Arva, et latis Mevania pratis,
Hifpellum, et duro monti per faxa recumbens
Narnia, &c.
The Umbri, that from hollow mountains came :
Thefe Æfis and the ftream of Sapis laves;
And swift Metaurus, that with rapid waves
O'er beds of stone its noify current pours:
Clitumnus, that prefents its facred ftores,
To wash the bull: the Nar's infected tide,
Whofe fulph'rous waters into Tiber glide;
Tinia's Imall ftream, that runs inglorious on
The Clanis, Senon, and the Rubicon:
With larger waters, and fuperior fway,
Amidft the reft, the hoary Albula
Thro' fields and towns purfues his watry way.
Since I am got among the Poets, I shall end this chapter with two or three paffages out of them, that I have omitted inferting in their proper places.
Sit Cifterna mibi quam Vinea malo Ravenna,
Cum poffim multo vendere pluris Aquam.
Mart. Lib, iii. Epigr. 56.
Lodg'd at Ravenna, (water fells fo dear)
A ciftern to a vineyard I prefer.
Callidus impofuit nuper mihi Caupo Ravennæ :
Cum peterem mixtum, vendidit ille merum.
By a Ravenna vintner once betray'd,
So much for wine and water mix'd I paid;
But when I thought the purchas'd liquor mine,
'The rascal fobb'd me off with only wine.
Stas fucare colus, nec Sidone vilior Ancon,
Murice nec Tyrio
The wool, when shaded with Ancona's dye,
May with the proudeft Tyrian purple vie.
Fountain water is ftill very fcarce at Ravenna, and was probably much more so, when the sea was within its neighbourhood.
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