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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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( Continued from p . ? 49 . ) ; , - ^ > t \ pp As Rome was very full of people , and of course very imcomfor ^ le ^ &f this season , I determined to go down to Naples for a week or twd ^ le ^ vin ^ many things to be seen on my return . u There are no diligences on this road , except that which comes oiice a month from Florence ; but there is a man of the name of Angrisani , who engages to convey travellers post , whenever he can make up a party to fill a voiture . I took a place in one of these conveyances , in which I set out
early in the morning of Tuesday , April 8 th , and reached Naples , a distance of one hundred and sixty-six English miles , in thirty-two hours ; for which , supper included , I paid fifteen scudi , or about three pounds . The road which we travelled has been formed on the foundation of the old Via A ppia , and is in general excellent . With the Pontine Marshes I was agreeably disappointed . This vast tract of flat and boggy land , extending twentyfour miles in length , is indeed anything else than populous , there being
nothing to remind one of human beings but a few wretched reed-built huts , a large post-house at the end of every eight miles , and a guard-house , with a solitary soldier or two , at every half mile : but there is only a small part of this tract which is not reclaimed to purposes of cultivation . It consists in general of immense meadows or strays , on which horses and herds of buffaloes were grazing , and the grass looked green and luxuriant . The
work of draining these noxious swamps was begun by Appius Claudius , resumed by Boniface VIII ., continued by succeeding Popes , and completed by Pius VII . ; but the chief merit of the undertaking appears to belong to Pius VI . By the side of the road is a large sluice or canal , the identical one on which Horace sailed in the track-boat , in going down to Brundusium . I thought of his description of the choleric passenger jumping out , and flogging the mule and the boat-man with a willow stick :
Jamque dies aderat , cum nil procedere lintrem Sentimus ; donee cerebrosus prosilit unus Ac mulse nautaeque caput lumbosque saligno Fuste dolat . Sat . Lib . i . 5 . All this country , in short , is most classical ground . It was on the sea-coast at Laurentum that jEneas landed when he came to Italy ; and Terracina is the ancient Anxur , which corresponds exactly to Horace ' s description , Impositum late sax is candentibus Anxur .
The modern town stands where the ancient one did ; but the road and the post-house are at the bottom instead of the top-of the bold and barren cliff , which admits only of a narrow passage between its base and the sea . We supped at Mola di Gaeta , consecrated as the situation of Cicero ' s Formianum , a villa to which he u ^ e 4 to retire from the fatigues and the troubles of public life , and where hp i $ said to have written his Tusculan
Questions . It was near thip place , tQQ , that he was assassinated by the soldiers of Antony , as he was trying to make his escape to the sea-shore . The next morning , at day-break , we found ourselves in the midst of a most rich and beautiful country ; ' an Extensive plain , bounded to the north by a range of hills , among which are tlip ^ e fron ^ which Horace drew his casks of Falernian ; but this wine hia ^ iipvylost fts reputation .
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t ¦ ' ¦ ^ . , . 1 JOURNAL OP A TOUR ON TItfe COfarttiMT . ' &f : % % fti&& ™] „
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1828, page 831, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2567/page/31/
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