the injustice of his fellow-citizens. His appeal to Florence was accompanied by another to the Emperor Henry, and the death of that sovereign in 1313, was the signal for a sentence of irrevocable banishment. He had before lingered near Tuscany, with hopes of recal, then travelled into the north of Italy, where Verona had to boast of his longest residence, and he finally settled at Ravenna, which was his ordinary but not constant abode until his death. The refusal of the Venetians to grant him a public audience, on the part of Guido Novello da Polenta, his protector, is said to have been the principal cause of this event, which happened in 1321. He was buried (in sacra minorum ede,») at Ravenna, in a handsome tomb, which was erected by Guido, restored by Bernardo Bembo in 1483, pretor for that republic which had refused to hear him, again restored by Cardinal Corsi in 1692, and replaced by a more magnificent sepulchre, constructed in 1780 at the expense of the Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. The offence or misfortune of Dante was an attachment to a defeated party, and, as his least favourable biographers allege against him, too great a freedom of speech and haughtiness of manner. But the next age paid honours almost divine to the exile. The Florentines, having in vain and frequently attempted to recover his body, crowned his image in a church, and his picture is still one of the idols of their cathedral. They struck medals, they raised statues to him. The cities of Italy, not of those who are interested in the perversion not only of the nature of actions, but the meaning of words, that what was once patriotism, has by degrees come to signify debauch. We have ourselves outlived the old meaning of « liberality,» which is now another word for treason in one country and for infatuation in all. It ems to have been a strange mistake to accuse the author of the Prince, as being a pandar to tyranny; and to think that the inquisition would condemn his work for such a delinquency. The fact is, that Machiavelli, as is usual with those against whom no crime can be proved, was suspected of and charged with atheism; and the first and last most violent opposers of the Prince were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded the Inquisition benchè fosse tardo,» to prohibit the treatise, und the other qualified the secretary of the Florentine republic as no better than a fool. The father Possevin is proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucchesini not to have understood it. It is clear, however, that such critics must have objected not to the -Lavery of the doctrines, but to the supposed tendency of a lesson which shows how distinct are the interests of 3 monarch from the happiness of mankind. The Jesaits are re-established in Italy, and the last chapter of the Prince may again call forth a particular refutation, from those who are employed once more in moulding the minds of the rising generation, so as to reive the impressions of despotism. The chapter bears for title, « Esortazione a liberare la Italia dai Bar-being able to dispute about his own birth, contended bari, and concludes with a libertine excitement to the future redemption of Italy. « Non si deve adunque Liar passare questa occasione, acciocchè la Italia seyga dopo tanto tempo apparire un suo redentore. Ne posso esprimere con qual amore ei fusse ricevuto in tutte quelle provincie, che hanno patito per queste il luvioni esterne, con qual sete di vendetta, con che ostinata fede, con che lacrime. Quali porte se li serrerebeno! Quali popoli li negherebbeno la obbedienza? Qaale Italiano li negherebbe l' ossequio? AD OGNUNO PUZZA QUESTO BARBARO DOMINIO.» Note 30. Stanza lvii. Ingrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar. for that of his great poem, and the Florentines thought it for their honour to prove that he had finished the seventh Canto, before they drove him from his native city. Fifty-one years after his death, they endowed a professorial chair for the expounding of his verses, and Boccaccio was appointed to this patriotic employment. The example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa, and the commentators, if they performed but little service to literature, augmented the veneration which beheld a sacred or moral allegory in all the images of his mystic muse. His birth and his infancy were discovered to have been distinguished above those of ordinary men; the author of the Decameron, his earliest biographer, relates that his mother was warned in a dream of the importance of her pregnancy; and it was found, by others, that at ten years of age he had manifested his precocious passion for that wisdom or theology which, under the name of Beatrice, had been mistaken for a substantial mistress. When the Divine Comedy had been recognized as a mere mortal production, and at the distance of two centuries, when criticism and com Dante was born in Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles, was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic. When the party of Charles of Anjou triumphed over the Bianchi, he was asent on an embassy to Pope Boniface VIII, and was condemned to two years' banishment, and to a fine of eight thousand lire; on the non-payment of which he as further punished by the sequestration of all his property. The republic, however, was not content with thes ausfaction, for in 1772 was discovered in the archives at Florence a sentence in which Dante is the leventh of a list of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be burnt alive, Talis perveniens igne comburatur sic quod mwriatur. The pretext for this judgment was a proof of anfur barter, extortions, and illicit gains: Baracte-jealous scepticism of one writer would not allow Raruarum iniquarum, extorsionum, et illicitorum lucro-rwm,' and with such an accusation it is not strange that Date should have always protested his innocence, and petition had sobered the judgment of Italians, Dante In later venua the undoubted possession of his bones. Even the critical Tiraboschi was inclined to believe that the poet had foreseen and foretold one of the discoveries of 1 So relates Fizino, but some think his coronation only an allegory See Storia, etc. ut sup. p. 453. 2 By Varchi in his Ercolano. The controversy continued from 1550 to 1616. See Storia, etc. tom, vi, lib, ui, par. 1, p. 1380. Gio. Jacopo Dionisi canonien di Verona. Serie di Aneddoti o. 2 See Stira, etc. tom. v, lib. 1, par. i, p. 24. Galileo. Like the great originals of other nations, his popularity has not always maintained the same level. The last age seemed inclined to undervalue him as a model and a study; and Bettinelli one day rebuked his pupil Monti, for, poring over the harsh and obsolete extravagances of the Commedia. The present generation having recovered from the Gallic idolatries of Cesarotti, has returned to the ancient worship, and the Danteggiare of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans. There is still much curious information relative to the life and writings of this great poet, which has not as yet been collected even by the Italians; but the celebrated Hugo Foscolo meditates to supply this defect; and it is not to be regretted that this national work has been reserved for one so devoted to his country and the cause of truth. Note 3 Stanza Ivii. Like Scipio buried by the upbraiding shore, republican, I have submitted to your deliberations without complaint; I have supported patiently the pains of imprisonment, for they were inflicted at your command: this is no time to inquire whether I deserved them-the good of the republic may have seemed to require it, and that which the republic resolves is always resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my life for the preservation of my country.» Pisani was appointed generalissimo, and, by his exertions, in conjunction with those of Carlo Zeno, the Venetians soon recovered the ascendancy over their maritime rivals. The Italian communities were no less unjust to their citizens than the Greek republics. Liberty, both with the one and the other, seems to have been a national, not an individual object: and, notwithstanding the boasted equality before the laws, which an ancient Greck writer' considered the great distinctive mark between his countrymen and the barbarians, the mutual rights of fellow-citizens seem never to have been the principal scope of the old democracies. The world may have not The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb, if he was not yet seen an essay by the author of the Italian Republics, buried, at Liternum, whither he had retired to volun-in which the distinction between the liberty of former tary banishment. This tomb was near the sea-shore, and the story of an inscription upon it, Ingrata Patria, having given a name to a modern tower, is, if not true, an agreeable fiction. If he was not buried, he certainly lived there.' In cos angusta e solitaria villa Era grand' uomo che d'Africa s'appella Perchè prima col ferro al vivo apprilla, ▾ Ingratitude is generally supposed the vice peculiar to republics; and it seems to be forgotten, that for one instance of popular inconstancy, we have a hundred examples of the fall of courtly favourites. Besides, a people have often repented-a monarch seldom or never. Leaving apart many familiar proofs of this fact, a short story may show the difference between even an aristocracy and the multitude. Vettor Pisani, having been defeated in 1354 at Portolongo, and many years afterwards in the more decisive action of Pola, by the Genoese, was recalled by the Venetian Government, and thrown into chains. The Avvogadori proposed to behead him, but the supreme tribunal was content with the sentence of imprisonment. Whilst Pisani was suffering this unmerited disgrace, Chioza, in the vicinity of the capital,3 was, by the assistance of the Signor of Padua, delivered into the hands of Pietro Doria. At the intelligence of that disaster, the great bell of St Mark's tower tolled to arms, and the people and the soldiery of the galleys were summoned to the repulse of the approaching enemy; but they protested they would not move a step, unless Pisani were liberated, and placed at their head. The great council was instantly assembled: the prisoner was called before them, and the Doge, Andrea Contarini, informed him of the demands of the people and the necessities of the state, whose only hope of safety was reposed on his efforts, and who implored him to forget the indignities he had endured in her service. «I have submitted,» replied the magnanimous Vitam Literai egit sine desiderio urbis. See T. Liv. Hist. lib. xxv. Livy reports that some said be was buried at Literaum, others at Rome. Ib. cap. LV. Trioufo della Castita. See note to slauza XIII. states, and the signification attached to that word by the happier constitution of England, is ingeniously developed. The Italians, however, when they had ceased to be free, still looked back with a sigh upon those times of turbulence, when every citizen might rise to a share of sovereign power, and have never been taught fully to appreciate the repose of a monarchy. Sperone Speroni, when Francis Maria II. Duke of Rovere proposed the question, « which was preferable, the republic or the principality-the perfect and not durable, or the less perfect and not so liable to change,» replied, « that our happiness is to be measured by its quality, not by its duration; and that he preferred to live for one day like a man, than for a hundred years like a brute, a stock, This was thought, and called a magnificent answer, down to the last days of Italian servitude. or a stone.» Note 32. Stanza lvii. And the crown Which Petrarch's laureat brow supremely wore, Upon a far and foreign soil had grown. The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which confiscated the property of his father, who had been banished shortly after the exile of Dante. His crown did not dazzle them; but when in the next year they were in want of his assistance in the formation of their university, they repented of their injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua to intreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the bosom of his native country, where he might finish his immortal Africa, and enjoy, with his recovered possessions, the esteem of all classes of his fellow-citizens. They gave him the option of the book, and the science he might condescend to expound: they called him the glory of his country, who was dear, and would be dearer to them; and they added, that if there was any thing unpleasing in their letter, he ought to return amongst them, were it only to The Greek boasted that he was ¿zovóμ95.-500 the last chapter of the first book of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 1. E intorno alla magnifica risposta, ete. Serassi Vita del Tasko, lib. ii, pag. 149, tom. 1, edit. 2, Bergamo, mansion. She has done more: the house in which the poet lived has been as little respected as his tomb, and is falling to ruin over the head of one indifferent to the name of its former tenant. It consists of two or three little chambers, and a low tower, on which Cosmo II. affixed an inscription. This house she has taken measures to purchase, and proposes to devote to it that care and consideration which are attached to the cradle and to the roof of genius. unfortunately for those who have to deplore the loss of a very amiable person, is beyond all eriticism; but the mortality which did not protect Boccaccio from Mr Eustace, must not defend Mr Eustace from the impartial judgment of his successors. Death may canonize his virtues, not his errors; and it may be modestly pronounced that he transgressed, not only as an author, but as a man, when he evoked the shade of Boccaccio in company with that of Aretino, amidst the sepulchres of Santa Croce, merely to dismiss it with indignity. As far as respects Il flagello de' Principi, Boccaccio was buried in the church of St Michael and St James, at Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the place of his birth. There he passed the latter part of his life in a course of laborious study, which shortened his existence; and there might his ashes have been secure, if not of honour, at least of repose. But the hyæna bigots» of Certaldo it is of little import what censure is past upon a coxtore up the tombstone of Boccaccio, and ejected it from comb who owes his present existence to the above the holy precincts of St Michael and St James. The occasion, and, it may be hoped, the excuse, of this eject-burlesque character given to him by the poet whose amber has preserved many other grubs and worms: but ment was the making of a new floor for the church: but the fact is, that the tombstone was taken up and thrown municate his very ashes, must of itself make us doubt to classify Boccaccio with such a person, and to excomaude at the bottom of the building. Ignorance may of the qualification of the classical tourist for writing share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to relate such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for their upon Italian, or, indeed, upon any other literature; for great names, could it not be accompanied by a trait ignorance on one point may incapacitate an author more honourably conformable to the general character merely for that particular topic, but subjection to a proof the nation. The principal person of the district, the fessional prejudice must render him an unsafe director last branch of the house of Medicis, afforded that protec-made what is vulgarly called « a case of conscience,»> on all occasions. Any perversion and injustice may be tion to the memory of the insulted dead which her best and this poor excuse is all that can be offered for the ancestors had dispensed upon all cotemporary merit. The Marchioness Lenzoni rescued the tombstone of Boc- priest of Certaldo, or the author of the Classical Tour. It would have answered the purpose to confine the cencaccio from the neglect in which it had sometime lain, and found for it an honourable elevation in her own sure to the novels of Boccaccio, and gratitude to that source which supplied the muse of Dryden with her last and most harmonious numbers, might perhaps have restricted that censure to the objectionable qualities of the hundred tales. At any rate, the repentance of Boccaccio might have arrested his exhumation, and it should have been recollected and told, that in his old he age wrote a letter intreating his friend to discourage the reading of the Decameron, for the sake of modesty, and for the sake of the author, who would not have an apoloThis is not the place to undertake the defence of Boc-gist always at hand to state in his excuse that he wrote it caccio; but the man who exhausted his little patrimony I in the acquirement of learning, who was amongst the first, if not the first, to allure the science and the poetry of Greece to the bosom of Italy ;-who not only invented a new style, but founded, or certainly fixed, a new lan- | guage; who, besides the esteem of every polite court of Furope, was thought worthy of employment by the dominant republic of his own country, and, what is mare, of the friendship of Petrarch, who lived the life of a philosopher and a freeman, and who died in the parsuit of knowledge,—such a man might have found more consideration than he has met with from the priest of Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who strikes off his portrait as an odious, contemptible, lirentious writer, whose impure remains should be suffered to rot without a record. That English traveller, •⚫eringiti innoltre, se ei è lecito ancor l'esortarti, a compire l' immetal cus Africa........ Se ti avviene d'incontrare nel nostro stile cosa che • d'apacira, co deb·l' essere un altro motivo ad esaudire i desiderj bek's ma patria • Storia della Lett. Ital. tom. v, par. i, lib. i, pag. 76. * Classical Tour, cap. 11, vol. ii, p. 355, edit. 3d. Of Boccaccio, dern Petronios, we say nothing; the abuse of genius is more win and more contemptible than its absence; and it imports little where le impare remains of a licentious author are consigned to their A-dred dust. For the same reason the traveller may pass unnoticed ➡mb of the malignant Aretino.. pre Tum dabanas phrase is hardly enough to save the tourist from the pro when young, and at the command of his superiors.' It is neither the licentiousness of the writer, nor the evil pensities of the reader, which have given to the Decameron alone, of all the works of Boccaccio, a perpetual popularity. The establishment of a new and delightful dialect conferred an immortality on the works in which it was first fixed. The sonnets of Petrarch were, for the same reason, fated to survive his self-admired Africa, the « favourite of kings.» The invariable traits of nature and feeling with which the novels, as well as the verses, abound, have doubtless been the chief source of the foreign celebrity of both authors; but Boccaccio, as a man, is no more to be estimated by that work, than Petrarch is to be regarded in no other light than as the suspicion of another blander respecting the burial place of Aretino, whose tomb was in the church of St Luke at Venice, and gave rise to the famous controversy of which some notice is taken in Bayle. Now the words of Mr Eustace would lead us to think the tomb was at Florence, or at least was to be somewhere recognized. Whether the inscription so much disputed was ever written on the tomb cannot now be decided, for all memorial of this author has disappeared from the church of St Luke, which is now changed into a lamp warehouse. Non enim ubique est, qui in excusationem meam consurgens dieat, juvenis scripsit, et majoris coactus imperio. The letter was addressed to Maghinard of Cavalcanti, marshal of the kingdom of Siedy. See Tiraboschi, Storia, etc. tom. v. par. it, lib. iii, pag. 525, ed. Ven. 1795. lover of Laura. Even, however, had the father of the Tuscan prose been known only as the author of the Decameron, a considerate writer would have been cautious to pronounce a sentence irreconcileable with the unerring voice of many ages and nations. An irrevocable value has never been stamped upon any work solely recommended by impurity. names. 1 canon of Padua, at the beginning of the 16th century, erected at Arquà, opposite to the tomb of the laureate. a tablet, in which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honours of Dante and of Petrarch. Note 34. Stanza Ix. What is her pyramid of precious stones! The true source of the outcry against Boccaccio, which Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo, and began at a very early period, was the choice of his scan-expires with his grandson; that stream is pure only at dalous personages in the cloisters as well as the courts; but the princes only laughed at the gallant adventures so unjustly charged upon Queen Theodelinda, whilst the priesthood cried shame upon the debauches drawn from the convent and the hermitage; and, most probably, for the opposite reason, namely, that the picture was faithful to the life. Two of the novels are allowed to be facts usefully turned into tales, to deride the canonization of rogues and laymen. Ser Ciappelletto and Marcellinus are cited with applause even by the decent Muratori. The great Arnaud, as he is quoted in Bayle, states, that a new edition of the novels was proposed, of which the expurgation consisted in omitting the words << monk» and nun, and tacking the immoralities to other The literary history of Italy particularizes no such edition; but it was not long before the whole of Europe had but one opinion of the Decameron; and the absolution of the author seems to have been a point set tled at least a hundred years ago: «On se ferait siffler si l'on prétendait convaincre Boccace de n'avoir pas été honnête homme, puisqu'il a fait le Décameron.» So said one of the best men, and perhaps the best critic, that ever-lived--the very martyr to impartiality. But as this information, that in the beginning of the last century one would have been hooted at for pretending that Boccaccio was not a good man, may seem to come from one of those enemies who are to be suspected, even when they make us a present of truth, a more acceptable contrast with the proscription of the body, soul, and muse of Boccaccio may be found in a few words from the virtuous, the patriotic cotemporary, who thought one of the tales of this impure writer worthy a Latin version from his own pen. I have remarked elsewhere," says Petrarch, writing to Boccaccio, «<that the book itself has been worried by certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff and voice. Nor was I astonished, for I have had proof of the vigour of your mind, and I know have fallen on that unaccommodating incapable race of mortals who, whatever they either like not, or know not, or cannot do, are sure to reprehend in others; and on those occasions only put on a show of learning and eloquence, but otherwise are entirely dumb. 3 you 2 It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood do not resemble those of Certaldo, and that one of them who did not possess the bones of Boccaccio would not lose the opportunity of raising a cenotaph to his memory. Bevius, Dissertazioni sopra le antichità Italiane. Diss. Ivisi, p. 253, tom. in, edit. Milan, 1951. * Eclaircissement, etc. etc. p. 638, edit, Basle, 1741, in the Supplement to Bayle's Dictionary. 3- Animadresti alicubi librum ipsum canum dentibus lacessitum, tuo tamen baculo egregie tuique voce defentum. Nec miratus som. nam et vires ingenii tui nuvi, et scio expertus esses hominum genus insolens et ignavum, qui, quicquid ipsi vet nolaut vel nesciunt, vel non possunt, in alits reprehendunt, ad hoc unum docti et arguti, sed elingues at reliqua. Epist Joan Boreal o opp. tom i, p. 540. ¦ edit. Baud the source; and it is in search of some memorial of the virtuous republicans of the family, that we visit the The tawdry, glaring, church of St Lorenzo at Florence. unfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pavement slab simply inscribed to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici.' It was very natural for Corinna to suppose that the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de depositi was intended for his great namesake; but the magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coffin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepulchral peace which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning families in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing, but a faithful picture. «Notwithstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. Amongst other things it is remarkable, that when Philip the Second of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, his ambassador then at Rome sent him word, that he had given away more than 650,000 subjects; and it is not believed there are now 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with seditions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unprosperous, they still retained such strength, that when Charles VIII of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people taking arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon such conditions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports, that in that time Florence alone, with the Val d'Arno, a small territory belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring together 135,000 well-armed men; whereas now that city, with all the others in that province, are brought to such despicable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and base ness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves if they were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Naples, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence; they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the ↑ Cosmus Melices, Decreto Publico, Pater Patriar 1. Corinne, Lit, xet, eap, in, yol w, page 103 government they are under. From the usurper Cosmo down to the | imbecile Gaston, we look in vain for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a patriot to the command of tas fellow citizens. The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cosmo, had operated so entire a change in the Tuscan character, that the candid Florentines, in excuse for some imperfections in the philanthropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the sovereign was the aly liberal man in his dominions. Yet that excellent prince himself had no other notion of a national as semisly, than of a body to represent the wants and wishes, not the will of the people. Note 35. Stanza Ixiii. An earthquake reel'd unheededly away! And such was their mutual animosity, so intent were they upon the battle, that the earthquake, which verthrew in great part many of the cities of Italy, which turned the course of rapid streams, poured back the sea upon the rivers, and tore down the very mounSuch tains, was not felt by one of the combatants. is the description of Livy. It may be doubted whether modern tactics would admit of such an abstraction. a semicircle, and running down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the right and forms the chord of this mountain are. The position cannot be guessed at from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely inclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It then, indeed, appears «a place made as it were on purpose for a suare,» «<locus insidiis natus.» Borghetto is then found to stand in a narrow marshy pass close to the hill and to the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at the opposite turn of the mountains than through the little town of Pasignano, which is pushed into the water by the foot of a high rocky acclivity. There is a woody eminence branching down from the mountains into the upper end of the plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a white village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this eminence as the one on which Hannibal encamped and drew out his heavy-armed Africaus and Spaniards in a conspicuous position. From this spot he dispatched his Balearic and light-armed troops round through the Gualandra heights to the right, so as to arrive vities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act unseen, and form an ambush amongst the broken accli The site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be mis-upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse taken The traveller from the village under Cortona to Casa di Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, has for the first two or three miles, around him, but more particularly to the right, that flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order to induce the Consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. On his left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills, bending down towards the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy « montes Cortonenses,» and now named the Gualandra. These hills he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itineraries pretend to have been so deno manated from the bones found there: but there have been no bones found there, and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From Ossaja the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into the roots of the mountains until the sixty-seventh mile-stone from Florence. The ascent thence is not steep but perpetual, and cootinges for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, with Borghetto, a round tower close upon the water; and the undulating hills partially covered with wond, amongst which the road winds, siuk by degrees to the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal placed his horse,3 in the jaws of or rather above the pass, which was between the lake and the present road, and most probably close to Borghetto, just under the lowest of the «< tumuli. >>4 On a summit to the left, above the road, is an old circular ruin which the peasants call the Tower of Hannibal the Carthaginian.» Arrived at the highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon him as he des rods the Gualandra. He soon finds himself in a vale inclosed to the left and in front and behind him by the Gualandra hills, bending round in a segment larger than ↑ On Government, chap. ii, sect. xxvi, page 208, edit, 1751. Sidoey * together with Lecke and Hoadley, one of Mr Hume's ▪ despicable shut пр the pass behind. Flaminius came to the lake before him, marched through the pass the next morning near Borghetto at sunset; and, without sending any spies before the day had quite broken, so that he perceived nothing of the horse and light troops above and about him, and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front on the hill of Torre.3 The Consul began to draw out his army in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in ambush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto. lake on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in Thus the Romans were completely inclosed, having the front, the Gualandra hills filled with the light-armed on the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up their left flank, and being prevented from receding by all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the Consul, but the high lands were in the sun-shine, and all the different corps in ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for the down from his post on the height. At the same moment order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved all his troops on the eminences behind and in the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Romans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy amongst them, on every side, and, before they could fall into their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. 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 cut an open spot to the left between the « Sanguinetto»> and 1. Inde colles assurgunt⚫ Tit. Liv. lib. xxii, cap. iv. · Τὸν μὲν κατὰ πρόσωπον τῆς πορείας λόφον αὐτὸς κατελάβετο καὶ τοὺς Λίβυας καὶ τοὺς ἔθηρας ἔχων ἐπ' αὐτοῦ κατεστρατοπέδευσε. Ηist. lib. iii, cap. 83. The account in Polybius is not so easily reconcileable with present appearances as that in Livy; he talks of fulls to the right and left of the pass and valley; but when Flaminius entered he had the lake at the right of both 3. A tergo et super caput decepere insidia. Tit. Liv. etc. |