and warns you not to mistake mere indolence for inability. I am sensible there is nothing stronger against what I would persuade you to, than my own practice; which may make you imagine I think not as I speak. Alas! it is not so; but I do not act what I think, and I had rather be the object of your pity, than that you should be that of mine; and, be assured, the advantage I may receive from it, does not diminish my concern in hearing you want somebody to converse with freely, whose advice might be of more weight, and always at hand. We have some time since come to the southern period of our voyages; we spent about nine days at Naples. It is the largest and most populous city, as its environs are the most deliciously fertile country, of all Italy. We sailed in the bay of Baiæ, sweated in the Solfatara, and died in the grotta del Cane, as all strangers do; saw the Corpus Christi procession, and the King and Queen, and the city underground, (which is a wonder I reserve to tell you of another time) and so returned to Rome for another fortnight; left it (left Rome!) and came hither for the summer. You have seen* an Epistle to Mr. Ashton, that seems to me full of spirit and thought, and a good deal of poetic fire. I would know your opinion. Now I talk of verses, Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spencer, published last year by a † namesake of yours, with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed. * The reader will find this in Dodsley's Miscellany, and also amongst Mr. Walpole's Fugitive Pieces. + Gilbert West, Esq. This poem, "On the Abuse of Travelling" is also in Dodsley's Miscellany. LETTER XXVI. MR. GRAY TO HIS MOTHER. Florence, Aug. 21, N. S. 1740. It is some time since I have had the pleasure of writing to you, having been upon a little excursion cross the mountains to Bologna. We set out from hence at sunset, passed the Appennines by moon-light, travelling incessantly till we came to Bologna at four in the afternoon next day. There we spent a week agreeably enough, and returned as we came. The day before yesterday arrived the news of a pope; and I have the mortification of being within four days journey of Rome, and not seeing his coronation, the heats being violent, and the infectuous air now at its height. We had an instance, the other day, that it is not only fancy. Two country fellows, strong men, and used to the country about Rome, having occasion to come from thence hither, and travelling on foot, as common with them, one died suddenly on the road; the other got hither, but extremely weak, and in a manner stupid: he was carried to the hospital, but died in two days. So, between fear and laziness, we remain here, and must be satisfied with the accounts other people give us of the matter. The new pope is called Benedict XIV. being created cardinal by Benedict XIII. the last pope but one. His name is Lambertini, a noble Bolognese, and archbishop of that city. When I was first there, I remember to have seen him two or three times; he is a short fat man, about sixty-five years of age, of a hearty merry countenance, and likely to live some years. He bears a good character for generosity, affability, and other virtues; and, they say, wants neither knowledge nor capacity. The worst side of him is, that he has a nephew or two; besides a certain young favourite, called Melara, who is said to have had, for some time, the arbitrary disposal of his purse and family. He is reported to have made a little speech to the cardinals in the Conclave, while they were undetermined about an election, as follows: "Most eminent lords, here are three Bolognese of different characters, but all equally proper for the popedom. If it be your pleasures to pitch upon a saint, there is Cardinal Gotti; if upon a politician, there is Aldrovandi ; if upon a booby, here am I." The Italian is much more expressive, and, indeed, not to be translated; wherefore, if you meet with any body that understands it, you may shew them what he said in the language he spoke it. "Eminssimi. Sigri. Ci siamo tré, diversi sì, mà tutti idonei al Papato. Se vi piace un santo, c' è l'Gotti; se volete una testa scaltra, e politica, c' è l'Aldrovandé; se un coglione, eccomi!" Cardinal Coscia is restored to his liberty, and, it is said, will be to all his benefices. Corsini (the late Pope's nephew) as he has had no hand in this election, it is hoped will be called to account for all his villanous practices. The Pretender, they say, has resigned all his pretensions to his eldest boy, and will accept of the grand chancellorship, which is thirty thousand crowns a-year; the pension he has at present is only twenty thousand. I do not affirm the truth of this last article; because, if he does, it is necessary he should take the ecclesiastical habit, and it will sound mighty odd to be called his Majesty the Chancellor.--So ends my gazette. LETTER XXVII. MR. GRAY TO MR. WEST. Florence, Sept. 25, N. S. 1740. WHAT I send you now as long as it is, is but a piece of a poem. It has the advantage of all fragments, to need neither introduction nor conclusion: besides, if you do not like it, it is but imagining that which went before, and came after, to be infinitely better. Look in Sandy's Travels for the history of Monte Barbaro, and Monte Nuovo.* * To save the reader trouble, I here insert the passage referred to." West of Cicero's Villa stands the eminent Gaurus, a stony and desolate mountain, in which there are diverse obscure caverns, choaked almost with earth, where many have consumed much fruitless industry in searching for treasure. The famous Lucrine lake extended formerly from Avernus to the aforesaid Gaurus: but is now no other than a little sedgy plash, choaked up by the horrible and astonishing eruption of the new mountain; whereof, as oft as I think, 1 am easy to credit whatsoever is wonderful. For who here knows not, or who elsewhere will believe, that a mountain should arise, (partly out of a lake and partly out of the sea) in one day and a night, unto such a height as to contend in altitude with the high mountains adjoining? In the year of our Lord 1538, on the 29th of September, when for certain days foregoing, the country hereabout was so vexed with perpetual earthquakes, as no one house was left so entire as not to expect an immediate ruin; after that the sea had retired two hundred paces from the shore, (leaving abundance of fish, and springs of fresh water rising in the bottom) this mountain visibly ascended, about the second hour of the night, with an hideous roaring, horribly vomiting stones and such store of cinders as overwhelmed all the building thereabout, and the salubrious baths of Tripergula, for so many ages celebrated; consumed the vines to ashes, killing birds and beasts: the fearful inhabitants of Puzzol flying through the dark with their wives and children; naked, defiled, crying out, and detesting Nec procul infelix se tollit in æthera Gaurus, Nam fama est olim, mediâ dum rura silebant Ah, miser! increpitans sæpè altâ voce per umbram Quin ubi detonuit fragor, et lux reddita cœlo; their calamities. Manifold mischiefs have they suffered by the barbarous, yet none like this which Nature inflicted. This new mountain, when newly raised, had a number of issues; at some of them smoking and sometimes flaming; at others disgorging rivulets of hot waters; keeping within a terrible rumbling; and many miserably perished that ventured to descend into the hollowness above. But that hollow on the top is at present an orchard, and the mountain throughout is bereft of his terrors."-Sandy's Travels, book iv. page 275. 277, and 278. |