Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 1) (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

57

tures we add those charms, less real but
more enchanting, which Fancy sheds over
its scenery, we give it an irresistible interest
that awakens all the feelings of the classic
youth. Our early studies, as Gibbon justly
observes, allow us to sympathize in the
feelings of a Roman ; and one might almost
say of every school boy not insensible to
the sweets of his first studies, that he be-
comes in feeling and sentiments, perhaps
even in language, a Roman. It is not then
wonderful, that when in a riper age he visits

Seu rate caaruleas picta sulcavimus undas :
Esseda nos agili sive tulere rota.
Scepe brevis nobis vicibus via visa loquendi;
Pluraque, si numeres, verba fuere gradu.
Soepe dies sermone minor fuit; inque loquendum
Tarda per oestivos defuit hora dies.
Est aliquid casus, pariter timuisse marinos;
Junctaque adeequoreos vota tulisse Deos:
Haec tibi si subeant (absim licet) omnibus horis
Ante tuos oculos, ut modo visus, ero.
Ovid. Ep. ex Fonto, lib. n. x. 21. seq.