Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 3): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

Ch A.

THROUGH ITALY.

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cepted, ever united so much power, so much
genius, so much greatness ! Baice indeed at
that time was the resort, or rather the very tem-
ple of Wisdom and the Muses; whither the
masters of the world retired, not to dissolve their
energies in effeminacy, but to unbend their
minds in literary inquiries and refined conversa-
tion. Luxury appeared, without doubt, but in
her most appropriate form and character, as the
handmaid of taste, to minister at the tables, and
season the repasts, where Caesar and Cicero,
Pompey and Lucullus, Varro and Hortensius,
enjoyed the feast of reason.
Shortly after this era of greatness and glory,
the sun of liberty set for ever on the Roman
world ; but it cast a parting beam, which still
continued to brighten the hemisphere. Augustus
himself felt its influence; he had been educated
in the principles, and inured to the manly and
independent manners of a free Roman; he ob-
served the forms and retained the simplicity of
ancient times, and gloried in the plainness and
even in the appellation of a citizen; he may
therefore be considered as a republican prince.
In the modesty of this character, he frequented
the coasts of Ba ice, and conducted in his train
improvement, opulence, and festivity; Agrippa
and Maecenas, Virgil and Horace. One of the