DOI chapter:
Chap. I: Bay and Castle of Procida - Evening Hymn - Beautiful View, Observations - the Island of Vivara - Ischia, its Mountains, Eruptions, Appearance, and Population - Nisida - Vesuvius
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0023
Ch. I.
THROUGH ITALY.
13
standing·*. Baice and its retreats, defiled by
obscenity, and stained with blood, were doomed
to devastation; and earthquakes, war and pes-
tilence were employed in succession to waste
its fields, and to depopulate its shores. Its
pompous villas were gradually levelled in the
dust; its gay alcoves were swallowed up in the
sea; its salubrious waters were turned into
pools of infection ; and its gales that once breath-
ed health and perfume, now wafted poison and
* With all due respect to the partial opinion of the ad-
mirers of Silius, Martial, and Statius, the compositions of
these authors are the offspring of study and exertion, and
though in different proportions, yet always in some degree,
strained, harsh, and obscure. They have been praised, it is
true, but principally, 1 believe, by their editors and anno-
tators. Pliny, indeed, speaks with kindness and partiality
of Martial, but his praise seems dictated less uy his taste
than his gratitude; and that his opinion of Martial’s poetical
powers was not very high, may be suspected from the equi-
vocal expression with which he closes his eulogium. “ At
non erunt eeterna quce scripsit! non erunt fortasse: ills
tamen scripsit, tanquam futura.” In fact, Naples is more
indebted to a single modern poet, than to the three ancients
above-mentioned united. I allude to Sannazarius, who has
celebrated the scenery of his country in a strain, pure,
graceful and Virgilian, and interwoven all the characteristic
features of the Bay with the subject of his eclogues and
elegies.
THROUGH ITALY.
13
standing·*. Baice and its retreats, defiled by
obscenity, and stained with blood, were doomed
to devastation; and earthquakes, war and pes-
tilence were employed in succession to waste
its fields, and to depopulate its shores. Its
pompous villas were gradually levelled in the
dust; its gay alcoves were swallowed up in the
sea; its salubrious waters were turned into
pools of infection ; and its gales that once breath-
ed health and perfume, now wafted poison and
* With all due respect to the partial opinion of the ad-
mirers of Silius, Martial, and Statius, the compositions of
these authors are the offspring of study and exertion, and
though in different proportions, yet always in some degree,
strained, harsh, and obscure. They have been praised, it is
true, but principally, 1 believe, by their editors and anno-
tators. Pliny, indeed, speaks with kindness and partiality
of Martial, but his praise seems dictated less uy his taste
than his gratitude; and that his opinion of Martial’s poetical
powers was not very high, may be suspected from the equi-
vocal expression with which he closes his eulogium. “ At
non erunt eeterna quce scripsit! non erunt fortasse: ills
tamen scripsit, tanquam futura.” In fact, Naples is more
indebted to a single modern poet, than to the three ancients
above-mentioned united. I allude to Sannazarius, who has
celebrated the scenery of his country in a strain, pure,
graceful and Virgilian, and interwoven all the characteristic
features of the Bay with the subject of his eclogues and
elegies.