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

Ch. V.

THROUGH ITALY.

161

Encircled with such company, and surrounded
with such monuments, who shall dare to com-
plain of want of occupation ? especially as the
classics are always at hand to heighten the en-
joyment; and where can they be perused with
more pleasure or advantage than at Rome,
amidst the monuments of the heroes whom they
celebrate, and on the very theatre of the actions
which they describe.
But to proceed to the immediate object of
this chapter.—On our first visit we contemplated
ancient Rome as she now appears, and from
thence we passed to the consideration of the mo-
dern city. We will now turn to ancient Rome
again, and while we still tread the spot on which
she stood, we will recollect what she once was,
and endeavor to trace out some of her majestic
features still faintly discernible through the
gloom of so many ages. The subject is inti-
mately connected with the views of a classical
traveller, and is indeed forced upon him in every
morning walk. While he ranges over the seven
hills, once so crowded with population and graced
with so many noble fabrics, now inhabited only
by a few friars, and covered with piles of ruin,
he cannot but recollect that under the rubbish
which he treads lies buried Imperial Rome,
once the delight and the beauty of the universe.
VOL. III. M