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

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CLASSICAL TOUR

Ck. VIL

public edifices, though now a sound only, is yet
an awful and venerable sound, which brings with
it a train of ideas formed of all that is grand and
impressive in history.
The natives of a city, whose destinies are so
glorious, neither are, nor can be altogether a
low-minded grovelling race; they are proud of
their birth, and inherit some portion of the dig-
nity and the elevation of their ancestors. If it
be asked on what occasion the modern Romans
have displayed this noble spirit, or what in-
stances of magnanimity we find in their history,
the answer is obvious. Not to speak of the
courage and perseverance with which they so
long· and so successfully resisted the Lombards,
because that era may perhaps be supposed to
belong rather to ancient than modern history:
I come to the year eight hundred, which may
fairly be considered as the period of the cala-
mities of Rome ; and though her language was
still in a state of deterioration, yet her political
situation began from that epoch to improve, and
continued in a progress of amelioration with little
interruption, except that occasioned by the ab-
sence of her bishops, till the late French invasion.
From the restoration of the Western Empire we
may therefore date the commencement of modern
Rome, and take it for granted that as no event