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

Ch. XV.

THROUGH ITALY.

515

does equal credit to this prince’s piety and mag-
nanimity on this trying occasion. He was con-
ducted after the battle to this Abbey, and enter-
ing the church at the time the monks were sing-
ing part of the hundred and eighteenth (nine-
teenth) psalm, immediately joined the choir in
the following verse
Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me, ut discam justificationes
tuas.
It is good for me that thou hast humbled me ; that I may
learn thy statutes.
Such resignation combined with so much valor,
and with so high a spirit in such circumstances,
is heroic and almost sublime. However, though
we admire and love the prince we cannot but
rejoice in this, and indeed in every other defeat
of the French army, particularly on this side of
the Alps. They are the most active and most
persevering enemies that Italy knows, and have
wasted her cities and fields more frequently,
more extensively, and more wantonly, than any
other invading barbarians. Hitherto indeed they
have generally met with the punishment due to
cruelty, ambition, and insolence; and their
short-lived triumphs on Hesperian ground have
terminated in discomfiture and ruin. It is to be
hoped, that their late successes will be as tran-
sient as their ancient victories, and add another
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