race, they broke out from a corner of the Abruzzo across the Apennines, and spread their colonies pretty widely over Italy. On the left bank of the Tiber they dwelt in the time of the Roman kings, intermingled with the Latins, and even on two of the Roman hills. But as the tide of their conquests poured to the South, the old Sabines on the Tiber became insignificant, and were easily merged in the flood of Roman power.

At the western nook of the Sabine territory, we come to the immortal City herself. But I shall postpone the consideration of Rome till we have run over her remaining Italian provinces.

The IXth Roman province, according to the division which I have observed, was Latium. To that name, however, a twofold meaning was applied. By Latium Antiquum, the Romans understood a stripe of coast from the Tiber's mouth to Terracina; having the Anio, or Teverone, on its northern, and Mount Algidus on its eastern frontier : so that it included neither the Hernici to the east, whose confederacy of little republics came down to the shores of the Sacco, and whose rocks, bedewed with rivulets, are commemorated by Virgil; nor the potent Volscians, to the south-east, on the Liris or Garigliano; nor the Aurunci, whose Cæcuban wine is praised by Horace and Martial with the faithful jollity of true poets, and whose domain, commencing from a range of hills to the south of the Volsci, extended, in long but narrow stripes, to the Tyrrhene sea-coast, where it continued from Terracina to Sinuessa. But when the Romans had conquered those States, they were added, though not originally Latin, to Novum Latium, the limits of which were advanced to the Vulturnus; so that it stretched into what is now the Neapolitan Terra di Lavoro.

I shall purposely waive the intricate subject of Latian antiquities; which is, in many respects, as dull as it is dark. There is no saying, to be sure, how many important points in history may remotely depend on questions apparently crabbed and useless; and this may be the case with many disputes among antiquaries about nations who to us are but a string of names. But of direct amusement, there is certainly not much to be found in discussions about the Siculi, and Casci, and Opicans, and Ausonians. The truth of their genealogies is apt to remind one of the horse on the Highland Moor, that was very hard to catch, and when caught not worth riding.

Still there is a rational object of curiosity in the history of the Latin tongue; and hopeless as I am to clear a subject which the most learned have left obscure, I may mention one historical tradition, that seems more probably than any other to account for the Grecian elements of the language. That something more than Greek entered into the roots of Latinity is a point known to be undisputed. The want of the Article is a circumstance in Latin which distinguishes it from almost every other civilized speech, which betrays a mixture of barbarous pedigree, and which forms a bar of bastardy in its relationship with Greek. On that circumstance, however, history throws no such light as may guide us to guess with any confidence what particular barbarian speech was the unarticled ancestress of Latin. For the Greek idioms of Latin many authors have referred to the Etruscans; but Niebuhr declares that unbiassed investigation had convinced him of the Etruscan bearing just as little affinity to Greek and Latin as to the Oscan. From what other source,

then, was the Græcism of this language derived? The Pelasgi in Italy appear insufficient to account for it; for though the Pelasgi easily melted into Greeks, the Hellenes alone were, strictly speaking, the Grecian people, and the Pelasgic speech, though it bore an affinity to the Hellenic, was pronounced by Herodotus to be radically different. It remains, then, to search among ancient traditions for the one that most feasibly brings Greeks into Latium. Now Enotrus's Arcadian colony is universally given up as fabulous, and the story of Evander, as Mannert justly remarks, would only help us to a handful of men, who, if they had been Hellenes, as they were Pelasgians, could not have spread Greek over all Latium. As little could Æneas and his Trojans solve the difficulty if we could believe in their arrival. But Aristotle expressly gives it for an historical fact, that a fleet of Achæans, on their return from Troy, were driven by storms beyond Cape Malea to the open sea, that at last they reached the portion of the Opican coast which bore the name of Latium, and that the Trojan women who were their captives, fearing slavery if they returned to Greece, set fire to the ships and kept their captors in the settlement.

The Latins, from their earliest appearance in Roman history, are described as forming a confederation of commonwealths, each of which had the right of governing itself, and of maintaining peace or war independently, except in circumstances where the universal safety was concerned. The leading state, though unquestionably not the foundress of the rest, was Alba Longa, until Rome, from seeking security, proceeded to grasp at dominion, and under the star of her ascendency, Alba was levelled to the dust by Tullus Hostilius. The dependency of the Latin states was farther consolidated by Tarquin the Proud. The part which the Latins took in attempting to restore that tyrant, exposed them severely to the swords of the Romans. About a century and half later, their bold demand to have a consul in Rome chosen out of their own nation, led to another rupture with their now irresistible enemy. At that time, the rights of Roman citizenship had been granted to only a few of their cities, but at a later period the Gracchi sought to level all distinctions between the Latins and Romans. The Social War ensued, after which the Senate granted Roman rights to such of the Latian cities as had not sided with the confederates. Even of those towns, however, many were robbed of their privileges by Sylla, and it was not till the close of the Republic, that Latium shared in the immunities of the Quirites.

No part of Italy excepting Rome can bring more interesting associations to the lover of antiquity than Latium. Its villas were the retreats of the most illustrious Romans, and we may picture to ourselves Scipio and Lælius amusing themselves with the shells on its shores, or Cicero declaiming amidst the groves of his Tusculum. Here, too, is the Alban mountain, now Monte Cavo, where all the cities of the Latin name assembled to hold their fairs and their festivals; and where the gods of the Æneid, like those of the Iliad on Mount Ida, survey the armies, the cities, camp, and movements of war. The neighbourhood, indeed, is the theatre of the latter half of Virgil's poem-it has the scene where Nisus and Euryalus fell, and the woods that first echoed to the born of Alecto. Here was also Antium, where the Apollo of Belvedere was dug up to a resurrection of unconscious immortality.

Some imperishable beauties of Nature still remain in what was Latium. The plane trees so much praised by Cicero in his account of Tusculum, still love the soil and flourish in peculiar perfection, and the borders of the Alban lake are still lined with orchards that dip their branches in its crystal waters. The outlet or tunnel too, that was bored for more than a mile under ground through the solid rock of the Alban mountain, remains a gigantic proof of art and industry of the Romans as early as the 358th year of the City. But though the traveller may look with ecstasy on partial spots, such as the Falls of the Tivoli, adorned by the ruins of the Sibylline Chapel and by the Temple of Vesta, where overlooking the præceps Anio and the abode of the Naiads, he may sit under the very columns where Augustus, Mæcenas, and Virgil have reposed: still, collectively, the modern Campagna forms a melancholy contrast to the glory of ancient Latium. Ill-governed and infested by the pestilence and banditti, it offers entire tracts of uncultivated land, and of pale and sickly inhabitants. The traveller traces the locality of ancient cities by grassy hillocks that have grown over their ruins, where the buffalo browses, an animal unknown to ancient Italy, but driven hither by her destroying hordes, and that looks with its fierce aspect, like an emblem of the barbarism which imported him. Pedestals of statues are found in abundance, inscribed with majestic names, but the statues themselves have disappeared, and have been mostly sent to the kiln for the purpose of making lime. The canals and subterraneous drains that once drew off the superfluous moisture of the soil, have been choked up and filled with stagnant waters that exhale a deadly atmosphere; and it is among these haunts of the Mal'aria, and among marshy deserts, that the tourist has now to search for the charming villa of Pliny. There the mulberry and fig-tree, it is true, are found; but they have returned to a state of wildness.

X. From the Campagna di Roma, you cross over the Garigliano to the Campania of antiquity, a name apt to be confounded with the former, by those who are ignorant of Italian geography; but which corresponds to the Neapolitan Terra di Lavoro. Before Latium had received its new extension, the river Liris, now the Garigliano, formed the northern natural boundary of Campania; but after that change, the Massic hills were held to divide it from Latium. To the east, Campania was separated from Samnium by Mons Tofana, a branch of the Apennines, and to the south from Lucania, by the river Silaris, now Sele.

The whole country, as its name denotes, is an unbroken plain, with the exception of Vesuvius, and a few other remarkably steep hills that stretch into the Bay of Baiæ, and, like Vesuvius, have no connexion with the other mountains, but betoken their origin to have been from ancient volcanoes. Those terrible phenomena of Nature made Campania the fabled battle-field of gods and giants; but in recompense, the land has been favoured with the richest fertility, and the softest climate under heaven. "Nil mollius cœlo," says Florus, speaking of this province, "ubi bis floribus vernat, ideo Liberi Cererisque certamen dicitur ; and Pliny styles it, " Felix illa Campania certamen humanæ voluptatis." To this climate and fertility have been ascribed a proneness to degeneracy in its natives, and the disgrace of the land having so frequently yielded to conquerors. But it should be remembered, that it

is a rich country inviting invasion, and a level one little furnished with defensive positions. Undoubtedly it has been often overrun. Possessed at first by a branch of the wide-spread Opican or Oscan family, whose language was retained after the Oscan name had disappeared in the rest of Italy, it was colonized by Æolic Greeks, and conquered by the Etruscans. The latter yielded to the Samnites, whose dominion was displaced by that of Rome early in the fifth century of the City. From that time Campania continued a Roman province, with the short interval of its defection to Hannibal, an offence that was punished with a wolfish severity by Rome. Horror seizes us in reading Livy, when he applauds this atrocious vengeance, and vaunts of mercy having been shown to dwelling-houses and walls after the bravest inhabitants had been butchered and the multitude dragged into slavery. During the fall of Rome, Campania shared in the general calamities of Italy. When the Eastern Empire sunk, it was successively seized by the Lombards, Saracens, and Normans, who, in their turn, became the prey of the Germans, French, and Spaniards. The last of those masters, after governing it long by Viceroys, gave it a king in the person of the father of Ferdinand IV. in whose wretched family it has since remained, like the rest of the Neapolitan territory, with the exception of the interreigns of Joseph Bonaparte and Murat.

Campania recalls many important recollections, such as that of Atella, which gave Rome its first farces, and of the delicious Capua, that contained 300,000 inhabitants. But its most interesting localities are those of the Greek towns, among which the date of Cuma goes back 1050 years before our æra; whilst the victory of its fleets over the Etrurians is commemorated by Pindar. Hither the Greeks transplanted their superstitions-here they invested rivers with names of infernal sanctity, and imagined a spot even for the transit of the dead. The Cumæan Sibyl was an imitation of the Delphic prophetess. Every one is acquainted with Virgil's splendid fiction concerning her. It is not so generally known that the cavern of the Sibyl actually existed. It was a vast chamber hewn out of the solid rock. This venerable place was destroyed by Narses, when he destroyed the Goths in Cumæ. By undermining the cavern he caused the citadel above to sink into the hollow, and thus involved the whole in one common ruin.

It would be injustice to Campania to omit noticing that she contained other Greek towns of interesting memory: viz. Pompeii and Herculaneum, so celebrated by the modern recovery of their ruins. Neapolis and its elder neighbour, Palæopolis, may be said also to have been conjointly the ancestress of modern Naples. As late as the time of Strabo, we learn from that geographer, that both Neapolis and Cuma retained abundant traces of their Hellenic origin. Their gymnasia, clubs, and societies, were formed after the Greek manner. Public games, like the Olympic, were celebrated every five years: at the same time, the number of the rich and aged Romans who resorted to Neapolis, showed what an attraction to the luxurious and indolent the genius of Greece still retained.

XI. Samnium and the Frentani. Between the mountains of the Pe ligni on the north, Campania on the east, and the Picentini and Lucani on the south, lay the people of Italy who opposed the bravest and longest

resistance to the Romans. The locality of Samnium is chiefly represented in the modern map by the county of Molissa, in the kingdom of Naples, so memorable for its tragic earthquake in 1805, that destroyed 20,000 souls. The Frentani, who inhabited what is now the Citerior Abruzzo, had a political existence independent of the Samnitic confederacy, though they derived their descent from that warlike and populous race. Like many other smaller powers of Italy, they made a voluntary surrender to Rome about the year of the City 440. Not so the Samnites, who were admirably trained and disciplined, who obeyed the orders of their commanders with the greatest coolness and alacrity, who frequently brought into the field 80,000 foot and 8000 horse, who were once at the gates of Rome, and who gave the Romans one of the most terrible defeats they ever received at the Caudine Forks. It was not till those Highlanders of Italy had called forth all the skill and energy of the Fabii and Papyrii, and furnished the materials of four-and-twenty Roman triumphs, that they were subdued. Their resistance might be said to have lasted almost to their extermination, when Sylla massacred their prisoners in the Campus Martius, and when their province was for a time reduced to a desert. The name of this people was derived from the Sabines, who invaded the country and mixed with its more original owners. It has been called the Swisserland of Italy, though it has a soil and climate far surpassing the Helvetian.

The rest of Southern Italy contained three farther divisions; namely, 1st, Apulia, lying along the Adriatic, from Biferno to Cape Leuca, and thus including on the modern map the Neapolitan Capitanata, the Terra di Bari, and the Terra di Otranto; 2dly, Lucania, separated from Apulia by the Bradano, which stretched from the Gulph of Salernum to that of Tarentum; 3dly, Bruttium, or the present Calabria, which forms the forefoot of the whole Italian Peninsula.

There is not much to attach our curiosity in the mere Italian antiquities of these regions, though they contain the village of Cannæ as well as the Brundusian fountain and fabulosus Vultur of Horace. The submission of its various inhabitants to Rome soon after the defeat of Pyrrhus, chiefly interests us on account of the fate of its once magnificent Greek cities. I have already noticed the indications of Greeks having found their way into Latium. The Campanian Cumæ brings still more direct recollections of colonization by the same people; but it is in that part of Italy which has been called the heel and foot of its shape, that the relics of Greece have been most plentifully left. Half of the language that was spoken there was Greek, and the region acquired the name of Magna Græcia. It is true that geographers differ as to the precise part of the Peninsula which is entitled to that appellation. Danville gives it generally to the three most southerly provinces, whilst Mannert confines it to eight important cities, and their territories in the Gulph of Tarentum, and the Bruttian coast; viz. Tarentum, Sybaris, Croton, Siris, Metapontum, Caulonia, Locri, and Rhegium. To this range of states, par excellence, he says the Greeks gave the name of Mɛyaλn 'Eλλa's. He admits, however, that it was sometimes more extensively applied-and I cannot but think that there was common sense in the extension; for it seems arbitrary that language should