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There is a turn in the third verse that we lose, by not knowing the circumstances of their story. It was the naufraga mors which destroyed them, as it had formerly united them; what this union was, is expressed in the preceding verse, by their both having been made freemen on the same day. If, therefore, we suppose they had been formerly shipwrecked with their master, and that he made them free at the same time, the epigram is unriddled. Nor is this interpretation perhaps so forced as it may seem at first sight, since it was the custom of the masters, a little before their death, to give their slaves their freedom, if they had deserved it at their hands; and it is natural enough to suppose one involved in a common shipwreck, would give such of his slaves their liberty as should have the good luck to save themselves. The chancel of this church is vaulted with a single stone of four feet in thickness, and a hundred and fourteen in circumference. There stood on the outside of this little cupola a great tomb of porphyry, and the statues of the twelve apostles; but in the war that Louis the Twelfth made on Italy, the tomb was broken in pieces by a cannon-ball. It was perhaps the same blow that made the flaw in the cupola, though the inhabitants say it was cracked by thunder, that destroyed a son of one of their Gothic princes, who had taken shelter under it, as having been foretold what kind of death he was to die. I asked an abbot that was in the church, what was the name of this Gothic prince, who, after a little recollection, answered me, "That he could not tell precisely, but that he thought it was one Julius Cæsar." There is a convent of Theatins, where they show a little window in the church, through which the Holy Ghost is said to have entered in the shape of a dove, and to have settled on one of the candidates for the bishopric. The dove is represented in the window, and in several places of the church, and is in great reputation all over Italy. I should not indeed think it impossible for a pigeon to fly in accidentally through

the roof, where they still keep the hole open, and, by its fluttering over such a particular place, to give so superstitious an assembly an occasion of favouring a competitor, especially if he had many friends among the electors that would make a politic use of such an accident: but they pretend the miracle has happened more than once. Among the pictures of several famous men of their order, there is one with this inscription. P. D. Thomas Gouldvellus Ep. As. Trid. concilio contra Hæreticos, et in Anglia contra Elisabet. Fidei Confessor conspicuus. The statue of Alexander the Seventh stands in the large square of the town; it is cast in brass, has the posture that is always given the figure of a pope; an arm extended, and blessing the people. In another square, on a high pillar, is set the statue of the Blessed Virgin, arrayed like a queen with a sceptre in her hand, and a crown upon her head; for having delivered the town from a raging pestilence. The custom of crowning the Holy Virgin is so much in vogue among the Italians, that one often sees in their churches a little tinsel crown, or perhaps a circle of stars glued to the canvas over the head of the figure, which sometimes spoils a good picture. In the convent of Benedictines I saw three huge chests of marble, with no inscription on them that I could find, though they are said to contain the ashes of Valentinian, Honorius, and his sister Placidia. From Ravenna I came to Rimini, having passed the Rubicon by the way. This river is not so very contemptible as it is generally represented, and was much increased by the melting of the snows when Cæsar passed it according to Lucan.

Fonte cadit modico parvisque impellitur undis
Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit æstas:
Perque imas serpit valles, et Gallica certus
Limes ab Ausoniis disterminat arva colonis:
Tunc vires præbebat hyems, atque auxerat undas
Tertia jam gravido pluvialis Cynthia cornu,
Et madidis Euri resolutæ flatibus Alpes,

Lib. 1.

While summer lasts, the streams of Rubicon
From their spent source in a small current run,
Hid in the winding vales they gently glide,
And Italy from neighb'ring Gaul divide;

But now,
with winter storms increas'd, they rose,
By wat'ry moons produc'd, and Alpine snows,
That melting on the hoary mountains lay,
And in warm eastern winds dissolv'd away.

Its anti

This river is now called Pisatello. Rimini has nothing modern to boast of. quities are as follow: a marble bridge of five arches, built by Augustus and Tiberius, for the inscription is still legible, though not rightly transcribed by Gruter. A triumphal arch raised by Augustus, which makes a noble gate to the town, though part of it is ruined. The ruins of an amphitheatre. The Suggestum, on which it is said that Julius Cæsar harangued his army after having passed the Rubicon. I must confess I can by no means look on this last as authentic: it is built of hewn stone, like the pedestal of a pillar, but something higher than ordinary, and is but just broad enough for one man to stand upon it. On the contrary, the ancient Suggestums, as I have often observed on medals, as well as on Constantine's arch, were made of wood, like a little kind of stage, for the heads of the nails are sometimes represented, that are supposed to fasten the boards together. We often see on them the emperor, and two or three general officers, sometimes sitting and sometimes standing, as they made speeches, or distributed a congiary to the soldiers or people. They were probably always in readiness, and carried among the baggage of the army, whereas this at Rimini must have been built on the place, and required some time before it could be finished.

If the observation I have here made is just, it may serve as a confirmation to the learned Frabetti's coniecture on Trajan's pillar; who supposes, I think, with a great deal of reason, that the camps, intrenchments, and other works of the same nature, which are cut out

as if they had been made of brick or hewn stone, were, in reality, only of earth, turf, or the like materials; for there are on the pillar some of these Suggestums which are figured like those on medals, with only this dif ference, that they seem built of brick or free-stone. At twelve miles distance from Rimini stands the little republic of St. Marino, which I could not forbear visiting, though it lies out of the common tour of travellers, and has excessively bad ways to it. I shall here give a particular account of it, because I know of nobody else that has done it. One may, at least, have the pleasure of seeing in it something more singular than can be found in great governments, and form from it an idea of Venice in its first beginnings, when it had only a few heaps of earth for its dominions, or of Rome itself, when it had as yet covered but one of its seven hills.

THE REPUBLIC OF ST. MARINO.

The town and republic of St. Marino stands on the top of a very high and craggy mountain. It is generally hid among the clouds, and lay under snow when, I saw it, though it was clear and warm weather in all the country about it. There is not a spring or fountain, that I could hear of, in the whole dominions, but they are always well provided with huge cisterns and reservoirs of rain and snow-water. The wine that grows on the sides of their mountain is extraordinary good, and I think much better than any I met with on the cold side of the Apennines. This puts me in mind of their cellars, which have most of them a natural advantage that renders them extremely cool in the hottest seasons, for they have generally in the sides of them deep holes that run into the hollows of the hill, from whence there constantly issues a breathing kind of vapour, so very chilling in the summer time, that a man can scarce suffer his hand in the wind of it.

This mountain, and a few neighbouring hillocks that lie scattered about the bottom of it, is the whole circuit of these dominions. They have, what they call three castles, three convents, and five churches, and can reckon about five thousand souls in their community. The inhabitants, as well as the historians, who mention this little republic, give the following account of its original. St. Marino was its founder, a Dalmatian by birth, and by trade a mason. He was employed above thirteen hundred years ago in the reparation of Rimini, and, after he had finished his work, retired to this solitary mountain, as finding it very proper for the life of a hermit, which he led in the greatest rigours and austerities of religion. He had not been long here before he wrought a reputed miracle, which, joined with his extraordinary sanctity, gained him so great an esteem, that the princess of the country made him a present of the mountain, to dispose of it at his own discretion. His reputation quickly peopled it, and gave rise to the republic which calls itself after his name: so that the commonwealth of Marino may boast at least of a nobler original than that of Rome, the one having been at first an asylum for robbers and murderers, and the other a resort of ⚫ persons eminent for their piety and devotion. The best of their churches is dedicated to the saint, and holds his ashes, His statue stands over the high altar, with the figure of a mountain in its hands, crowned with three castles, which is likewise the arms of the commonwealth. They attribute to his protection the long duration of their state, and look on him as the greatest saint next the Blessed Virgin. I saw in their statute-book a law against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punished in the same manner as those who are convicted of blasphemy.

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This petty republic has now lasted thirteen hundred years, while all the other states of Italy have several times changed their masters and forms of government. Their whole history is comprised in two purchases,

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