REMARKS

ON

SEVERAL PARTS OF ITALY, ETC.

IN THE YEARS 1701, 1702, 1703.

Verum ergo id est, si quis in cœlum ascendisset, naturamque mundi et pulchritudinem siderum perspexisset, insuavem illam admirationem ei fore, quæ jucundissima fuisset, si aliquem cui narraret habuisset. CICER. de Amic.

REMARKS ON ITALY.

MONACO, GENOA, ETC.

ON the twelfth of December 1699 I set out from Marseilles to Genoa in a tartane, and arrived late at a small French port called Cassis, where the next morning we were not a little surprised to see the mountains about the town covered with green olive trees, or laid out in beautiful gardens, which gave us a great variety of pleasing prospects, even in the depth of winter. The most uncultivated of them produce abundance of sweet plants, as wild thyme, lavender, rosemary, balm, and myrtle. We were here shown, at a distance, the deserts, which have been rendered so famous by the penance of Mary Magdalene, who, after her arrival with Lazarus and Joseph of Arimathea at Marseilles, is said to have wept away the rest of her life among these solitary rocks and mountains. It is so romantic a scene, that it has always probably given occasion to such chimerical relations; for it is perhaps of this place that Claudian speaks in the following description:

Est locus, extremum quà pandit Gallia littus
Oceani prætentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulysses
Sanguine libato populum movisse silentem,
Illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantúm
Flebilis auditur questus; simulacra coloni
Pallida defunctasque vident migrare figuras, etc.
CLAUD. in Rufin. lib. i.
B

VOL. IV.

A place there lies on Gallia's utmost bounds,
Where rising seas insult the frontier grounds.
Ulysses here the blood of victims shed,
And rais'd the pale assembly of the dead:
Oft in the winds is heard a plaintive sound
Of melancholy ghosts that hover round;
The lab'ring ploughman oft with horror spies
Thin airy shapes, that o'er the furrows rise,
(A dreadful scene!) and skim before his eyes.

I know there is nothing more undetermined among the learned than the voyage of Ulysses; some confining it to the Mediterranean, others extending it to the great ocean, and others ascribing it to a world of the poet's own making: though his conversations with the dead are generally supposed to have been in the Narbon Gaul.

Incultos adiit Læstrygonas Antiphatenque, etc.
Atque hæc seu nostras inter sunt cognita terras,
Fabula sive novum dedit his erroribus orbem.

TIBUL. lib. 4. carm. 1.

Uncertain whether, by the winds convey'd,
On real seas to real shores he stray'd;
Or, by the fable driven from coast to coast,
In new imaginary worlds was lost.

The next day we again set sail, and made the best of our way, till we were forced, by contrary winds, into St. Remo, a very pretty town in the Genoese dominions. The front to the sea is not large, but there are a great many houses behind it, built up the side of the mountain to avoid the winds and vapours that come from sea. We here saw several persons that, in the midst of December, had nothing over their shoulders but their shirts, without complaining of the cold. It is certainly very lucky for the poorer sort to be born in a place that is free from the greatest inconvenience to which those of our

northern nations are subject; and, indeed, without this natural benefit of their climates, the extreme misery and poverty that are in most of the Italian governments would be insupportable. There are at St. Remo many plantations of palm trees, though. they do not grow in other parts of Italy. We sailed from hence directly for Genoa, and had a fair wind that carried us into the middle of the gulf, which is very remarkable for tempests and scarcity of fish. It is probable one may be the cause of the other, whether it be that the fishermen cannot employ their art with so much success in so troubled a sea, or that the fish do not care for inhabiting such stormy

waters.

Defendens pisces hiemat mare.

Atrum

HOR. Sat. 2. lib. 2.

While black with storms the ruffled ocean rolls,
And from the fisher's art defends her finny shoals.

We were forced to lie in it two days, and our captain thought his ship in so great danger, that he fell upon his knees and confessed himself to a capuchin who was on board with us. But at last, taking the advantage of a side-wind, we were driven back in a few hours time as far as Monaco. Lucan has given us a description of the harbour that we found so very welcome to us, after the great danger we had escaped.

Quàque sub Herculeo sacratus nomine portus
Urget rupe cavá pelugus: non Corus in illum
Jus habet, aut Zephyrus: solus sua littora turbat
Circius, et tutâ prohibet statione Monaci.

The winding rocks a spacious harbour frame,
That from the great Alcides takes its name:

Lib. 1.