Turk never attacks this treasury, since it lies so near the seashore, and is so weakly guarded. But besides that he has attempted it formerly with no success, it is certain the Venetians keep too watchful an eye over his motions at present, and would never suffer him to enter the Adriatic. It would, indeed, be an easy thing for a Christian prince to surprise it, who has ships still passing to and fro without suspicion, especially if he had a party in the town, disguised like pilgrims, to secure a gate for him; for there have been sometimes to the number of one hundred thousand in a day's time, as it is generally reported. But it is probable the veneration for the Holy House, and the horror of an action that would be resented by all the catholic princes of Europe, will be as great a security to the place as the strongest fortification. It is indeed an amazing thing to see such a prodigious quantity of riches lie dead and untouched in the midst of so much poverty and misery as reign on all sides of them. There is no question, however, but the pope would make use of these treasures in case of any great calamity that should endanger the holy see; as an unfortunate war with the Turk, or a powerful league among the protestants. For I cannot but look on those vast heaps of wealth that are amassed together in so many religious places of Italy, as the hidden reserves and magazines of the church, that she would open on any pressing occasion for her last defence and preservation. If these riches were all turned into current coin, and employed in commerce, they would make Italy the most flourishing country in Europe. The case of the Holy House is nobly designed, and executed by the great masters of Italy, that flourished about an hundred years ago. The statues of the

sibyls are very finely wrought, each of them in a different air and posture, as are likewise those of the prophets underneath them. The roof of the treasury is painted with the same kind of device. There stands at the upper end of it a large crucifix, very much esteemed; the figure of our Saviour represents him in his last agonies of death, and amidst all the ghastliness of the visage, has something in it very amiable. The gates of the church are said to be of Corinthian brass, with many scripture stories rising on them in basso relievo. The pope's statue, and the fountain by it, would make a noble show in a place less beautified with so many other productions of art. The spicery, the cellar and its furniture, the great revenues of the convent, with the story of the Holy House, are too well known to be here insisted upon.

Whoever were the first inventors of this imposture, they seem to have taken the hint of it from the veneration that the old Romans paid to the cottage of Romulus, which stood on mount Capitol, and was repaired from time to time as it fell to decay. Virgil has given a pretty image of this little thatched palace, that represents it standing in Manlius's time, three hundred and twenty years after the death of Romulus:

In summo custos Tarpeie Manlius arcis
Stabat pro templo, et capitolia celsa tenebat ;
Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.

High on a rock heroic Manlius stood

EN. lib. 8.

To guard the temple and the temple's god :
Then Rome was poor, and there you might behold
The palace thatch'd with straw.-

DRYDEN.

From Loretto, in my way to Rome, I passed through Recanati, Macerata, Tolentino, and Foligni.

In the last there is a convent of nuns called la Contessa, that has in the church an incomparable Madonna of Raphael. At Spoletto, the next town on the road, are some antiquities. The most remarkable is an aqueduct of a Gothic structure, that conveys the water from mount St. Francis to Spoletto, which is not to be equalled for its height by any other in Europe. They reckon from the foundation of the lowest arch to the top of it two hundred and thirty yards. In my way hence to Terni I saw the river Clitumnus, celebrated by so many of the poets for a particular quality in its waters, of making cattle white that drink of it. The inhabitants of that country have still the same opinion of it, as I found upon inquiry, and have a great many oxen of a whitish colour to confirm them in it. It is probable this breed was first settled in the country, and continuing still the same species, has made the inhabitants impute it to a wrong cause; though they may as well fancy their hogs turn black for some reason of the same nature, because there are none in Italy of any other breed. The river Clitumnus, and Mevania that stood on the banks of it, are famous for the herds of victims with which they furnished all Italy:

Qua formosa suo Clitumnus flumina luco
Integit, et niveos abluit unda boves.

Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus
Victima, sape tuo perfusi fiumine sacro,
Romanos ad templa Deúm duxere triumphos.

PROP. lib. 2.

VIRG. Georg. 2.

There flows Clitumnus through the flow'ry plain;
Whose waves, for triumphs after prosp'rous war,
The victim ox, and snowy sheep prepare