of summer, though every method has been employed to drain the marshes and purify the atmosphere. Of all these methods the increase of population occasioned by the commerce of Leghorn has been the most effectual. commerce. Leghorn, in Italian Livorno, was anciently called Herculis Liburni portus, and Liburnum. It never seems to have attained any consideration, and indeed remained a petty village almost immersed in swamps and sea-weeds, till the Medicean princes turned their attention to its port, and by a series of regulations equally favourable to the interests and feelings of the mercantile body, made it the mart of Mediterranean The insignificant village has now risen into a considerable town, airy and well built, with streets wide and strait, a noble square, fourteen churches, two Greek, and one Armenian chapel, a magnificent synagogue, a good harbour, and a population of thirty thousand souls. It is well fortified, and has in every respect the appearance of prosperity. Its principal church is collegiate, and the constant residence of the canons fixes several men of learning in the town. Opposite the port at a little distance rises the island of Menaria, and some miles beyond it that of Gorgone. Adsurgit ponti medio circumflua Gorgon Rutilius. They both retain their ancient names with little variation. There are no antiquities to occupy the classic traveller, but good accommodations, and the company of Captain Gore and the gentlemen of the Medusa frigate, rendered our short stay at Leghorn unusually pleasant. The same society had indeed enlivened our residence in Florence, where the Captain had been so obliging as to invite us to take our passage to Genoa on board his frigate. Such an offer would at all times have been extremely acceptable, and was peculiarly so on the present occasion; as it delivered us from the dangers of a passage over the maritime Alps, then infested by banditti, or from the chance of being taken by the Barbary pirates, in an Italian felucca. Leghorn was at this period particularly lively. A Spanish fleet, (the Admiral of which was a first rate of one hundred and ten guns,) a Swedish and a Danish frigate lay in the roads. The Spaniards were waiting to convey the King of Etruria to Barcelona. Such objects of curiosity and means of amusement, with the hospitality of Captain Gore, left no intervals of tine without agreeable occupation. General Doyle, from Egypt, arrived on the sixteenth of September, and as the Captain waited only for him, on the seventeenth we set sail in the evening. The view of the town, spread over a flat coast, and from thence extending its villas over a fine range of hills that advanced into the sea on the south, all kindled by the beams of the setting sun, engrossed my attention first, and afterwards, as a landsman unaccustomed to such spectacles, I felt myself still more deeply interested by the management of the ship, and observed with surprise and pleasure, the order that reigned in all its parts, the silence that prevailed amid so many men employed in so many manoeuvres, and the rapidity and precision with which every order was executed. A breeze arose just sufficient to keep the vessel steady in her course the evening was fine, and the full moon shone in all her brightness, till an eclipse gradually stript her of her beams. A total eclipse is one of the grand phenomena of nature, and it would have been an amusing contemplation during the night, but unfortunately gathering clouds prevented our observations, and the wind freshning at the same time, carried us on with more rapidity. Thus we glided along the Etrurian coast, flat indeed and marshy, but watered by many a stream still glorying in its ancient appellation. Such is the Versidia (now Versiglia), the Aventia, the Frigida, and the Macra once considered as the border of Etruria on the one side, and of Liguria on the other. A little beyond this river a ridge of rocky mountain projects into the sea, and forms the promontory of Luna, the eastern boundary of the Gulf of Spezzia, or the Sinus Lunensis. Next morning we found ourselves at the mouth of this gulph, with the promontory of Luna behind us, and before us the island of Palmaria, and Porto di Venere, (formerly Portus Veneris.) This magnificent bay, which forms one of the finest harbours in Europe, enjoys the peculiar advantage of having a most abundant spring of fresh water rising almost in its centre. This fountain, so remarkable for its position, seems to have been produced by some convulsion in latter times, as there is no mention made of it in ancient authors. The bay is nearly encircled by lofty mountains, for the Apennines approach the sea towards Carrara, and continue with little or no interruption to line the coast till they join the maritime Alps beyond Genoa, appearing all along in their most rugged and forbidden form, with no woods and little vegetation. However, about Carrara they make up for the want of external decorations, by the valuable quarries of marble so well known, and now as anciently, so highly valued by sculptors and by architects*. We passed under a fine breeze, the Porto Fino (Delphini Portus) and about five o'clock entered the harbour of Genoa. This harbour is in the form of an amphitheatre; Genoa occupies one side, and spreads her streets and churches and then her suburbs and villas over a vast semicircular tract of craggs, rocks, and declivities. Its white buildings ascending one above the other make a splendid shew, and give it an appearance of much magnificence. The interior of Genoa does not, in my opinion, corre * Both the beauty of the bay of Luna, and the excellency of the marble quarries in its neighbourhood, are alluded to in the following verses ; Tunc quos a niveis exegit Luna metallis Insignis portu, quo non spatiosior alter Innumeras cepisse rates, et claudere pontum. Sil. lib. v111. 479. The town of L'Erice, which is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient Luna, takes its name from Erycis Portus. Cicero, speaking of the sea which we are now traversing, calls it Tuscum et barbarum, scopulosum atque infestum, in quo etiam ipse Ulysses errasset; while the Ionian he terms Græcum quoddam et portuosum. (De Oratore, lib. 111. cap. 19.) Yet it would be difficult to find in the latter two such ports as those of Luna and of Naples, or in the former a shore more rocky than that of Acroceraunia, spond with its exterior grandeur. Like Vienna it is composed of well-built lanes, and contains no wide, and only three beautiful streets. The Strada Balbi, Strada Nova, and Strada Novissima. The Strada Balbi commences from a square called the Piazza Verde surrounded with trees of no luxuriant growth, though at one end, a magnificent double flight of stairs, and houses, gardens, and churches intermingled, rising in terraces one above the other, give it a pleasing and romantic appearance. The same street terminates in another square called the Piazza del Vastato, whence begins the Strada Novissima, which forms a sweep and joins the Strada Nova, that opens into a lesser square called Piazza delle Fontane Amore. These three streets, though not sufficiently wide perhaps for our taste, especially considering the elevation of the buildings that border them are, strictly speaking, composed of lines of vast and lofty palaces, some of which are entirely of marble, and all ornamented with marble portals, porticos, and columns. The interior of these mansions is seldom unworthy of their external appearance. Marble staircases, with bronze ballustres, conduct to spacious saloons which open into each other in a long series, and are all adorned with the richest marbles and tapestries, with valuable paintings and gilded cornices and pannels. Among these palaces, many of which are fit to lodge the first sovereigns in Europe, and indeed better calculated for that purpose than most transalpine palaces, those of Doria, of Sera, of Balbi, and of Durazzo, may perhaps be mentioned as preeminent in magnificence. The churches are numerous, and as splendid as marble, gilding, and painting can make them, but have seldom any claims to architectural beauty. In truth, ornament and glare |