those who exercise boisterous occupations, or purfue dangerous amufements; and if the modern Italians are lefs addicted to excefs in wine than the Greeks and Romans in ancient, or the English and Germans in modern times, their temperance. may fairly be afcribed to the indolent monotony of their liflefs lives; which, being never exhaufted by fatigue, can never be gladdened by repofe; and being never agitated by the terrors of danger, can never be tranfported by the joys of deli verance. From thefe airy fpeculations, by which we fancied that we ftripped Italy of what fome travellers have too haftily concluded to be the only virtue which he has left, we were awakened by the appearance of a venerable perfon, in a bag wig and fword, cautiously leading his Bourrique down the precipice. He returned our falute with an air of courtely befpeaking fuch affibility, that we quickly entered into converfation with him, and difcovered to our furprize and joy, that we were in company with a very refpectable perfonage, and one whom Mr. Addifon has dignified with the appellation of the "fourth man in the ftate." The ftipendiary phyfician of St. Marino (for this was the perfon with whom we were converfing) told us, that we might be accomodated with good lodging in the convent of Capuchins; and as we were strangers, that he would return, fhew us the house, and prefent us to Father Bonelli. We exprefed our unwillinguefs to give him the trouble of again afcending the hill; but of this trouble the deeply-wrinkled mountaincer made light, and we yielded to his propofal with only apparent reluctance; fince, to the indelicacy of introducing ourfelves, we preferred the introduction of a man whom we had even cafually met with on the road. To the convent we were admitted by a frate fervente, or lay friar, and conducted to the Padre Maestro, the Prior Bonelli, a man fixty years old, and, as we were told by the phyfician, defcended from one of the nobleft families in the commonwealth. Having received and returned fuch compliments as are held indifpenfible in this ceremonious country, the prior conducted us above stairs, and fhewed us two clean and comfortable chambers, which, he faid, we might command, while we deigned to honour the republic (fuch were his expreffions) with the favour of our refidence. As to our entertainment, he faid, we might, as beft pleafed us, either fup apart by ourfelves, or in company with him and his monks. We told him our happiness would be complete, were we permitted to enjoy the advantage of his company and converfation. My converfation! You fhall foon enjoy better than mine; fince within half an hour I fhall have the honour of conducting you to the house of a charming young lady, (fo I muft call her, though my own kinfwoman) whofe Converfa zione aflembles this evening. During this dialogue a fervant arrived, bringing our portmanteau from Rimini, and thereby enabling us, with more decency of appearance, to pay our refpects to the lady, in company with the prior, her uncle. The fignora P-received us politely in an inner apartment, after jokes of the buffoon; the Impri fatore fometimes difplays in them the powers of his memory rather than the elegance of his fancy; and every entertainment in Italy, whe ther gay or ferious, is always feafon we had paffed through two outer rooms, in each of which there was a fervant in waiting. Above a dozen gentlemen, well dreffed and polite after the fashion of Italy, with fix other ladies, formed this agreeable party. Coffee and Sor-ed with mufic; but chiefly that bettis being ferved, cards were introduced; and, in quality of ftrangers, we had the honour of lofing a few fequins at Ombre with the miftrefs of the house. The other ladies prefent took up, each of them, two gentlemen; for Ombre is the univerfal game, because, in Italian affemblies, the number of men commonly triples that of women: the latter, when unmarried, feldom going abroad; and when married, being ambitious of appearing to receive company every evening at home. During the intervals of play, we endeavoured to turn the converfation on the hiflory and prefent ftate of St. Marino, but found this fubject to be too grave for the company. In this little fiate, as well as in other parts of Italy, the focial amufements of life, confting chiefly in what are called Converfazioni, have widely deviated from the Sympoja of the Greeks and the Convivia of the Romans. Inftead of philofophic dialogues and epideiktic orations; and inftead of thofe animated rehearials of approved works of history and poetry, which formed the entertainment and delight of antiquity, the modern Italian Converfazione's exhibit a very different fcene: a fcene in which play is the bufinefs; gallantry the amufement; and of which avarice, vanity, and mere fentual pleafure, form the fole connecting principle and chief ultimate end. Sach iipid and fach mercenary aflamblies are fometimes enlivened by the foft voluptious mufic which was ba nifhed by Lycurgus, profcribed by Plato, and prohibited by other le giflators, under fevere penalties, as unfriendly to virtue and deftruc tive of manhood. The great amufements of life are commonly nothing more than images of its necellary occupations; and where the latter, therefore, are different, fo alfo mult be the former. Is it because the occupations of the ancients were lefs foftened than thofe of the mo derns, that women are found to have acted among different nations fuch different parts in fociety? and that the contraft is fo firiking between the wife of a citizen of St. Marino, furrounded with her cardtables, her mufic, and her admirers, and the Roman Lucretia nocte ferá deditam lane inter lucubrantes ancil las, (Tit. liv. i. 57.) or the more copious deferiptions of female mo defty and induftry given by Ifchomachus in Xenophon's Treatife on domeftic Economy? In modern Italy this contraft of manners difplays its greatest force. Though lets beautiful and lefs accomplished than the English and French, the Italian women expect fuperior attention, and exact greater affida ties. To be well with the ladies is the higheft ambition of the men. Upon this principle their manners are formed; by this their behaviour is regulated; and the art of converfation, in its utmoft fprighlinef and higheft perfection, is reduced to that playful wantonnets, which, touching touching flightly on what is felt moft fentibly, amufes with perpetual fhadows of defired realities. the wine of St. Marino is indebted for its peculiar excellence. The whole territory of the republic extends about thirty miles in circumference. It is of an irregular oval form, and its mean diameter may be estimated at fix To the honour of St. Marino, it muft be obferved, that neither the prior Bonelli, nor two counfellors who were prefent, took any confiderable part in this too fportive - Englif miles. The foil naturally converfation; and the gentlemen at the fignora P's were chiefly Romans and Florentines; men, we were told, whom fometimes misfortune, and fometimes inclination, but more frequently, extravagance and neceflity, drive from their refpective countries, and who, having relations or friends in St. Marino, eftablish themfelves in that cheap city, where they fubfift on the wreck of their fortunes, and elude the purfuit of their creditors. Next morning, Bonelli having invited feveral of his fellow-citizens to drink chocolate, we learned, from them, that the morality and piety, which had long diftinguifhed St. Marino, daily fuffered decline through the contagious influence of thofe intruders, whom good policy ought never to have admitted within the territory, but whom the indulgence of humanity could not be prevailed on to expel. After breakfaft, our good-natured landlord kindly propofed a walk, that his English guests might view the city and adjacent country. The main freet is well paved, but narrow and fleep. The fimilarity of the houfes indicates a happy mediocraty of fortune. There is a fine ciftern of pure water; and we admired the coolnefs and drynefs of the winc-cellars, ventilated by communications with caverns in the rock. To this circumftance, as much as to the quality of the foil and careful culture of the grape, craggy and barren, and hardly fit for goats, yet actually maintains (fuch are the attractions of liberty) upwards of feven thoufand perfons; and, being every where adorned by mulberry-trees, vines, and olives, fupplies the materials of an advantageous trade, particularly in filk, with Rome, Florence, and other cities of Italy. In extent of territory, St. Marino, inconfiderable as it feems, equals many republics that have performed mighty atchievements, and purchafed immortal renown. The independent ftates of Thefpiæ and Platea were refpectively lefs extenfive; and the boundaries of the modern republic exceed thofe of gina and Megara; the former of which was diftinguifhed by its commerce and its colonies, in Egypt and the Eaft; and the latter, as Lyfias and Xenophon inform us, could bring into the field, befides proportional bodies of light troops, 3000 hardy pikemen, who, with the fervice of Mars, united that of Ceres and of Bacchus; extracting from bleak hills and rugged mountains rich harvests and teeming vintages. The remembrance of our belov ed republics of Greece, ennobled by the ineftimable gifts of unrivaled genius, endeared to us St. Marino even by its littlenefs. In this literary enthufiafm, we could willingly have traverted every inch of its diminutive territory; but politenets [B3] required required that we should not fubject Bonelli and his friends to fuch unneceffary fatigue; and the changeableness of the weather, a continual variation of fun-thine and cloudinefs, the folemnity of dark magnifying vapours, together with the velocity of drizzly or gleamy fhowers, produced fuch unufual accidents of light and fade, in this mountain fcene, as often fufpended the motion of our limbs, and fixed our eyes in aftonishment. From the highest top of St. Marino we beheld the bright fummit of another and far loftier mountain, towering above and beyond, a dark cloud, which by contraft threw the conical top of the hill to fuch a diftance, that it seemed to rife from another world. The height of St. Marino (we were told) had been accurately measured by father Bofcovich, and found to be nearly half a mile above the level of the neighbouring fea. Almoft immediately after returning from our walk, dinner was ferved at the convent; for the politeness of father Bonelli had prolonged his ftay abroad far beyond his ufual hour of repaft. Speedily after dinner we were conducted, by the good father, to the converfazione of another lady, alfo his relation, where we had the honour of meeting the capitaneos, or confuls, the commiffareo, or chief judge, and feveral diftinguifhed members of the fenate. Recommended only by our youth and curiofity, we fpent the evening most agreeably with thofe refpectable magiftrates, who were as communicative in anfwering as inquifitive in afking queftions. The company continually increafing, and father Bonelli carefully addreffing all new comers by the titles of their refpective offices, we were furprised towards the clofe of the evening, and the ufual hour of retirement, that we had not yet feen il fignor dollore and il pædagogo publico, the phyfician and fchoolmafler, whom Mr. Addifon reprefents as two of the moft diftinguished dignitaries in the commonwealth. A short acquaintance is fuficient to infpire confidence between congenial minds. We frankly testified our furprife to the father. He laughed heartily at our fimplicity, and thought the joke too good not to be communitated to the company. When their vociferous mirth had fubfided, an old gentleman, who had been repeatedly invetted with the highest honours of his country, oblerved that he well knew Mr. Addifon's account of St. Marino, which had been tranflated more than once into the French and Italian languages. Remote and inconfiderable as they were, his anceftors were highly honoured by the notice of that illuftrious travelier, who, he understood, was not only a claffic author in English, but an author who had uniformly and moft fuccessfully employed his pen in the caufe of virtue and liberty. Yet, as must often happen to travellers, Mr. Addifon, he continued, has, in fpeaking of this little republic, been deceived by firft appear ances. Neither our schoolmaster nor phyfician enjoy any pre-eminence in the state. They are main tained indeed by public falaries, as in feveral other cities of Italy; and there is nothing peculiar in their condition here, except that the fchoolmafier has more, and the phyfician lefs, to do than in most other places, because our diseases are few, and our children are many. This fally having been received with ap probation probation by the company, the veteran proceeded to explain the real diftinction of ranks in St. Marino, confifting in the nobili, cittadini, and flipendiate, nobles, citizens, and ftipendiaries. The nobles, he told us, exceeded not twenty families, of which feveral enjoyed eftates, without the territory, worth from three to eight hundred pounds a year fterling: that, from refpect to the holy fee, under whofe protection the republic had long fubfified quietly and happily, many perfons of diftinction in the pope's territories had been admitted cit tadini honorati, honorary citizens of St. Marino, particularly feveral illuftrious houfes of Rimini, and the forty noble families of Bologna. Even of the Venetian nobles themfelves, ancient as they certainly were, and invested, as they ftill continued to be, with the whole fovereignty of their country, many difdained not to be allociated to the diminutive honours of St. Marino, and to increase the numbers of its citizens; and that this aggregation of illuftrious foreigners, far from being confidered as dangerous to public liberty, was demeed effential, in fo fmall a commonwealth, to pa tional fafety. Left the converfation might take another turn, I drew from my pocket Mr. Addifon's account of St. Marino, which, being exccedingly fhort, I begged leave to read that his errors, if he had committed any, might be corrected, and the alterations noted which the country had undergone in the fpace of feventy years, from 1703 to 1773. The propofal being obligingly accepted, I read in Mr. Addifon, They have, at St. Marino, five churches, and reckon above five thoufand fouls in their community." Inftead of which, I was defired to fay, f They have, in St. Marino, ten parithes, ten churches, and reckon above feven thousand fouls in their community." Again, Mr. Addifon fays, "The council of fixty, notwithstanding its name, confifts but of forty perfons." That was the cafe, when this illuftrious author vifited the republic; but the council has, fince that time, been augmented by twenty members, and the number now agrees with the name. Thefe circumftances are important; for from them it appears, that while the neighbouring territory of Rome is impo verifhed and gloomed by the dominion of ecclefiaftics, of which, in the words of Dr. Robertson, "to fqeeze and to amafs, not to meliorate, is the object; "* and while the neighbouring cities of Tufcany [*B4] are See Robertfon's Charles V. vol. I. feet. iii p. 157. The doctor adds, "the patrimony of St. Peter was worse governed than any other part of Europe; and though a generous pontiff might fufpend for a little, or counteract, the effect of thofe vices, which are peculiar to the government of ecclefiaftics, the difeafe not only remained incurable, but has gone on increasing from age to age, and the decline of the ftate has kept pace with its progrefs." On reading over this paffage a doubt arises whether it ought not to be expunged, as unjustly fevere. Confidered in one view, the dominion of the popes was naturally prejudicial to society; but an evil becomes a good, which prevents evils greater than itself. The authority of popes reftrained the alternate tyranny of paramount kings, and feudal barons. Religion, in its leaft perfect form, was a check to headstrong paffions and a restraint on ruffian violence: and fhould it be admitted, that the temporal government of ecclefiaftics had tended to deprefs the industry and populousness of their immediate dominions (a pofition which would require a very complex and elaborate investigation |