ravages of disease.* Thus, then, in the ancient mistress of the earth and the modern mistress of the seas, the inhabitants of the latter have a superiority of life, and consequently of health, over the former, in the proportion of 40 to 25! Even Naples, the vaunted Naples, is, in salubrity, as 28 to 40, compared with the British metropolis! The range of human existence, or, in the technical language of the insurance companies, the "value of life," is nearly double in England what it is in Naples. In adducing these facts, I do not mean to deny that, in particular disorders, or in certain states of the human constitution, a specific period of the year in Italy may not conduce to the restoration of health, or at all events to the prolongation of life. But this I firmly believe, that every year's residence in Italy not only curtails the duration of life in the proportion above mentioned, but sows the seeds of such an additional crop of bodily (perhaps mental) infirmities, as will embitter the remaining years of existence, in fully as great a ratio as they diminish them. As this subject is, perhaps, much more important to the health and happiness of a large class of Britons, in the present state of Europe, than a disquisition on paintings or statues, I shall risk a few more observations. From some acquaintance with the effects of malaria, or vegeto-animal effluvia, on the human constitution, both at home and abroad, I venture to affirm that this invisible poison is a very fertile source of obscure but harrassing disorders. I have already said that one of its characteristics is the slowness or insidiousness of its effects. Another and still more characteristic feature of malarious disorders is their alternations of activity and repose-in other words, the periodicity of their accessions and remissions. They love to prolong the life of their victim, in order that he may die a series of deaths-like the eastern tyrants, who protract the immolation of the criminal by dropping water from a height on his naked head. The class or tribe of malarious maladies comprehends numerous families. At the head of one of them stands the foul TERTIAN fiend, distinguished by the peculiarity of his warfare on the human race—a regular series of attacks and retreats. The sufferer is thus harrassed, but held up by alternate days of sickness and health, till the TERTIAN FIEND delivers him over to two of his merciless offspring, LIVER and DROPSY, who finish the tragedy of life. These are the victims of malaria which meet the eye in all parts of the Campagna, Maremma, Pontines, and many other insalubrious localities of fair Italy. At the head of another tribe of miasmal afflictions, stands one of the most terrible enemies of human nature. Unlike the TERTIAN FIEND, he gives no * See Hawkins' Statistics, 1829. EFFECTS OF MALARIA. 127 warning of his approach, no clue to the probable periods of his attack. The invisible and poison-pointed dagger is plunged, without notice, into those parts of our organization where sensibility is most acute, and, consequently, where pain is most agonizing! The stroke is repeated without remorse, and without the merciful humanity of quickly destroying its victim, who is reserved for years of torture and long protracted despair! Need I say that this destroying angel is TIC DOULOUREUX. It is a product of malaria; but fortunately, in this its highest grade, it is not a very common malady. The inferior branches of this family, however, are exceedingly numerous, even in our own country, comprehending all the forms of chronic rheumatism, sciatica, face-ache, clavus hystericus, and the whole of the neuralgiæ, or wandering and periodical pains, dolorous sensations, &c. for which names have not yet been invented. The offspring of malaria and certain morbific agencies conjoined, as intemperance, moral afflictions, and other ills of life, would require volumes for their elucidation.* As malarious exhalations act strongly and injuriously on the digestive organs and the nervous system, the range of their influence is wide beyond all calculation. One general character, however, appertains to all the disorders connected with a malarious origin-PERIODICITY, or remissions and exasperations. Whenever this phenomenon (periodicity) shews itself, malaria should be suspected; and those countries or localities which are infested by this destructive agent should be avoided. The misfortune is, that both in England and Italy, the poison is often introduced into the constitution, in doses so minute, that no immediate effect is produced, especially while the excitement of novelty, and the exhilaration of travelling last. When these are over, the penalty of residence in malarious countries will, sooner or later, be paid; though, even then, by sufferings, which are rarely traced or attributed to their real origin. Their nature being mistaken, the treatment is ineffectual; and health is sacrificed! But, as I shall have occasion to touch on this subject again, when speaking of the medicinal effects of an Italian climate, I shall bring this section to a close. Dr. Macculloch has dedicated three volumes to malaria and the disorders produced by it, in which the reader will find fever, apoplexy, lethargy, coma, paralysis, epilepsy, hysteria, asthma, palpitation, mania, hypochondriasis, dyspepsia, nervous disorders, atrophy, hepatitis, rheumatism, dysentery, pellagra, goitre, tic douloureux, and the whole tribe of neuralgic complaints. The author may have carried his doctrines to extremes on some points: but daily experience is corroborating the views which Dr. M. has taken of malaria and its consequences. APPROACH TO ROME. At length the ETERNAL CITY bursts on our view from an eminence in its vicinity, and is soon again snatched from our sight by the usual "covered way," between dead stone walls! We cross the yellow Tiber, and the Milvian Bridge-all mute, but each immersed in his own contemplations. We enter the sacred city, and find ourselves between two handsome hemicycles, where we gaze on the jetting fountains, the marble statues of Rome, NepTUNE, and the four SEASONS; but, above all, on the towering Egyptian obelisk in the centre, hewn out of the granite rock in the days of the Pharoahs, and now surrounded by couching lions, spouting forth crystal streams issuing from the springs of distant mountains. The PIAZZA DEL POPOLO furnishes abundant provender for soul and body. Three churches and three hotels! Those who are grateful for their safe journey through the Campagna may repair to the former, and sacrifice on the altar of STA. MARIA DEL POPOLO. Those who prefer refection to prayer, will find every thing they can wish or want at the "ISLES BRITANNIQUES." 66 ROME. There is a sedative principle in the air of the Campagna, which, with the stillness of the atmosphere and the silence of the streets of Rome, tends to tranquillize-perhaps benumb the feelings, and lulls to repose. This, I think, is evident in the countenances, the gait, the actions of the Roman inhabitants. It is felt, I apprehend, by a majority of sojourners in that far-famed city. No spot on the earth's surface is better calculated for dreaming away the lagging hours of life than Rome. Whether we meditate on the mouldering ruins of her former greatness, or the puerile frivolities of her present decay— whether we pore over the history of the dead, or mix with the motley crowd of the living, the energies of mind and body are weighed down by an inexplicable languor and listlessness quite peculiar to the former mistress of the world. No wonder that the Romans bowed their necks in abject apathy to every tyrant, when the foreign enemy was no longer at their gates-when the conquest of their neighbors was completed-when Britain was a colony, ́and Europe, Asia, and Africa, were state prisons. It is morally—or, rather, it is physically impossible that the inhabitants of a hot, and especially of a malarious climate, can retain dominion over those of the north. Hyperborean energy will as certainly trample over southern sloth, as the invigorating seabreeze of the morning triumphs over the enervating land-wind of the night.* * Gibbon tells us that, "in all levies, (of troops) a just preference was given to the climates of the north over those of the south."—Vol. I. p. 15. TOWER OF THE CAPITOL. 129 It may be urged that the Italian soldiers of Napoleon's army fought as well among the snows of Russia as the French themselves. Granted. They were out of their own country, and mingled with the veterans of the north How did the Neapolitans behave, when fighting for their hearths and altars against their detested oppressors, the Austrians? They threw down their arms and fled! Indeed the Romans seldom exhibited an overplus of courage on their own Campagna. Whenever the enemy approached their gates, the priests, the gods, and the augurs were set to work to avert the danger. Every deity that was open to a bribe was seduced by a temple, an altar, or even a calf, in the days of the Prætors, precisely as now in the days of the Popes.* When the Gauls approached the sacred city, under Brennus, the Romans shewed the same courage as when, two thousand years afterwards, the same people advanced under Napoleon. The Roman army, within sight of their own walls, fled without fighting a blow, and the citizens were so terrified that they had not power to shut the gates! In short, it is probable that the general current of conquest has run from north to south, as much under physical impulse as the streams of the Danube and the Tiber. TOWER OF THE CAPITOL. At last lies extended before us—not the city, but the cemetery of Rome! Vast and insatiable sepulchre, whose capacious paunch has swallowed up more than five hundred million of human beings, with all, or nearly all, the temples of their gods, the palaces of their princes, the columns of their warriors, the arches of their victors, the statues of their orators, the busts of their poets-and even the intellectual products of their genius !+ It is usual-it is almost necessary, to pour forth a copious * When Hannibal was approaching Rome, after the battle of Thasymenus, the augurs, the priests, and the senate decided on a " dedication to Jupiter of all the pigs, lambs, kids, and calves which should be produced in one Spring"!! Whether this butcherly bribe to His Celestial Majesty, or the prudence of Fabius Maximus, preserved the "Eternal City,” it is not for me to decide. Even JULIAN, the philosophic and apostate emperor, many centuries afterwards, sacrificed so many victims to the Gods, that it was feared, if he returned victorious from his Persian expedition, the race of horned cattle would become extinct! Thanks to the "march of intellect," as well as to some other causes, there is not much danger of such an extinction in our days. + Of Cicero's works, for example, not a tenth part has survived the wreck of the Roman Empire! flood of sighing sentimentality and lugubrious wailings over "ROME IN RUINS :"-But as I have neither talent nor inclination for the sublime or the pathetic, at this time, I shall permit the current of reflection to take its natural course. Of all the tottering ruins, or tomb-stones of ancient Rome, now scattered before our view from the Tower of the Capitol, few indeed bear evidence to the purity of their origin, or the utility of their purpose-qualities which certainly deserve more veneration than the mere mechanical labour of workmen who hewed the blocks of marble from their native quarries, or formed them afterwards into temples, arches, columns, amphitheatres or statues. The aqueducts and cloaca-those stupendous conduits of pure water from the mountains and impurities from the city, are almost the only exceptions. But let us glance at some of the objects beneath and around us, with the eye of philosophy, rather than of blind adoration for the monuments of antiquity. MAMERTINE PRISONS. Directly under us, and a little to the left, excavated in the rock, are the Mamertine Prisons, or rather subterranean dungeons, evidently not meant for the security of men before trial or execution, but as cells for the perpetration of murder or the infliction of torture and double death. It has been a subject of pride with their poets that ancient Rome contained but one prison : -Sub Regibus atque Tribunis, Viderunt uno contentam carcere Romam. Yes! but that ONE was a disgrace to humanity! What was the use of having more than one cell for execution, when all Rome, nay, all Europe, was a prison? The voice of the people in the Forum, or the will of the tyrant in the palace, had only to accuse-and the Tarpeian Rock, the axe, or the dagger soon completed the tragedy! Was a civil prison necessary? By no means. The creditor could seize his debtor, imprison him |