Taking our leave of Rome early on the morning of the first of May, we reached Albano for breakfast, distant sixteen miles. Our party from Rome, besides myself, consisted of an Italian gentleman, a German, and a Frenchman; we were also accompanied by a lady, said to be a princess, and attended by a handsome man-servant; after breakfast we received another and our last passenger, who was a Roman officer. My companion in the cabriolet was the German, whom I took to be an artist, but who was by no means communicative, although he had some knowledge of the French, and a perfect one of the Italian language.
At four o’clock we reached Veletri, where it was intended we should rest for the night; but, notwithstanding this early hour, we were not indulged with supper until eight o’clock, and then it was too scanty to satisfy our hunger, I believe in consequence of the arrival of two English ladies, shortly before it was served up for us. In the interim, we amused ourselves with exploring the city, which my companions reported to be a fine old town, but neglected, and thinly inhabited. After supper, I retired to the hardest bed which I have met with on my tour; but passengers in voitures are not to consider themselves entitled to the best apartments; the Roman officer, Frenchman and myself, slept in one room; the princess and her servant, I was informed, occupied another; while the German was probably quartered with the vittureno.
In the morning at five o’clock, we left Veletri; and, as it was fine, I walked some distance in company with the German. We had now to travel along the famous Via Appia, originally a paved causeway extending from Rome to Capua, and constructed by Appius Claudius the censor, in the year of Rome, 441; the original bed still remains perfect in various places. We soon, at the village of Cisterna, entered upon the Pontine marshes, formed by an accumulation of the waters from various streams arising on the neighbouring mountains, and prevented from running off, by a want of declivity in the ground, so as to constitute a swampy fen, formerly thirty miles in length and eight broad, and which is still in some degree, a fertile source of infectious miasma, which not unfrequently spreads disease and destruction into the very heart of the capital itself. Through many centuries, the whole energies of the Roman people, under their various consuls, emperors, and pontiffs, were in vain called into action to drain them; the glory of success was reserved for the late Pope Pius VI. who, in the year 1788, effectually removed this scourge of Rome. The Appian road runs through the middle of these marshes, bounded on the sides by canals, and shaded by double rows of elms and poplars. In the middle of the marshes we stopped to breakfast about eleven o’clock, at a very poor inn. Soon after which a carriage arrived containing the two English ladies who had slept at Veletri at the same inn where we did; but as they had taken breakfast previous to their departure, they were not induced to leave their carriage.
About two or three miles before arriving at Terracina, we passed the celebrated fountain of Feronia, situated within a few paces of the road, and where the goddess of that name, formerly had a temple dedicated to her, but which has now disappeared,—not a vestige,—not even a stone remaining; while the once sacred grove by which it was surrounded, has dwindled away; one single tree hanging a solitary mourner over the violated fountain. It was here, that this goddess of liberty, and donatrix of personal freedom, bestowed the boon of emancipation upon the slaves of ancient Rome, and which was confirmed by peculiar ceremonies performed at her altar. The divinity of the place—unlike its temple—imperishable and immortal—has taken flight to a more genial soil, from whence it is diffusing blessings over the greater portion of a once suffering world. Yes! Spirit of Liberty!
“⸺the Britannia’s isles adores.”
⸺
“Oh! could I worship ought beneath the skies,
That Earth has seen, or Fancy could devise,
Thine altar, sacred Liberty! should stand,
Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand,