When I had sat for some time, contemplating this dusky avenue, and trying to persuade myself that it was hewn by the Cimmerians, I retreated without proceeding any farther, and followed a narrow path which led me, after some windings and turnings, along the brink of the precipice, across a vineyard, to that retired nook of the rocks which shelters Virgil’s tomb, most venerably mossed over, and more than half concealed by bushes and vegetation. Drops of dew were distilling from the niches of the little chamber, which once contained his urn, and heaps of withered leaves had gathered on the pavement. Amongst these I crept to eat some grapes and biscuits, having duly scattered a few crumbs as a sort of offering to the invisible guardians of the place. I believe they were sensible of my piety, and, as a reward, kept vagabonds and clowns away. The one who conducted me remained aloof at awful distance, whilst I sat commercing with the manes of my beloved poet, or straggling about the shrubbery which hangs directly above the mouth of the grot. I wonder I did not visit the eternal shades sooner that I expected, for no squirrel ever skipped from bough to bough more venturously. One instant I climbed up the branches of a chestnut, and sat almost on its extremity, my feet impending over the chasm below; another I boldly advanced to the edge of the rock, and saw crowds of people and carriages, diminished by distance, issuing from the bosom of the mountain, and disappearing almost as soon as discovered in the windings of its road. Having clambered high above the cavern, I hazarded my neck on the top of one of the pines, and looked contemptuously down on the race of pigmies that were so busily moving to and fro. The sun was fiercer than I could have wished, but the sea-breezes fanned me in my aërial situation, which commanded the grand sweep of the bay, varied by convents, palaces, and gardens, mixed with huge masses of rock and crowned by the stately buildings of the Carthusians and fortress of St. Elmo. Add a glittering blue sea to this perspective, with Caprea rising from its bosom, and Vesuvius breathing forth a white column of smoke into the ether, and you will then have a scene upon which I gazed with delight, for more than an hour, almost forgetting that I was perched upon the head of a pine, with nothing but a frail branch to uphold me. However, I descended alive, as Virgil’s genii, I am resolved to believe, were my protectors. LETTER XXIII.