["Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte Dono infelice di bellezza, ond'hai Funesta dote d'infiniti guai Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte: Deh fossi tu men bella, o almen più forte, Onde assai più ti paventasse, o assai T'amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte, Chè or giù dall' Alpi non vedrei torrenti Scender d'armati, nè di sangue tinta Bever l'onda del Po gallici armenti; Nè te vedrei, del non tuo ferro cinta, Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti, Per servir sempre, o vincitrice, o vinta."] [mn] _And on thy brow in characters of flame_ _To write the words of sorrow and of shame_.--[MS. M. erased.] [mo] ----_unbetrayed_ _To death by thy vain charms_----.--[MS. M. erased.] [422] {362} The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. "On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: Ægina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."--See Middleton's _Cicero_, 1823, ii. 144. [The letter is to be found in Cicero's _Epist. ad Familiares_, iv. 5. Byron, on his return from Constantinople on July 14, 1810, left Hobhouse at the Island of Zea, and made his own way to Athens. As the vessel sailed up the Saronic Gulf, he would observe the "prospect" which Sulpicius describes.] [mp] {363} _These carcases of cities_----.--[MS. M. erased.] [423] ["By the events of the years 1813 and 1814, the house of Austria gained possession of all that belonged to her in Italy, either before or in consequence of the Peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797). A small portion of Ferrara, to the north of the Po (which had formed part of the Papal dominions), was ceded to her, as were the Valteline, Bormio, Chiavenna, and the ancient republic of Ragusa. The emperor constituted all these possessions into a separate and particular state, under the title of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy."--Koch's _History of Europe_, p. 234.] [424] {364} It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jaceat, instar Gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi." [See _De Fortunæ Varietate_, ap. _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, ap. Sallengre, i. 502.] [425] [Compare Milton, _Sonnet_ xxii.--