to effect a junction with his brother, the troops he brought from Spain would have become of triple value as soon as they were under the direction of Hannibal; and it is not improbable that, with such a reinforcement, that most consummate general would have put an end to the Roman state; the glory of Carthage would have begun where that of Rome ended; and the history of the world would have been quite different from what it is. Horace seems sensible of the infinite importance of this victory, and proclaims, with a fine poetic enthusiasm, the obligations which Rome owed to the family of the hero who obtained it, and the terror which, before that time, Hannibal had spread over all Italy.

Quid debeas, O Roma, Neronibus,

Testis Metaurum flumen, et Asdrubal
Devictus, et pulcher fugatis

Ille dies Latio tenebris,

Qui primus almâ risit adoreâ ;
Dirus per urbes Afer ut Italas,

Ceu flama per tedas, vel Eurus

Per Siculas equitavit undas.

We came next to Senegallia, another sea-port town upon this coast. There is nothing remarkable in this town, except during the time of the fair, which is held there once a-year, to which a great concourse of merchants resort, from Venice, and all the towns on both sides of the Adriatic; also from Sicily, and the Archipelago. England carries on a very profitable trade with all the towns in Romagnia, from which our merchants purchase great quantities of raw silk, and afterwards sell it, when manufactured, to the inhabitants. They provide them also in English cotton and linen cloths, of every kind.

The distance between Senegallia and Ancona, is about fifteen miles. We travelled most of this road after it was dark, much against the inclination of the Italian servants, who assured us, that it is often infested with robbers. Those fellows, they told us, come sometimes from the coast of Dalmatia, attack travellers on this road, carry what booty can be got on board their boats, which are

never at a great distance, and then sail to the opposite shore, or to some other part of the coast. As we travelled slowly over the sandy road, some men, in sailors dresses, overtook us. Our Italians were convinced they belonged to the gang of pirates, or robbers, they had spoken of. Our company was too numerous to be attacked; but they attempted, secretly, to cut off the trunks from the chaises, without succeeding.

ANCONA is said to have been founded by Syracusans who had fled from the tyranny of Dionysius. The town originally was built upon a hill, but the houses have been gradually extended down the face of the eminence, towards the sea The cathedral stands on the highest part; from whence there is a most advantageous view of the town, the country, and the sea. This church is supposed to be placed on the spot where a temple, dedicated to Venus, formerly stood; the same mentioned by Juvenal, when he speaks of a large turbot caught on this coast, and presented to the emperor Domitian.

Incidit Adriaci spatium admirabile rhombi,

Ante domum Veneris, quam Dorica sustinct Ancon.

The ascents and descents, and great inequality of the ground, will prevent this from being a beautiful town, but it has much the appearance of becoming a rich one. Some of the nobility have the firmness and good sense to despise an ancient prejudice, and avowedly prosecute commerce. New houses are daily building, and the streets are animated with the bustle of trade. I met with seveal English traders on the change, which seemed crowded with seafaring men, and merchants, from Dalmatia, Greece, and many parts of Europe. There are great numbers of Jews established in this city. I know not whether this race of men contribute greatly to the prosperity of a country; but it is generally remarked, that

those places are in a thriving condition to which they resort. They have a synagogue here, and although all religions are tolerated, theirs is the only foreign worship allowed to be publicly exercised. The commerce of Ancona has increased very rapidly of late years; and it is evident, that the popes who first thought of making it a free port, of encouraging manufactures, and of building a mole, to render the harbour more safe, have injured Venice in a more sensible manner, than those who thundered bulls against that republic; but it is much to be questioned, whether the former, by their encouragements to commerce, have augmented their own spiritual importance in the same proportion they have the temporal riches of their subjects.

Men who have received a liberal education, and have adopted liberal sentiments previous to their engaging in any particular profession, will carry these sentiments along with them through life: and, perhaps, there is no profession in which they can be exercised with more advantage and utility, than in that of a merchant. In this profession, a man of the character above described, while he is augmenting his own private fortune, will enjoy the agreeable reflection, that he is likewise increasing the riches and power of his country, and giving bread to thousands of his industrious countrymen. Of all professions, his is in its nature the most independent: he merchant does not, like the soldier, receive wages from his sovereign; nor, like the lawyer and physician, from his fellow subjects. His wealth often flows from foreign sources, and he is under no obligation to those from whom it is derived. The habit which he is in, of circulating millions, makes him lay less stress on a few guineas, than the proprietors of the largest estates; and we daily see, particularly in countries where this profession is not considered as degrading, the commercial part of the inhabitants giving the most exalted proofs of generosity and public spirit. But in countries where nobody, who has the smallest claim to the title of a gentleman, can engage in commerce without being thought to have demeaned himself,

fewer examples of this nature will be found: and in every country, it must be acknowledged, that those who have not had the advantage of a liberal education; who have been bred from their infancy to trade; who have been taught to consider money as the most valuable of all things, and to value themselves, and others, in proportion to the quantity they possess; who are continually revolving in their minds, to the exclusion of all other ideas, the va rious means of increasing their stock; to such people, money becomes a more immediate and direct object of attention, than to any other class of men; it swells in their imagination, is rated beyond its real worth, and, at length, by an inversion of the Christian precept, it is considered as the one thing needful, to be sought with the most unremitting ardour, that all other things may be added thereunto.

In commercial towns, where every body finds employment, and is agitated by the bustle of business, the minds of the inhabitants are apt to be so much engrossed with the affairs of this world, as almost to forget that there is another; and neither the true religion, nor false ones, have such hold of their minds, as in places where there is more poverty, and less worldly occupation. In the first, they consider the remonstrances of priests and confessors as interruptions to business; and, without daring to despise the ceremonies of religion, like the speculative sceptic or infidel, the hurried trader huddles them over as fast as possible, that he may return to occupations more congenial with the habit of his mind. The preachers may cry aloud, and spare not; they may lift up their voices like trumpets, proclaiming the nothingness of this world, and all which it contains; it is in vain. Men who have been trained to the pursuit of money from their childhood, who have bestowed infinite pains to acquire it, and who derive all their importance from it, must naturally have a partiality for this world, where riches procure so many flattering distinctions; and a prejudice against that in which they procure none; but in towns where there is

little trade, and great numbers of poor people, where they have much spare time, and small comfort in this world, the clergy have an easier task, if they are tolerably assiduous, in turning the attention of the inhabitants to the other. In Roman Catholic towns of this description, we see the people continually pacing up and down the streets, with wax-tapers in their hands. They listen, with fond attention, to all the priest relates concerning that invisible country, that land of promise, where their hopes are placed; they ruminate, with complacency, on the happy period when they also shall have their good things; they bear their present rags with patience, in expectation of the white raiment and crowns of gold, which, they are told, await them; they languish for the happiness of being promoted to that lofty situation, from whence they may look down, with scorn, on those to whom they now look up with envy, and where they shall retaliate on their wealthy neighbours, whose riches, at present, they imagine, insult their own poverty.

This town being exposed, by the nature of its commerce with Turkey, to the contagious diseases which prevail in that country, Clement XII, as soon as he determined to make it a free port, erected a lazzaretto. It ad vances a little way into the sea, is in the form of a pentagon, and is a very noble, as well as useful, edifice. He afterwards began a work, as necessary, and still more expensive; I mean the mole built in the sea, to skreen the vessels in the harbour from the winds, which frequently blow from the opposite shore of the Adriatic with great violence. This was carried on with redoubled spirit by Benedict XIV, after his quarrel with Venice, has been continued by the succeeding popes, and is now almost finished. This building was founded in the ruins of the ancient mole, raised by the emperor Trajan. The stone of Istria was used at first, till the exportation of it was prohibited by the republic of Venice, who had no reason to wish well to this work. But a quarry of excellent stone was afterwards found near Ancona, as fit for the