Harvard Cage Library Bowle Collection Gift of Mrs. E. D. Brandegoo Men &; 1995 21488.25 1607 43-205 29-7 N order to vary the scene and nature of their monthly discussions, it had been determined by the archæologist and his friends, that one of the meetings should combine in its arrangements an excursion to some of the well-known sites in the region between Naples and Rome, which teem with historical associations of the deepest interest; and which abound in beautiful remains of antiquity, which every succeeding year is bringing to light under the auspices of local archæologists, many of whom are expending large sums in extensive excavations, which have in many cases led to the most interesting discoveries, and to the recovery of exquisite remains of ancient monuments, which fill up many gaps, and afford most valuable links in the long broken thread of the history of ancient art. With this view, an excursion of several days was determined on; and the party assembled in the archæologist's rooms at Santa Lucia one fine autumnal morning, whence they started, in two carriages, with their vetturini, for the scenes of their delightful explorations. They stopped at Capua, and Mola de Gaeta, and at Cicero's villa, and other less known places of interest ; and visited broken arches, and shattered columns; and, with an interest and zest that antiquaries only can know, they climbed many a crag, at the imminent risk of their lives, to examine some brief inscription, which an ordinary traveller would have looked on with far less interest than on that of a mile-stone. The second day was passed most delightfully in the romantic country about Forli; and on the third they advanced towards an interesting region in the direction of Terracina, where an absent member of the association, Robert Endsleigh, a young painter, had made some exquisite studies and sketches, the recollection of which had been one of the causes that had determined them to visit that locality. Endsleigh was a young man of extraordinary talent; but being at the same time, unfortunately, a man of fortune, he was not spurred on by that common and vulgar stimulus to labour, which seldom fails to make a man conquer the object of his exertions, if his or |