willing to allow the whole of fuch a precious deposit to be carried away, determined to retain the most valuable part, and actually cut off the faint's head, fubftituting another in its ftead, which was carried to Thoulouse, very nicely ftitched to the body of the faint. The monk, who was guilty of this pious fraud, hid the true head in the wall of the convent, and died without revealing the fecret to any mortal. From that time the fuppofititious head remained unfufpected at Thoulouse; but as impostures are generally detected fooner or later, the venerable brethren of Foffa Nuova (this happened much about the time that the Cock lane ghost made fuch a noife in London) were disturbed with ftrange knockings and scratchings at a particular part of the wall.-On this noife being frequently repeated, without any visible agent, and the people of the neighbourhood having been often affembled to hear it, the monks at length agreed to pull down part of the wall at the place where

where the scratching and knocking were always heard. This was no fooner done than the true head of St. Thomas Aquinas. was found as fresh as the day it was cut off; -on the veffel in which it was contained was the following infcription:

Caput divi Thomæ Aquinatis*.

And near it a paper, containing a faithful narrative of the whole tranfaction, figned by the monk who did the deed.

Some people, not making a proper allowance for the difference between a faint's head and their own, fay, this cannot poffibly be the head of Thomas Aquinas, which must have putrified fome centuries ago; they fay, the paper is written in a character by much too modern; they fay, the monks contrived the whole affair to give an importance to their convent; they fay-but what fignifies what they say? In this age of incredulity, fome people will fay any thing. We next came to Terracina, and here I must finish my letter; in my next I shall carry you to Naples.

* The head of Thomas Aquinas.

H4

LETTER LIII.

Naples.

T

Erracina, formerly called Anxur, was the capital of the warlike Volfci*. The principal church was originally a temple of Jupiter, who was fupposed to have a partiality for this town; and the country round it. Virgil calls him Jupiter Anxurus. Enumerating the troops who came to fupport the cause of Turnus, he mentions those who plough the Rutulian hills:

Circeumque jugum; queis Jupiter Anxurus.

arvis

Præfidet, et viridi gaudens Feronia luco:
Qua faturæ jacet atra palus, &c. +,

Anxur fuit quæ nunc Terracinæ funt; urbs prona in paludes. TIT. LIV. lib. iv,

And the steep hills of Circe stretch around,
Where fair Feronia boasts her stately grove,
And Anxur glories in her guardian Jove;
Where ftands the Pontine lake.

PITT

Near

Near this place we fell in again with the Appian Way, and beheld with astonishment, the depth of rock that has here. been cut, to render it more convenient for paffengers. This famous road is a paved causeway, begun in the year of Rome 441, by Appius Claudius Cæcus the Censor, and carried all the way from Rome to Capua. It would be fuperfluous to infift on the fubftantial manner in which it has been originally made, fince it ftill remains in many places. Though travellers are now obliged to make a circuit by Casa Nuova and Piperno, the Via Appia was originally made in a straight line through the Palude Pontine, or Palus Pomptina, as that vaft marsh was anciently called It is the Ater Palus above mentioned, in the lines quoted from Virgil. That part of the Appian road is now quite impaffable, from the augmentation of this noxious marfh, whofe exhalations are difagreeable to paffengers, and near which it is dangerous to fleep a single night.

Keysler

I

Keyfler and fome others fay, that Appius made this road at his own expence. do not know on what authority they make this affertion; but, whatever their authority may be, the thing is incredible. Couid a Roman citizen, at a period when the inhabitants of Rome were not rich, bear an expence which we are surprised that even the State itself could support? Though this famous road has received its name from Appius, I can hardly imagine it was completed by him. The distance from Rome to Capua is above one hundred and thirty miles; a prodigious length for fuch a road as this to have been made, during the fhort courfe of one Censorship; for a man could be Cenfor only once in his life. This was an office of very great dignity; no perfon could enjoy it till he had previously been Conful. It was originally held for five years; but, a hundred years before the time of Appius, the term was abridged to eighteen months. He, however, who, as Livy tells us, poffeffed all

the