PRESENT STATE of the GOVERNMENT, MANNERS, &c. in the REPUBLIC of SAN MARINO.

[From the fecond Volume of ANECDOTES of fome DISTINGUISHED PERSONS, chiefly of the Prefent and two Preceding CENTURIES.]

The butter of the country; as different from that in an apothecary's shop, as new butter from that which by age has become rancid and of different colours.

attractive and more engaging than all the gay luxuriance of Tufcan* plains. A black expansion of vapour partly concealed from our view the territory of what the Greeks would have called a nation, seldom visited by ftrangers, though affuredly moft deferving of that honour. Liberty brightens and fertilizes the craggy rocks of St. Marino; and inftead of paradifes inhabited by devils (for thus the recollection or fuppofition of better times indignantly characterises the countries through which we had juft travelled), this little ftate, we were told, would exhibit rugged hills and favage precipices cultivated and adorned by the ftubborn industry of free men, who labour with alacrity, because they reap with fecurity. We

panted at the thoughts of taking a nearer furvey of this political wonder, and were impatient to leave Rimini; but the country adjacent to that city was deluged with rain; the rivers continued to overflow; horfes could not fafely clamber over rocks; and Rimini could not furnifh us with mules. But they are delicate travellers whom fuch puny difficulties could reftrain from vifiting this illuftrious mountain, where liberty, herself a mountain goddefs, has upwards of fourteen centuries fixed her rural throne. Careless of mules, or horfes, or carriages, to which laft the republic of St. Marino is at all times inacceffible, we adopted a mode

of travelling which in a country where pomp is immoderately ftudied, becaufe wealth is too indif criminately prized, might poffibly have excluded unknown wanderers from the proud manfions of nobles and princes, the palaces of bishops, and the vineas of cardinals, but which, we rightly, conjectured, would recommend us as welcome guefts to the citizens of St. Marino, whofe own manliness of character muft approve the congenial hardihood of humble pedeftrians.

"The diftance from Rimini to the borgo, or fuburbs of St. Marino, for the città, or city, ftands half a mile higher on the hill, is computed at only ten Italian miles. But the badness of the weather and of the roads would have encreafed the tedioufness of our fatiguing journey, had not our fancies been amufed by the appearance and converfation of feveral perfons whom we occafionally met or overtook, and who, notwithstanding that hardness of features which characterifes mountaineers, difplayed in their words and looks a certain candour and fincerity, with an undefcribed mixture of humanity and firmnefs, which we had rarely feen pourtrayed on the face of an Italian. Such virtues, perhaps, many Italians may poffefs: fuch virtues Raphael and Guido probably difcerned in their contemporaries; unlefs it be fuppofed that the antique not only ennobled and exalted, but originally infpired their conceptions. Yet

* The epithet Tuscan is justified by the authority of Polybius, l. ii. c. 14. and c. 17. He defcribes that extenfive plain bounded by the Alps, the Apennines, and the Hadriatic, and alfo the plains about Mola and Capua, called the Phlegrean Fields, as antiently inhabited by the Tufcans. The territory of this people, he fays, formed incomparably the fineft portion of Europe. Before Polybius wrote his hiftory, the dominion of the Tufcans had contracted to a narrow fpan; and according to the faying of the modern Italians, while the pope poffeffes the marrow, the great duke of Tufcany has now only the bones, of Italy.

whatever

whatever might be the pre-eminence of Roman beauty, during the fplendour of the Cinque Cento, it must be confefled of the Italians of our days, that the expreffion indicating virtues of the mild or generous caft, feldom breaks through the dark gloom and fullen cares which contract their brows and cloud their counte

nances.

"At the distance of five miles from Rimini, a fmall rivulet, decorated by a difproportionably large ftone bridge, which at another feafon of the year would have exemplified the Spanish proverb of a bridge without water, feparates the territories of St. Marino from thofe of the pope. Proceeding forward, we found the road extremely extremely narrow, much worn by the rain, alternately rough and flippery, and always fo bad, that we congratulated each other on rejecting the ufe of the miferable rips that were offered to us at Rimini. In the midst of a heavy fhower we clambered to the borgo, fituate on the fide of the hill, and diftant (as already faid) half a mile from the città, on its fummit. The former is defined for the habitation of peasants, artizans, and ftrangers; the honour of inhabiting the latter is referved for the nobles, the citizens, and thofe who, in the language of antiquity, would be ftyled the public guests of the commonwealth. In the whole territory there is but one inn; and that of courfe in the borgo; for lone houfes are rare in all parts of the continent, the British dominions alone, by their native ftrength, and the excellence of their government, being happily exempted from the

terror of banditti in time of peace, and marauders in time of war. We difcovered the inn at St. Ma rino, as is ufual in Italy, by the crowd before the door. Having entered, we were civilly received by the landlord, feated by the firefide in company with feveral other ftrangers, and fpeedily prefented with a bottle of fparkling white wine, the best we had tafted in Italy, and refembling Champagne in the characteristic excellencies of that fprightly liquor.

"We had not remained long in this caravanfera (for fuch is the proper name for the place of hofpitality in which we were received), when the drefs, manners, and converfation of our fellow-travellers ftrongly excited our attention, and afforded fcope for boundless fpeculation. They were the most favage-looking men that I had ever beheld; covered with thick capottas *, of coarfe dark-brown woollen, lined with black sheep's fkin. Their hats, which they kept on their heads, were of an enormous fize, fwelling to the circumference of an ordinary umbrella. With their drefs and ap. pearance their words and gestures bore too faithful a correfpondence. Schioppi' and coltellate' (gunfhots and dagger-thrufts) were fre quently in their mouths. As the wine went brifkly round, the converfation became ftill more animated, and took a turn more de cidedly terrible. They now talk. ed of nothing but fierce encoun ters, hair-breadth efcapes, and hideous lurking-places. From their whole behaviour, there was reafon to apprehend, that we had unwa rily fallen into company with Rinaldo's party; but a few hints

that dropped from him who was moft intoxicated finally undeceived us, and difcovered, to our fatisfaction and shame, that instead of a band of robbers, we had only met with a party of fmugglers. Their maffy capottas and broadbrimmed hats formed their defenfive armour againft cuftomhoufe officers and birri*; and the narratives which they heard or related with fuch ardor and delight, contained the acts of prowefs by which they had repelled the bravery of the Romans, and the arts of ftratagem by which they had deceived the cunning of the Tufcans. From the intermediate fituation of St. Marino between the dominions of Tufcany and thofe of the pope, its territory is continually infefted by vifits from thofe unlicensed traffickers, who being enemies by trade to thofe who adminifter the laws and collect the revenues of their country, naturally degenerate into daring and diforderly ruffians, the terror of peaceful men, and both the difgrace and the bane of civilized fociety.

"From the company of the finugglers we longed to feparate, the more because they eagerly folicited our ftay, promifing to conduct us fafely across the mountains, and to defend our perfons and properties against robbers and affaf fins; but we thought it a piece of good fortune, that our moft valuable property, as we fhewed to them, confifted in our fwords and piftols. Having called our St. Marino hoft, we paid him for his wine and his faufage (profciutti); and were pleased to find, that contrary to our univerfal experience of Italian landlords, he was

1795.

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commonly thankful for a very moderate gratification; a fingularity which, though it probably proceeded from his being little converfant with English and other opulent travellers, we treasured with delight, as a confpicuous proof of republican virtue, that had efcaped pure and unfullied from the contagion of those worthlefs guefts, with whom the nature of his trade condemned him often to affociate.

"About two o'clock in the afternoon, we left the borgo to climb up to the città, carrying our fwords in our right hands; a precaution which the company we had juft left warranted in this modern republic, but which, as Thucydides informs us in his proem, would have expofed us to be branded with the appellation of barbarians in the republics of antient Greece. Before we had reached the fummit of the hill, the cloud had difperfed, the fun fhone bright, we breathed a purer air, and the clear light which displayed the city and territory of St. Marino, was heightened by contrast with the thick gloom which involved the circumjacent plains. Tranfported with the contemplation of a landscape which feemed fo admirably to accord with the political ftate of the mountain, a bright gem of liberty amidst the darknefs of Italian fervitude, we clambered cheerfully over the precipices, never reflecting that as there was not any place of reception for ftrangers in the città, we might poffibly be expofed to the alternative of fleeping in the streets, or returning to the caravanfera, crouded with fmugglers, whofe intoxication might exafperate their

Those who execute the orders of civil magiftrates.
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natural