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A Journal of Two Successive Tours Upon the Continent in the Years 1816, 1817
A Journal of Two Successive Tours Upon the Continent in the Years 1816 1817 Author:James Wilson Volume: v. 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1820 Original Publisher: T. Cadell and W. Davies Subjects: Europe Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial a... more »ccess to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. About two miles from Perugia we first came upon the Tiber, which the road crosses over the bridge of San Giovanni. It would have been better if the bridge had borne any other name than that of a saint; for as the mind is all on the alert to seize upon every classical recollection which can be selected from' the crowds presenting themselves at the sight of this river, the Christian apostle is obtruded on the attention most inappositely. St. John astride the Tiber is out of character; had it been Siloa, our reverence for his name would not have been disturbed; but here it occurs as disagreeably as the title-page of a classic printed with a Gothic type. -- The first appearance of this stream cannot fail to affect, in a lively manner, the most insensible of reading men. With that blueness and transparency, which belong to rivers when not very distant from their source, it pleases the eye, while its name rouses the imagination, and calls up an endless train of ideas. It is the first moment, when you arrive on its banks, that the mind is most forcibly struck with its antient associations, without regard to the immediate neighbourhood, whether it be an obscure spot, or famous in the records of history ; for as the memory is in such cases called upon rather by fancy than reason, we do not wait to consider whether it is the exact locality illustrated by the actors, or their deeds, whence the stream derives its interest; but excited at once by the first sight of the Tiber, we begin immediately to draw -the contrast between i...« less