GIBBON. 



the Houses of Anjou and Aragon the wars of the Eng- 

 lish Barons the lives of the Black Prince, of Sir Philip 

 Sidney, and of Montrose; but he at length fixed on 

 Raleigh, and read with diligence all the works which treat 

 of that remarkable person. After much preparatory 

 labour, he abandoned the design, and thought of the 

 Swiss Confederacy, and of Florence under the Medicis ; 

 but before he finally settled to either subject, he went 

 abroad for two years and a half, passing three or four 

 months at Paris, in the most interesting society, and 

 nearly a year at Lausanne, before he crossed the Alps 



" Filled with the visions of fair Italy." 



For this important expedition he prepared himself 

 with all his wonted industry. He diligently studied the 

 greater classics; he examined all that the best writers 

 had collected on the topography of Ancient Rome, on 

 Italian geography, and on Medals, going carefully 

 through Nardini, Donatus, Spanheim, D'Anville, Beaufort, 

 Cluyerius, and other modern writers, as well as Strabo, 

 Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, and he filled a large common- 

 place book with notes and extracts, as well as disquisitions 

 on important passages of Roman antiquities and history. 

 Thus furnished perhaps better than any other traveller 

 ever was for his expedition, he fared forth in the spring 

 of 1764- 



"To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, 

 Where slumber Abbots purple as their wines; 

 To isles of fragrance, lily-silvered vales, 

 Diffusing languor on the panting gales ; 

 To lands of singing or of dancing slaves 

 Love- whispering woods, and lute-resounding waves ; 

 But chief her court where naked Venus keeps, 

 And Cupids ride the Lion of the deeps." Dunciad. 



