Consolations in Travel | Page 3

very
moment of the invasion of the Author's last illness. Had his life been
prolonged, it is probable that some additions and some changes would
have been made. The editor does not consider himself warranted to do
more than give to the world a faithful copy, making only a few
omissions and a few verbal alterations. The characters of the persons of
the dialogue were intended to be ideal, at least in great part such they
should be considered by the reader; and, it is to be hoped, that the
incidents introduced, as well as the persons, will be viewed only as
subordinate and subservient to the sentiments and doctrines. The
dedication, it may be specially noticed, is the author's own, and in the
very words dictated by him, at a time when he had lost the power of
writing except with extreme difficulty, owing to the paralytic attack,
although he retained in a very remarkable manner all his mental
faculties unimpaired and unclouded.
JOHN DAVY. London, January 6th, 1830.
TO THOMAS POOLE, ESQ. OF NETHER STOWEY IN
REMEMBRANCE OF THIRTY YEARS OF CONTINUED AND
FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Salmonia was written during the time of a partial recovery from a long
and dangerous illness. The present work was composed immediately
after, under the same unfavourable and painful circumstances, and at a
period when the constitution of the Author suffered from new attacks.
He has derived some pleasure and some consolation, when most other
sources of consolation and pleasure were closed to him, from this
exercise of his mind; and he ventures to hope that these hours of

sickness may be not altogether unprofitable to persons in perfect health.
Rome, February 21, 1829.

DIALOGUE THE FIRST. THE VISION.
I passed the autumn and the early winter of the years 18-- and 18-- at
Rome. The society was, as is usual in that metropolis of the old
Christian world, numerous and diversified. In it there were found many
intellectual foreigners and amongst them some distinguished Britons,
who had a higher object in making this city their residence than mere
idleness or vague curiosity. Amongst these my countrymen, there were
two gentlemen with whom I formed a particular intimacy and who were
my frequent companions in the visits which I made to the monuments
of the grandeur of the old Romans and to the masterpieces of ancient
and modern art. One of them I shall call Ambrosio: he was a man of
highly cultivated taste, great classical erudition, and minute historical
knowledge. In religion he was of the Roman Catholic persuasion; but a
Catholic of the most liberal school, who in another age might have
been secretary to Ganganelli. His views upon the subjects of politics
and religion were enlarged; but his leaning was rather to the power of a
single magistrate than to the authority of a democracy or even of an
oligarchy. The other friend, whom I shall call Onuphrio, was a man of a
very different character. Belonging to the English aristocracy, he had
some of the prejudices usually attached to birth and rank; but his
manners were gentle, his temper good, and his disposition amiable.
Having been partly educated at a northern university in Britain, he had
adopted views in religion which went even beyond toleration and
which might be regarded as entering the verge of scepticism. For a
patrician he was very liberal in his political views. His imagination was
poetical and discursive, his taste good and his tact extremely fine, so
exquisite, indeed, that it sometimes approached to morbid sensibility,
and disgusted him with slight defects and made him keenly sensible of
small perfections to which common minds would have been indifferent.
In the beginning of October on a very fine afternoon I drove with these

two friends to the Colosaeum, a monument which, for the hundredth
time even, I had viewed with a new admiration; my friends partook of
my sentiments. I shall give the conversation which occurred there in
their own words. Onuphrio said, "How impressive are those
ruins!--what a character do they give us of the ancient Romans, what
magnificence of design, what grandeur of execution! Had we not
historical documents to inform us of the period when this structure was
raised and of the purposes for which it was designed, it might be
imagined the work of a race of giants, a Council Chamber for those
Titans fabled to have warred against the gods of the pagan mythology.
The size of the masses of travertine of which it is composed is in
harmony with the immense magnitude of the building. It is hardly to be
wondered at that a people which constructed such works for their daily
sports, for their usual amusements, should have possessed strength,
enduring energy, and perseverance sufficient to