——the Ææan bay,
Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the Day;
Goddess and queen, to whom the powers belong
Of dreadful magic and commanding song.
This abode of the enchantress Circe has been generally described as an
island; whereas it is, in reality, a promontory, united to the continent
by a neck of land. The adventures of Ulysses and his companions at this
place, with all the extraordinary things which Homer has recorded of
Circe, must serve to amuse you between Casa Nuova and Piperno; the road
affords no other.
At Piperno, anciently Privernum, you quit Circe, for Virgil’s Camilla, a
lady of a very different character, whose native city this is[4].
Near to Piperno, an abbey, called Fossa Nuova, is situated on the ruins
of the little town of Forum Appii, the same of which mention is made in
the Acts of the Apostles, and by Horace, in his account of his journey to
Brundusium.
——Inde Forum Appi
Differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis.
The abbey of Fossa Nuova is said to have made a very valuable acquisition
of late, no less than the head of St. Thomas Aquinas. We are told, in
the memoirs of that Saint, that he was taken ill as he passed this way,
and was carried to this convent, where he died. His body was afterward
required by the king of France, and ordered to be carried to Thoulouse;
but before the remains of this holy person were removed from the convent,
one of the monks, unwilling to allow the whole of such a precious
deposite to be carried away, determined to retain the most valuable part,
and actually cut off the saint’s head, substituting another in its stead,
which was carried to Thoulouse, very nicely stitched to the body of the
saint. The monk, who was guilty of this pious fraud, hid the true head
in the wall of the convent, and died without revealing the secret to
any mortal. From that time the supposititious head remained unsuspected
at Thoulouse; but as impostures are generally detected sooner or later,
the venerable brethren of Fossa Nuova (this happened much about the time
that the Cock-lane ghost made such a noise in London) were disturbed with
strange knockings and scratchings at a particular part of the wall.—On
this noise being frequently repeated, without any visible agent, and the
people of the neighbourhood having been often assembled to hear it, the
monks at length agreed to pull down part of the wall at the place where
the scratching and knocking were always heard. This was no sooner done,
than the true head of St. Thomas Aquinas was found as fresh as the day it
was cut off;—on the vessel in which it was contained was the following
inscription:
Caput divi Thomæ Aquinatis.
And near it a paper, containing a faithful narrative of the whole
transaction, signed by the monk who did the deed.
Some people, not making a proper allowance for the difference between
a saint’s head and their own, say, this cannot possibly be the head of
Thomas Aquinas, which must have putrified some centuries ago; they say,
the paper is written in a character by much too modern; they say, the
monks contrived the whole affair, to give an importance to their convent;
they say—but what signifies what they say? In this age of incredulity,
some people will say any thing. We next came to Terracina, and here I
must finish my letter; in my next I shall carry you to Naples.
[3] Hunc animum, hanc virtutem vestram, ultra periculis
objicere, nimis grande vitæ meæ pretium puto. An ego tantum
Romanæ pubis, tot egregios exercitus, sterni rursus et
republicâ eripi patiar? Este superstites, nec diu moremur; ego
incolumitatem vestram, vos constantiam meam. De nemine queror,
nam incusare deos vel homines, ejus est, qui vivere velit.
TACIT. Hist. lib. ii.
[4]
Hos super advenit Volscâ de gente Camilla,
Agmen agens equitum et florentes ære catervas,
Bellatrix: Non illa colo calathisve Minervæ
Fœmineas assueta manus; sed prœlia virgo
Dura pati, cursuque pedum prævertere ventos.
ÆNEID. lib. vii.