I had indeed no thoughts of seeing that king or his armies. I had
been so roughly handled already, that I had given over the thoughts
of appearing among the fighting people, and resolved in the spring
to pursue my journey to Venice, and so for the rest of Italy. Yet
I cannot deny that as every Gazette gave us some accounts of the
conquests and victories of this glorious prince, it prepossessed my
thoughts with secret wishes of seeing him, but these were so young
and unsettled, that I drew no resolutions from them for a long while
after.
About the middle of January I left Milan and came to Genoa, from
thence by sea to Leghorn, then to Naples, Rome, and Venice, but saw
nothing in Italy that gave me any diversion.
As for what is modern, I saw nothing but lewdness, private murders,
stabbing men at the corner of a street, or in the dark, hiring of
bravos, and the like. These were to me the modern excellencies of
Italy; and I had no gust to antiquities.
'Twas pleasant indeed when I was at Rome to say here stood the
Capitol, there the Colossus of Nero, here was the Amphitheatre of
Titus, there the Aqueduct of----, here the Forum, there the Catacombs,
here the Temple of Venus, there of Jupiter, here the Pantheon, and the
like; but I never designed to write a book.
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