questionable, he must have lived in a style of magnificence which has fallen to the lot of but few poets.

The complexion of a day or of a lifetime may hang upon the commonest occurrence. A shoe here dropped from the foot of one of the horses; and the postilion, diving into the recesses of the diligence, and drawing forth a box with the requisite tools, began forthwith, on the highway, the process of shoeing. I stepped out, and walked on before, thankful for the incident, which had given me the opportunity of a saunter along the road. You can see nature from the windows of your carriage, but you can converse with her only by a quiet stroll amidst her scenes. On the right were the great plains which the Po waters, finely mottled with meadow and corn-field, besprint with chestnut trees, mulberries, and laurels, and fringed, close by the highway, with rolling heights, on which grew the vine. On the left was the far expanding lake, with its bays and creeks, and the shadows of its stately hills mirrored on its surface. It looked as if some invisible performer was busy shifting the scenes for the traveller's delight, and spreading a different prospect before his eye at every few yards. New bays were continually opening, and new peaks rising on the horizon. "It was so rough with tempests when we passed by it," says Addison, "that it brought into my mind Virgil's description of it."

"Here, vexed by winter storms, Benacus raves,
Confused with working sands and rolling waves;
Rough and tumultuous, like a sea it lies;

So loud the tempest roars, so high the billows rise."

I saw it in more peaceful mood. Cool and healthful breezes were blowing from the Tyrol; and the salubrious character of the region was amply attested by the robust forms of the

inhabitants. I have seldom seen a finer race of men and women than the peasants adjoining the Lake Garda. They were all of goodly stature, and singularly graceful and noble in their gait.

In a few hours we approached the strong fortress of Peschiera. We passed through several concentric lines of fortifications, walls, moats, drawbridges, and sloping earthen embankments, in which cart-loads of balls, impelled with all the force which powder can give, would sink and be lost. In the very heart of these grim ramparts, like a Swiss hamlet amid its mountain ranges, or a jewel in its iron-bound casket, lay the little town of Peschiera, sleeping quietly beside the blue and full-flooded Mincio, Virgil's own river :—

"Where the slow Mincius through the valley strays;
Where cooling streams invite the flocks to drink,
And reeds defend the winding water's brink."

It issues from the lake, and, flowing underneath the ramparts, freshens a spot which otherwise wears sufficiently the grim iron-visaged features of war. Nothing can surpass the grandeur of Lake Garda, which here almost touches the walls of the fortress. It lies outspread like the sea, and runs far up to where the snow-clad summits of the Tyrol prop the northern horizon.

Leaving behind us the iron Peschiera and the blue Garda, we held on our way over an open, breezy country, where the stony and broken scenery of the mountains began to mingle with the rich cultivation of the plains. It reminded me of the line where the lowlands of Perthshire join its highlands. Here cypress tree met me for the first time. The familiar form

the of the poplar,—now too familiar to give pleasure,—disappeared, and in its room came the less stately but more graceful and

beautiful form of the cypress. The cypress is silence personi

fied.
It stands wrapt in its own thoughts.
see it without asking, "What ails thee?

One can hardly Is it for the past

you mourn?" Yet, pensive as it looks, its unconscious grace fills the landscape with beauty.

Verona, gilded by the beams of Shakspeare's mighty genius, and by the yet purer glory of the martyrs of the Reformation, was in sight miles before we reached it. It reposes on the long gentle slope of a low hill, with plenty of air and sunlight. The rich plains at its feet, which stretch away to the south, look up to the old town with evident affection and pride, and strive to cheer it by pouring wheat, and wine, and fruits into its markets. Its appearance at a distance is imposing, from its numerous towers, and the long sweep of its forked battlements, which seem to encircle the whole acclivity on which the town stands, leaving as much empty space within their lines as might contain half-a-dozen Veronas. Its environs are enchanting. Behind it, and partly encircling it on the east, are an innumerable array of low hills, of the true Italian shape and colour. These were all a-gleam with white villas; and as they sparkled in the sunlight, relieved against the deep azure of the mountains, they showed like white sails on the blue sea, or stars in the dark sky. At its gates we were met, of course, by the Austrian gendarmerie. To have the affair of the passport finished and over as quickly as possible, I unfolded the sheet, and carelessly hung it over the window of the carriage. The corner of the paper, which bore, in tall, bold characters, the name of her Majesty's Foreign Secretary, caught the eye of a passenger. "PALMERSTON !" "PALMERSTON !" he shouted aloud. Instantly there was a general rush at the document; and fearing that it should be torn in pieces, which would have been an awkward affair for

me, seeing without it it would be impossible to get forward, and nearly as impossible to get back, I surrendered it to the first speaker, that it might be passed round, and all might gratify their curiosity or idolatry with the sight of a name which abroad is but a synonym for " England." After making the tour of the diligence, the passport was handed out to the gendarme, who, feeling no such intense desire as did the passengers to see the famous characters, had waited goodnaturedly all the while. The man surveyed with grim complacency a name which was then in no pleasant odour with the statesmen and functionaries of Austria. In return he gave me a paper containing "permission to sojourn for a few hours. in Verona," with its co-relative" permission to depart." I felt proud of my country, which could as effectually protect me at the gates of Verona as on the shores of the Forth.

CHAPTER XIV.

FROM VERONA TO VENICE.

Interior of Verona-End of World seemingly near in Italy-The Monks and the Classics-A Cast-Iron Revolutionist-A Beautiful GlimpseRailway Carriages-Railway Company-Tyrolese Alps-Dante's Patmos -Vicenza-Padua-The Lagunes-The Omnibus or Gondola-Silence of City-Sail through the Canals-Charon and his Boat-Piazza of Saint Mark.

THE gates of Verona opened, and the enchantment was gone. He who would carry away the idea of a magnificent city, which the exterior of Verona suggests, must go round it, not through it. The first step within its walls is like the stroke of an enchanter's wand. The villa-begemmed city, with its ramparts and its cypress-trees, takes flight, and there rises before the traveller an old ruinous town, with dirty streets and a ragged and lazy population. It reminds one of what he meets in tales of eastern romance, where young and beautiful princesses are all at once transformed by malignant genuises into old and withered hags.

In truth, on entering an Italian town one feels as if the last trumpet were about to sound. The world, and all that is