CHAPTER XVIII.

BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES.

Road from Ferrara to Bologna-Wayside Oratories-M tion-Barbarism of People-Aspect of Bologna-Stree Churches of its Interior-Decay of Art-San Petronio from Hill behind Bologna-Tyranny of GovernmentRuinous Taxation-Departure from Bologna-Briga nines-Storm among these Mountains-Two Russian Tra at the Tuscan Frontier-Summit of the Pass- Halt for Country Inn-The Hostess and her Company-Supper ney next Morning-First Sight of Florence.

On the morrow at ten I took my departure for was sweet to exchange the sickly faces and unnatu the city for the bright sun and the living trees. good, so very good, that it took me by surprise. in keeping with the surrounding barbarism. I hard-bottomed, macadamized highway, which t plain in a straight line, bordered by noble trees, I expected to find in this region of mouldering to glected fields, a narrow, winding, rutted path, I torrents and obstructed by boulders; and So, I should have done, had any of the native governme

executed by Napoleon; and hence its excellence. His roads alone would have immortalized him. They remain, after all his victories have perished, to attest his genius. Would that that genius had been turned to the arts of peace! Conquerors would do well to ponder the eulogium pronounced on a humble tailor who built a bridge out of his savings,-that the world owed more to the scissors of that man than to the sword of

some conquerors.

Along the road, at short intervals, were little temples, where good Catholics who had a mind might perform their devotions. This reminded me that I was now in Peter's patrimony,—the holy land of Romanism; and where, it was presumed, the wayfarer would catch the spirit of devotion from the soil and air. The hour of prayer might be past,—I know not; but I saw no one in these oratories. Little shrines were perched upon the trees, formed sometimes of boards, at others simply of the cavity of the trunk; while the boughs were bent so as to form a canopy over them. Little images and pictures had been stuck into these shrines; but the rooks,—these black republicans, like the "reds" at Rome, had waged a war for possession, and, pitching overboard the little gods that occupied them, were inhabiting in their room. The "great powers" were too busy, or had been so, in the restoration of greater personages, to take up the quarrel of these minor divinities. strange silence and dreariness brooded over the region. land seemed keeping its Sabbaths. The fields rested,-the villages were asleep,-the road was untrodden. Had one been dropt from the clouds, he would have concluded that it was but a century or so since the Flood, and that these were the rude primitive great-grandchildren of Noah, who had just found their way into these parts, and were slowly emerging from

A

The

barbarism. The fields around afforded litt such an instrument as the plough; and one cluded from the garments of the people, tha among the yet uninvented arts. The har horses formed a curiously tangled web of thong thread, twisted, tied, and knotted. It woul Edipus himself to discover how a horse co into such gear, or, being in, how it ever cou There seemed a most extraordinary number of gabonds in Peter's patrimony. A little congre worthies waited our arrival at every village, and us for alms so long as we remained. Other ragged, stood aloof, regarding us fixedly, as if pretext on which to claim a paul of us. Th characters in the neighbourhood, though happil of them. But at certain intervals we met the trol, whose duty it was to clear the road of brig it appeared to us, kept strange company about beggars, vagabonds, and brigands. It must vex much to find his dear children disgracing him of strangers.

These dismal scenes accompanied us half th then entered the Bolognese, and things began to better. Bologna, though under the Papal Gov long been famous for nourishing a hardy, libertythough, if report does them justice, extremely li infidel. Its motto is "libertas ;" and the air of vourable, it would seem, to vegetation; for the greener the moment we had crossed the barrier were charmed with the sight of Bologna. Its a indeed imposing, and gives promise of something industry within its walls. A noble cluster of s

Apennines, rises

the city, crowneu with temples and towers. Within their bosky declivities, from which tall cypress-trees shoot up, lie embowered villas and little watch-towers, with their glittering vanes. At the foot of the hill is spread out the noble city, with its leaning towers and its tall minaret-looking steeples. The approach to the walls reminded me that below these ramparts sleeps Ugo Bassi. I afterwards searched for his resting-place, but could find no one who either would or could show me his tomb. A more eloquent declaimer than even Gavazzi, I have been assured by those who knew him, was silenced when Ugo Bassi fell beneath the murderous fire of the Croat's musket.

After the death-like desertion and silence of Ferrara, the feeble bustle of Bologna seemed like a return to the world and its ways. Its streets are lined with covered porticoes, less heavy than those of Padua, but harbouring after nightfall, says the old traveller ARCHENHOLTZ, robbers and murderers, of whom the latter are the more numerous. He accounts for this by saying, that whereas the robber has to make restitution before receiving absolution, the murderer, whether 'condemned to die or set at liberty, receives full pardon, without the "double labour," as Sir John Falstaff called it, of "paying back." Its hundred churches are vast museums of sculpture and painting. Its university, which the Bolognese boast is the oldest in Europe, rivalled Padua in its glory, and now rivals it in its decay. Its two famous leaning towers,-the rent in the bottom of one is quite visible,-are bending from age, and will one day topple over, and pour a deluge of old bricks upon the adjoining tenements. Its "Academy of the Fine Arts" is, after Rome and Florence, the finest in Italy. It is filled with the works of the Caracci, Domenichino, Guido Albani, and others of almost equal celebrity. I am no judge of such

matters; and therefore my reader need lay criticisms; but it appeared to me, that some p the first rank had not attained that excellen praised "Victory of Sampson over the P wanted the grandeur of the Hebrew Judge o occasion of his life; although it gave you a presentation of a thirsty man drinking, with people in the background, Other pieces w glaring anachronisms in time and dress. Th had drawn his inspiration, not from the Bi Cathedral. The Apostles in some cases monks, and looked as if they had divided t Liguori and the wine-flagon. Several Scri were attired in an ecclesiastical dress, which made by some tailor of the sixteenth centu one picture in that gallery that impressed m other picture I ever saw. It is a painting of by Guido. The background is a dark thunde resting angrily above the dimly-seen roofs an salem. There is "darkness over all the la foreground, and relieved by the darkness, stan the sufferer. On the left is John, looking affection. On the right is Mary,-calm, but unutterable sorrow. Mary Magdalene embr the cross her face and upper parts are fin her attitude and form are strongly express affection, and profound grief. There are no is simple and great. There are no attempts by violent manifestations of grief. Hope is g mains; and there before you are the partie and silent, with their great sorrow.

It so happened that the exhibition of the