blage of objects to excite admiration which I have met with in the Alps.

“When near the gallery of Gondo, a terrible storm of rain, hail, and thunder broke overhead. We took the best shelter we could find-an inhospitable, dripping grotto. The lightning was awfully vivid, and as it rushed from peak to peak, and glided down the deep abyss, the effect was magnificent-sublime. The thunder, reverberated in powerful echoes from the mountains, was deafening. Rain fell in torrents, and large hailstones in abundance. It was a terrific tempest; but I was perfectly calm and composed throughout. I knew who held the storm, and I felt safe in the protecting hand of Omnipotence.

"Leaving Gondo, and the solitary and gloomy pass of the Julla, the character of the abyss changes, and, gradually widening, puts on an appearance less sterile and dreary. At length the defile opens; the aqueous, chilly mists and vapours are dispersed, and a scene of the greatest beauty is unfolded to the view. This is the lovely, the smiling valley of Fontana. We are now in Italy. Here, in a succession which bewilders the senses, rise orchards, vineyards, gardens, groves, tiny parks, and snowy white villages, nestling amid them. The balmy atmosphere is a perfume. The exhilarating effect of this change is indescribable. I was almost ashamed of my loud outbursts of pleasure; again and again did I inhale with increased delight the odoriferous air of the Italian plains.

"With the impetuous Doveria still rushing and roar. ing by your side, you proceed a few miles further.

Here, at the village of Crevola, another, and more extensive, and perhaps more delightful, valley comes into view. This is the delightful Val d'Ossola. Our drive from the pretty village of Crevola to Duomo d'Ossola was a season of the deepest enjoyment; surely it is one of the loveliest spots which the traveller can visit."

CHAPTER IV.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUED-MILAN-VERONA-VENICE-FERRARABOLOGNATHE APENNINES FLORENCE-ROME-THE COLISEUM

-NAPLES.

ON arriving at the Lago Maggiore, the Borromean Islands arrested the attention of our travellers. "They are fine," writes Leila, "but they do not agree with my notions of beauty. They are too artificial-too much of the architectural ornée over them." Thence they passed onward through Sesto Calende to Milan. Again we extract from Leila's journal: "This city, the capital of northern Italy, is, in some sense magnificent; not very so, I am apt to think; indeed, scarcely what I anticipated. Its beautiful cathedral, of white marble, is certainly no less than grand, noble, and majestic. I felt an exquisite sense of admiration when I first saw it. It seems almost too ethereal to be an earthly creation, as something which could exist only in poetical imagination. It is the largest cathedral in Italy, St. Peters, at Rome, excepted. The great object of interest in the interior, is the subterranean chapel of San Carlo Borromeo. His remains are kept in a sarcophagus of crystal, superbly adorned with silver gilt and other decorations.

"The gateway, which Napoleon erected at the entrance to the city, is also a striking and impressive

structure.

"We were particularly fascinated with a fine Gu

ercino in the Brera collection, 'Abraham putting away Hagar and Ishmael.' While standing before it, one cannot feel that it is only a picture that we look merely upon gross and earthly colours. Hagar's countenance is full of soul; every point in every feature beams with deeply-wrought emotion; her intense distress, her mighty agony, the mixture of pathos and entreaty, of sternness and upbraiding, of pride and desolation. Oh! it is a face which once seen must ever be remembered. Miraculous power! wondrous art! to endow a piece of canvass with life, and thought, and all the noblest emotions of the soul! to invest an inanimate board with a power, an impassioned eloquence, beyond what tongue could ever utter, signs convey, or language express !"

After visiting the Ambrosian Library, our tourists quitted Milan, and, continuing their route, arrived at Lake Garda. Leila thus notices it: "It being a lovely day, we had a delightful drive on the borders of the lake, and along the promontory of Sirmione, to visit the ruins of the Villa of Catullus. On reaching the villa, I was altogether interested and pleased, until our guide conducted us to a dirty room-or, more correctly, a cellar, choked with filthy rubbish-and then sagely assured us that we were looking upon the very place which Catullus occupied while writing his Odes to Lesbia. I was so poetically indignant that I did not ask him to adduce a single proof; but I afterwards reflected that whatever belief I might choose to indulge, there is no more proof that it is not, than that it is.”

Proceeding by the ancient Via Æmilia, they came to Verona, the birth-place of Catullus, Pliny the elder, and Paulo Veronese. Of its majestic amphitheatre, Leila

thus speaks: "With the grandeur of the amphitheatre I was much impressed-it is a surprising structure. It is composed of large blocks of marble, and is considered the most perfect remain of Roman architecture which now exists. It is to be regretted that the greater portion of the upper range of arches in the exterior wall is destroyed; thereby the effect is greatly diminished. Within, however, the preservation is surprising. To the interior there are two principal entrances. The arena is encircled by forty-five rows of seats. The form of the amphitheatre is oval in length it is 464 feet; in width, 367 feet, French measure.”

Going forward, we bring our travellers within sight of the city of Venice. The floating churches, domes, palaces, and spires of Venice, are now united to the mainland by a railway thrown across the lagoon. Those however, who prefer the poetic association of the adventure-suggestive gondola, to the thunder and rattling of the unpoetic railway train, may still enjoy the luxury of a transport on the rippling waves. Numerous gondolas, and polite and characteristically attired gondoliers, are in constant readiness,

Leila has drawn a lively picture of their approach to Venice :

"It was a lovely moonlight evening as we approached the Adriatic; and such a moonlight-so soft and yet so bright and clear, as I never saw before-a thorough Italian sky and landscape. The sparkling eyes of night twinkled like precious brilliants in the liquid azure. An exquisitely-tinted, bluish-roseate mist, hovered over the plains which stretched before and on each side of us; the effect was rendered intensely beautiful-became in