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nant than Padua.* The people, he observes, appeared to move along the streets more by mechanical, than any other impulse. "In the seats before the coffee-houses, were persons in whose looks were painted all the miseries of ennui.” The same array is, however, witnessed at Paris. It is only commerce that can completely exclude this spectacle of listlessness in some considerable part of the population of a large city. The demon of ennui stalks abroad in the most brilliant capitals of pleasure, and even of science. There is a most interesting association of ideas in the case of Ferrara, and one cannot but sigh over the truth of the Count de Stendhall's pert observation,-that the pope's legate might feed a regiment of horse, with the grass that grows in her streets.

The environs of Bologna are rich and gay, and the interior of the city presents a scene not so widely dissimilar, though still one of much general poverty: its houses are furnished with continued arcades; "under shelter of which you walk from one extremity of the city to the other without being incommoded with rain or sunshine." The streets are narrow, but well paved; and many of the palaces and churches are in a style of splendid, if not pure architecture. As Bologna was the second school of painting in Italy, not to say on a level with Rome and Florence, it has a multitude of fine pictures, from which our countryman cannot disengage himself for several pages. We like better the despatch of Forsyth in this particular, on the same spot. "Here are," says he, "Guido's two apostles, a picture considered as the finest left in Italy. I can conceive no excellence beyond the figure of Peter. Indeed, so excellent is art in this case, that it disappears, and gives up the work to sentiment. I might heap tecknical phrases on this divine picture, but I could not convey my own impressions."

Academical degrees were invented and first conferred in the university of Bologna. Her present learned institutions, as our countryman informs us, are not unworthy of her early eminence. The library, observatory, cabinet of natural history and anatomy, and chemical laboratory, distributed through the splendid pile allotted to the institute, are all well furnished. It is observed of Bologna by Forsyth, that notwithstanding all the learning in its bosom, it has suffered its dialect-which Dante admired as the purest of Italy-to degenerate into a coarse, thick, truncated jargon, full of apocope, and unintelligible to strangers. To this we may add, that there has been a similar degeneracy in others of the different dialects of the Peninsula, which amount perhaps to twenty strongly individuated.

Our traveller proceeded by Florence to Rome.

'As we descended the Apennines, there was a sensible change in the face of the country, which no longer presented the wild and uncouth

* Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,

Whose symmetry was not for solitude, &c.—

Canto iv. Childe Harold.

features of the mountainous solitudes we had passed, but was highly cultivated and populous. The fair landscapes which Tuscany now presented, corresponded with the idea I had formed of the beauty and fertility of Italy. Nor did the manners and aspect of its inhabitants inspire sensations less gay, than its smiling scenery. They approached and saluted us, in the pure and harmonious language of their country.' 'The peasant girls are animated, and sometimes beautiful, and the smartness of their looks, is not a little improved by a hat and plume, and their graceful manner of wearing it. The better class of them, load themselves with a profusion of jewelry. The diamonds they wear are, to be sure, not of the first water, nor the pearls of the most brilliant whiteness, or of the finest shape, but what they want in quality, they make up in quantity. Their manners are courteous, and the turn of their expressions, as has frequently been remarked, is sprightly and graceful. As I was admiring a rose in the dress of one of them, she said to me m'a regalato un giovinotto di sessant'anni; it is a present from a youth of sixty years of age. The vivacity, which characterizes the peasantry of Tuscany, has an influence on the mind, not less delightful, than the unrivalled beauty of its climate, and the gay embroidery of its fields and meadows.

'When they go abroad or visit on festival days, they make a ludicrous exhibition of their wealth, in the ornaments of their persons. The family of a rich Tuscan farmer was pointed out to me, in a barge on the Brenta. The good man himself wore two golden watches, with immense chains that hung half way to his knees. The large arms and hands of his dame, sparkled with rings and bracelets, and as many old fashioned pearls and diamonds, were displayed on the persons of his daughters, as would have furnished a common jeweler's shop.

'As I approached Florence, an atmosphere perfumed with flowers, and the scenery of the Arno, which was in all its beauty, realized the most flattering pictures my imagination had previously formed of this enchanting vale. On entering the city by the Porto di St. Gallo, I admired the long and spacious streets before me, which had nothing of the heaviness of those of Bologna, and the edifices I passed indicated a purer taste in architecture, than I had yet seen exemplified in the cities of Italy.'

We cannot accompany him while he passes in review the numerous monuments of the fine arts, upon which he has fixed among the countless treasures of the kind which this celebrated city contains. The gallery particularly is a track so much beaten, that there is something of indolence in pursuing its details. He expresses himself, moreover, so formally in the third person, that he has the appearance of being intent upon the catalogue raisonnée, rather than of speaking from the fullness of his own vivid recollections.

A chapter similar to that of Forsyth, on the manners of Florence, would, we must confess, have been more acceptable to us than all the glowing description and episodical discussion which we have in its stead, although these possess, apart, strong claims to our approbation. We shall extract what little seems to us to bear upon the character of the Florentines.

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'At Florence there is a class of poetasters, who, when a stranger arrives, wait upon him and present him with a copy of verses, celebrating his visit to the banks of the Arno. The morning after my arrival, the cameriere entered my apartment, and desired to know if I would allow him to introduce to me one of these sons of Apollo. The poet made his appearance and addressed me with all the courtesy characteristic of a Florentine, and the purport of his discourse was to explain to me the nature and object of a little book which he held in his hand, and which he begged me to accept. Upon opening it, I laughed to find my name inscribed in the title page, with many appellations of honour prefixed to it, and my character exalted with every extravagant epithet of verse.'

A serene sky that darted its beams into my apartment, and a scftly undulating atmosphere, announced one of those fine mornings, not unusuai in Tuscany. I directed my steps to the borders of the Arno, and joined the multitude that was passing through the Porta al Prato. I arrived among the groves that shade the borders of the river, and hailed the stream, to whose murmurs Milton used to listen with delight, and upon whose banks shaded by poplars, and strewed with violets, he was wont to lay and court the Tuscan muse,

Canto del mio buon popolo non inteso,

E'l bel, Tamigi cangio col bel Arno.

As I proceeded onward, I perceived tents erected, and tables covered with refreshments, and old men and women with flowers in their hats, and children gambolling before them upon the green; with these were intermixed dancing groups, whose graceful and debonair steps were expressive of light hearts and animated feelings. The aristocracy of wealth and fashion drove up, in their splendid equipages, to this scene, and contemplated it from the windows of their carriages, or descended among the dancers upon the green.'

That proud fastidiousness, with which the noble and opulent of other countries are apt to look down upon the amusements of the lower orders, and which is not less characteristick of a want of taste, than of an unnatural insensibility, which refuses to sympathize with the pleasures or sorrows of the poor, is a trait which does not mark the higher classes in Italy, however, some circumstances may seem to favour the supposition of such a feature in their character.'

We have already quoted from Forsyth respecting the manners and morals of Florence.-The following passages from the same author more fully convey his impressions:

Though the modes of society have lately changed, the general character of the Florentines remains the same. In tracing some lines of that character, I must, in gratitude, begin with their civility; which springs, I do believe, from a sincere desire of obliging, though it is often too much loaded with protestations. But they are more than civil; they are naturally humane; this I should infer, not from the readiness of their tears alone, but from their extensive private and public charities.

The virtues of the Florentines are, however, all of the passive, christian kind. Their sturdiness of spirit vanished with the republic. They have exchanged the more turbulent virtues, for the qualites that can adorn a slave.

The Florentines have ever been remarked for their curiosity. This formerly led them to mobs, bloodshed and insurrection, and now it degenerates into the silly gape of a village.

A stranger entering Florence on a holiday, would greatly overrate the wealth of its inhabitants. All ranks live in a state of ambitious poverty; of splendor abroad and penury at home; or, as the French termed them on their disappointment, "habit de velours et ventre deson." A Florentine of the frugal class will suffer no luxury in his possession to remain idle. When he does not use it himself, he contrives to let his carriage for the day: if he cannot attend the theatre, he lets his box for the evening; and would let his wife for the night, but Signora secures that perquisite for herself.

They carry the same economy in parade to their establishment of servants, whom they affect to call the famiglia, as the Romans did their slaves. Indeed, the old contention for numbers, the "quæstio quot pascit servos," still prevails among rich Italians. Here the footmen, if numerous, are generally selected from among mechanics; and, when their appearance is not required in livery, they are kept working for the family as upholsterers, tailors and shoemakers; for so easily satisfied is the love of cleanliness, that one man's broom is sufficient for a whole palace.

'In every great house there are two confidential servants; the widow, who is employed in all commissions of delicacy, and consulted on every point where propriety is doubtful; and the secretary, who is the more necessary here, as few noblemen are capable of writing a letter.

'How degenerate the patricians of the present day from their accomplished ancestors? for more than three ages did the Tuscan nobility surpass all Europe in literature and science, as poets, as physicians, as professors. The six greatest Tuscans that ever lived, were all noble. After this the class of goldsmiths produced the most celebrated names.'

According to Eustace, the neighbourhood of Florence presents as great a portion of rural beauty, hill and dale, orchard and vineyard, cottage and villa, as the environs of any capital in Europe; Naples excepted. The city is seated in a vale intersected by the Arno,* and bordered by mountains of various forms, rising gradually towards the Apennines. The whole vale is one continued grove and garden, where the beauty of the country is enlivened by the animation of the town, and the fertility of the soil, redoubled by the industry of its cultivators.

'The environs,' says Forsyth,' owe their beauty to a race of farmers who are far more industrious, intelligent and liberal, than their neighbours, born to the same sun and soil. The peasantry pass the year in a vicissitude of hard labour and jollity. Negligent of their own dress,

*But Arno wins us to the fair white walls
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps,
A softer feeling for her fairy halls;

Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Pleanty leaps
To laughing life, with her redundant horn-
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, &c.

Canto iv. Childe Harold.

they take a pride in the flaring silks and broad ear-rings of their wives and daughters. These assist them in the field: the farms are laboured in the patriarchal style by the brothers, sisters and children. Few of the proprietors round Florence will grant leases; yet, so binding is the force of prescription, so mutual the interest of landlord and tenant, and living in the sight of each others turrets, so close the intertexture of their property, that removals are very rare, and many now occupy the farms which their forefathers tilled during the republic. In addition to our objects of husbandry, the Tuscan has to learn all the complicate processes which produce wine, oil and silk, the principal exports of the state.' This extended husbandry and the peculiar agriculture of Tuscany and of Lombardy-the ingenuity, beauty and productiveness of which, are so much and so justly celebrated, may be traced to their peasantry of the republican era. Stimulated into life and energy by the action of free institutions, this race of men was distinguished for intelligence and the spirit of improvement, while all of the same class throughout the rest of Europe, presented, in the thraldom of villanage, a totally opposite character. They substituted the rotation of crops to the old system of fallows; revived the practices of irrigation and terracing, and set generally the example of that persevering industry, and picturesque neatness in tillage which are now displayed by their descendants, and not excelled in the best cultivated countries.

We may pass from the agriculture of Tuscany and Lombardy, to every thing that is majestic and beautiful, there and in Romagna, and will still find that all belongs to the age of Liberty. The nearly unbroken series of magnificent cities, churches, palaces, and villas, from Novara to Terracina-the master-pieces of art with which they are filled-the noblest productions in the various departments of literature,f-the statesmen and warriors, who make part of the "long array of mighty shadows," in Italian story, are of the era of Italian Independance which finished with the capture of Florence by the generals of Charles V, in fifteen hundred and thirty. "The truth is," says Eustace," that the tide of prosperity which has left so many traces behind, not only in Florence, Pisa, and Sienna, but in almost every town in the northern parts of Italy, such as Mantua, Cremona, Vicentia, and Verona, was the effect of republican industry, and most of the stately edifices which still adorn these cities whether public or private, sacred or profane, were raised by republican taste and magnificence." Forsyth refers to the republican times of Lombardy, not indeed in so solemn a strain as Eustace, but with a view to the same striking lesson. "Though confined within narrow territories, and .separated by the domains of barons who held them at defiance, the principal Lombard Republics, those ambitious apes of Athens and Lacede

*On retrouve dans l' agriculture Florentine le siècle de la plus haute civilization.' Chateauvieux-Lettres écrites d' Italie en 1813.

Except the Jerusalem Delivered, which was published in 1581. Tasso was the last of the inspired race.

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