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I was going to say some dismal word or two about this village of Simplon, and the hotel-an hour's ride from the top of the mountain on the side of Italy; but really this fire waxes warm, and I have not a heart for it. As to the cold, we have been riding for some hours amid snowy peaks, on some of which the snow was descending, while the vapour that curled around others looked cold, and chilly, and benumbed -altogether making an appearance enough in unison with the state of the atmosphere, and sufficient to account for it. I wonder the trees grow here; but they do grow-the hemlocks, larches, and firs fill the defiles and gorges along which the Simplon road comes, and obstinately push far up the mountain precipices and peaks; yes, and men grow here, and clamber and cling wherever (I had almost said) the chamois can leap, or the eagle fly; they grow, and their houses grow, and multiply, on steep declivities to which one would think they could hardly hold on, and seemingly inaccessible patches, where, the wonder is, that they ever got, or getting, ever find their way back to the world. Yet so they live a hardy race, and, I believe, simple and innocent. I could not help breathing my blessing upon them, as I fixed my eye for some moments upon the last green spot of Switzerland about Brieg-and mingling prayers for them with my regrets that I shall probably never see Swiss valley or mountain more.

The Simplon road is everywhere an easy ascent, cut out with immense labour and expense from the side of the mountain, and sometimes passing, by what are called galleries, through the very brow of the mountain. Along the summit are nine houses of refuge, substantially built, and occupied for the purpose of providing shelter and relief for travellers, in the storms that, of course, in winter, rage here with great violence. In addition to this provision, an immensely large convent is erected for the residence of monks, who are to consider themselves as pledged to these offices of mercy. It is a problem worthy of attention, why the Roman Catholic religion furnishes more examples of extraordinary exertions and sacrifices, than any other form of Christianity. It is a problem; but I cannot discuss it here, on the top of the mountains. I may find time and inclination on some journalizing day, to enter into a discussion of this and other moral claims of the Roman Catholic system.

BAVENA, ON LAKE MAGGIORE, October 6.—I feel that I am approaching the mighty land, the Ultima Thule of my pilgrimage; I am on the south side of the Alps-but to turn back to the route.

I thought it quite unfortunate as I rose this morning, that the day was overcast with clouds, and threatened rain; but the bright, fantastic mists that floated around the tops of the mountains soon presented aspects that afforded compensation for the want of a clear sky. Indeed, I had not seen the Alps before, under these aspects; for at Grindelwald it was a close and heavy veil that settled down upon them. But here nothing could be more light and airy. There was no wind sensible to us below, and it seemed as if the mist were moved by some power within itself. Now it sailed along with a majestic sweep around the mountain's brow; then it plunged down into some profound abyss, as if, like the furies, it bore a victim to the dark prison below; and again it rose up, disclosing, but shadowing, the awful depths-as it were the foundations of the world. Other clouds floated along the mountain

sides, attracting, repelling, passing and repassing, mingling and parting, like the skirmishing forces of an army; and sometimes meeting, they held a momentary conflict, and then mounting up, carried the aerial war into the region of clouds-unveiling, at the same time, some stupendous precipice, dark and awful, as if it had been blasted and blackened by the thunder of heaven.

But it is useless to try to describe, and I wonder that I renew my efforts and failures. Let us come to the road; it is terra firma, and it can be measured-and yet not exactly described neither. It is fourteen or fifteen leagues long (i. e. thirty or forty miles) and twenty-five feet broad, and descends generally about six or seven feet in a hundred; and was made in four years (having been commenced in 1801), and employed three thousand men, and required one hundred and fifty thousand quintals of powder for blasting, and cost, I know not how much I have heard it said to be eight millions of crowns-and finally the expense was borne jointly by Bonaparte and the Italian states. So that it is Bonaparte's road only as he projected it, and by his energy and influence caused it to be carried through. The road this side of the mountain is, in the engineering required and the scenery displayed, far more striking than that on the side of Switzerland. It passes by, and under, and through the most tremendous precipices, among roaring cascades, and over ravines and gorges that seem unfathomable; the passage is one of such horrors as I have not seen anywhere else in Switzerland; the vistas, the depths, the heights-everything above, beneath, before, behind, and around you, is marked with stupendous and awful grandeur; the rocks that lie around you, and which have fallen from the precipices, leave all others to be stones or pebbles in the comparison-and yet you are carried along this road, and through all these objects so sublime, and almost frightful-carried as easily and smoothly as if you were taking an airing in the Regent's Park. The passage is completed at the grand bridge of Crevola, where you enter one of the beautiful valleys of Piedmont, and through it come down to the Lake Maggiore.

It is singular, but the moment you reach the vineyards, on the south side of the Alps, you find a totally different style of cultivation. On the north side, and indeed all along up the Rhone, vineyards look precisely like nurseries-nurseries, say, of maple trees, for that is the shape of the leaf-about three or four feet high; and nothing, certainly, can be less picturesque than such a vineyard. But here the vines run upon frames, with green grass beneath, and present the appearance of a whole country of arbours. It is, of course, far more beautiful. By the bye, the only tolerable grapes I have tasted since I came to the Continent, I bought yesterday, in coming up the Simplon. They have been, with other fruit, upon our table every day, and every day I have tasted of them, and that is all. Indeed, the ripening season has been very cold, and unfavourable for all fruit. Yet so impossible do these people think it to make a dinner without fruit, that if they raised nothing but apples of Sodom, I believe they would make you up a dessert

of them.

On the seventh, before sunrise, I was on Lake Maggiore, with two chance fellow-travellers, to visit the islands of Madre and Bella. The first is laid out as a garden and pleasure ground, and is with the views

from it-openings to which are left through the trees-very picturesque. Yet a neighbouring mountain, clothed with heaven's beautythe air- was more than all that the art of man can do.

His art, by the bye, has been very poorly exerted on Bella-in the person of the Borromean family, to whom this lake, and an extensive country about it belongs-for Bella (the beautiful) is made by terraces, rising one above another, and lessening towards the top, to look very much like a Chinese pagoda. We went over the palace, which is filled with paintings that seemed to me, with the exception of a Cleopatra, miserable. But there was one thing that really made the spot worth visiting; and that was the basement story, consisting of a very extensive suite of rooms, finished in the grotto style-a sort of mosaic work in pebbles and shells, covering the floors and ceilings, and sides indeed, except where a slab of marble was here and there inlaid. These apartments open by window-doors, upon the very water of the lake, inviting every breath of air, and with seats around, looked as if they might be the very retreats of pleasure, in a warm climate.

LAKE MAGGIORE -MILAN

CHAPTER XII.

CATHEDRAL OF MILAN ITALIAN SKY-PUBLIC GROUNDS AND PROMENADES IN THE CITIES AND VILLAGES OF THE CONTINENT -PLAINS OF LOMBARDY-PARMA- SABBATH SCENES -MUSIC BOLOGNA -COVIGLIAJO.

SESTO, October 7.-It was not till I got to the lower or south end Lake Maggiore, and fairly out of the mountain region, that I began to feel as if I were in Italy. I could not help thinking it was a specimen we had, as we passed over the Ticino, just after it issues from the lake, to Sesto. The boat was as clumsy and crazy a thing as if steamboats had never been heard of; consisting, indeed, of two boats lashed together, and drawn over by pulling upon a rope stretched and fastened from bank to bank. This was one part of the specimen. For the other-when we had got under way, out stepped a fiddler, and, after twanging his instrument a little, sung and played several airs with great apparent enthusiasm. It was a very agreeable, and even touching welcome to the land of song-ay, and of poverty, too; for this was a method of gaining a livelihood, and, I thought, a very ingenious one; for the music you must have; and I never knew anybody to refuse to pay for an offered treat of this kind But alas! how I have fallen away from the romance of the thing!

Not far from Sesto, we passed through the village of Soma, in, or near which, is thought to have been the battle ground of the conflict between Hannibal and Scipio. In the village stands an immensely large and evidently very ancient cypress, which tradition indeed would make almost old enough to have seen the battle. Take your map, and

* This was Hannibal's first battle in Italy; his second was with Sempronius near Plauntia; his third with Flaminius on Lake Thrasymene; his fourth with Varro, at Cannæ.

I will point out to you Hannibal's route into Italy; at least so M. De Luc, of Geneva, who has written a book on the subject, showed it to me. Up the Rhone, then, to Vienne, a small town a little below Lyons. Then he struck for the Alps, which he passed by Mont St. Bernard. He reached Aosta, and penetrated, I believe, something farther into Italy; when finding that Turin would not submit to him, and unwilling to leave an enemy behind, he turned back to subdue that city. He then advanced again, and met Scipio, it is said, near Oleggio-near to which town is Soma.

MILAN, October 8.-The route from Lake Maggiore to Milan is not interesting; unless fields of Indian corn, and vineyards, and mulberry trees, and the chestnut, and hedges of acacia, ought to make it so.

The approach to Milan, through a vista of fine linden trees which Napoleon caused to be planted, is very fine; and the entrance is to be, when it is finished, through a magnificent marble arch, commenced by Bonaparte, in commemoration of the great Simplon road, which is considered as terminating here.

The priest and the soldier are seen here at every corner-the former with a three-cornered, cocked-up hat, and a kind of cassock, or black surtout; the latter in a white costume. They represent, indeed, the twofold despotism under which Italy is suffering. The priests are Italian, it is true, but the military are almost exclusively Austrian. Those, however, who wish to throw off the yoke, seem quite as much to fear the former as the latter-for all their secrets are constantly liable to be betrayed to the priests, in the confessional. A man's foes, indeed, become those of his own household-his wife, daughter, or sister.

Scenes in Milan.—(I cannot describe at length, but will just hint at them.) Into the hollow square or court-yard of the grand Hotel de Ville, on which my chamber window looks, drives a splendid carriage, containing a lady (a Russian countess) and little girl, three dogs, and on the seats (behind and before), three servants. The lady gets out, the dogs follow; but are soon caught by the servants, caressed, and put back again. The principal servant is dressed à la mode militaire, more splendidly than any general officer I ever saw on a review day, in our own country. The said servant comes up to the carriage, calls the dogs to him, and kisses them-dogs and man, chops to chops -par nobile fratrum. Another-in the same court under my window, in which the canaille figure. Three postilions are scolding in Italian, about some matter in dispute, I know not what. And truly, I never heard a language for scolding like this Italian. It can be spoken, I think, more rapidly than any other, and there is something so decided and manly in the tones of it-far more than in the French or English. The three postilions, for about five minutes, talked all together, and all gestured as if their arms must have had steel fibres, and their lungs were as much more energetic than any other human lungs, as Perkin's steam guns, discharging a thousand balls in a minute, are beyond all other guns. Oh! hear an Italian scold, if you would know what scolding may be. One of our people, upon a thousandth part of the apparent provocation, would have silently knocked his fellow down. The English canaille, too, make a great noise in their quarrels, with as little result; but their noise, compared with the

Italian, is as a heavy lumbering coach, compared with the most active and energetic steam carriage. Then, as to talking in general-surely it is this people's meat and drink. This house is a perfect Babel. Such a racket of voices as comes from the court, the stairways, and passages, all the day long and all the evening, I never heard before. Our American intercourse is absolute silence, compared with it. Once more to mount up again into the higher regions: a carriage is approaching the palace of the vice king-(the brother of the emperor of Austria) immediately the word is passed along the line of soldiery, stationed in front of the palace; they get under arms; the drums beat; the officers in attendance take off their hats and bow low; I look to see who it is in the carriage that makes this sensation; and I discover, on the back seat of this stately carriage, three little boys! The streets they are full of people; they are full of talk and laughter; they are full of London-like cries; they are full of carriages, with fine horses; the priests, in solemn robes, sweep by at every moment: the dashing soldiers are continually passing and repassing; females, of good person, many of them wearing veils on their heads instead of bonnets, many wearing nothing, are constantly promenading, as if they had nothing else to do; but as many more are attending at the counters of the shops; and the toil of men, with the hammer, and the saw, and the lathe, and the silk spinning or weaving, breaks upon the ear from all quarters; the church bells are perpetually ringing, as if every day were a Sabbath, and votaries are passing in and out of the temples; the city seems to be full of immense palaces, built around hollow squares, and some of them with curtained balconies in front. One would think, from looking at the outside of things, that there must be great wealth here, and great happiness.

I attended service yesterday in the cathedral. Was it not a glorious thing, amid that rich but dim light, streaming through painted windows-amid those stately marble columns, and beneath those majestic arches and sculptured ceilings-with the notes of the pealing organ, and incense, flung from many censers to bear the soul up to heaven-was it not a glorious thing to worship there? I did so, and did not desire to doubt that many others did.

This cathedral is of white marble, four hundred and forty-five feet long, two hundred and eighty-nine broad at the transept, three hundred and fifty-six in height-to the top of the spire, that is-supported by one hundred and sixty columns, seventy-seven feet high, floored with tessellated marble, and has, in and about it, including figures in bas relief, four thousand five hundred marble statues. And yet what is this mysterious principle of proportion?-the sight of it does not swell the heart—not mine at least-with such admiration as the simple, glorious York minster. It is too broad for the height. And then, although built of marble, the walls are sadly weather-stained, so as to be scarcely more beautiful than the coarse stone of England. Its hundred pinnacles, indeed-each one crowned with a statue, standing out in the bright sky, and kept perfectly white by the action of the pure elements are a glorious vision.

And amid what a sky were they lifted up yesterday! Where were there ever such depths of splendour in any heaven, as in this of Italy! This is the peculiarity. Not that the colour is richer than I have seen

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