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PALLADIANISTS, ETC.

world to agree with me; still I apprehend that his admirers are every day decreasing in number, and now completely in a minority. Be that as it may, I am not disposed to qualify a tittle of what I advanced, leaving others who may think it worth while, and be able to do so, to vindicate their idol, and to point out more clearly and satisfactorily than they hitherto have done, those peculiar beauties which I am too obtuse to dis-i cern. But I am under no very great apprehension of being called to account for what I have here said, finding that Mr. Hosking has not been taken to task by any of his brother architects for attempting to upset -nay even render supremely ridiculous, a no less venerable authority than Vitruvius himself, whose writings, he declares, convey about as much knowledge of architecture, as Gulliver's Travels do of geography! According to him, Vitruvius was a mere "old woman, addicted to the most insufferable gossip and twaddling. With equal contempt for the opinion of the million, and for routine and by rote-repeated admiration, does he attack the so-called style of Louis Quatorze, going so far as to abuse Louis himself for the vulgar grossness

* This common and offensively ungallant phrase, so injurious to the fair sex, is, in its derivation, quite innocent of any disparaging allusion to gender, since it comes from the Greek Novg. To this root the privative a being affixed, gives Avove, i. e. a person without nous : this the Romans adopted and converted into anûs, applying the term to "auncient females," and from them the equivalent litera expression has been adopted into all modern languages, in defiance of sound etymology and good-breeding.

of his taste; which said style, by the by, notwithstanding its childish unmeaningness and uncouthness of forms of shapes intolerable, save for the glitter of gilding, we are now attempting to revive again, as if in their weariness of the à la Grèque, our architects and decorators could deviate into nothing more original or suitable than the frippery magnificence of Louis XIV., except it be the no less grotesque and ponderous conceits of what is called the Elizabethan style, although in fact no more than the crude fashion of a mongrel period in art.

This, or as much of it, as the reader may choose, is to be considered parenthetical, although, should he happen to have any taste for the subject of which it treats, he will not grudge the space it occupies, because whether he assents to the remarks themselves, or not, he will perceive that they profess to be founded upon something like reasons.

Vicenza is situated at the junction of two small rivers, which are crossed by three bridges, that of St. Michael being built after a design of Palladio. Like Venice, although in less degree, it has suffered materially from political changes, and appears to be in a state of gradual decay. What trade there is, consists in the manufacture of silks, artificial flowers, and earthenware. Yet, if by no means a flourishing place, Vicenza has the merit of being a clean, well paved town; and the people appear to be more attentive to

neatness within doors than is customary in Italy. Still the whole place has something of a forlorn look that excites painful feelings; nor do the number of beggars at all tend to decrease it. In the way of antiquities, it contains hardly any thing — not even belonging to the period of the middle ages; for the few specimens of Gothic architecture there are, either very inconsiderable or very uninteresting. The church of San Lorenzo was converted by the French into a storehouse or barn, owing to which it is hardly possible to judge what it may formerly have been. The cathedral or duomo is anything but beautiful externally, or rather, the front is positively ugly; neither is it very much better within, as it consists of only a single nave, and that by no means well proportioned. It is remarkable, however, for its exceedingly large tribune, and for the rich marbles of which the high altar is composed.

Santa Maria di Monte Berico, which was built by Palladio, is a rotunda with three porticos, situated on the summit of a hill, approached by a long series of arcades. Within, this rotunda opens into the old chapel of the convent of the Minorites, with which it forms a singular but by no means disagreeable contrast, the cheerfulness of the one serving to render the gloom of the other more mysterious and impressive. In the refectory of the convent one of the walls is entirely covered with a large painting by Paul Veronese, representing Pope Gregory the Great seated at table with

DI MONTE BERICO.

109

Christ, in the habit of a pilgrim, a strange subject, but treated with uncommon mastery and vigour, and remarkable for the extraordinary effect of the perspective. From the windows of the same apartment there is a delightful prospect of the surrounding country and the environs of Vicenza, chequered with fields and vineyards, and studded over with villas and groups of houses, to say nothing of the groups of water-nymphs, alias washerwomen who pursue their aquatic labours in boats on the Bacchiglione, beguiling their toil with various tunes and ditties, of which it may certainly be said that they were "by distance made more sweet," because less shrill.

DUOMO.

MICHELI.

VERONA.

SAN ZENO.

MONTEBELLO.

GENERAL

BRIDGES.

CHURCHES.

S. ANASTASIA, ETC. SAN

- PIAZZA BRA. AMPHITHEATRE.

DE' BORSARI.-PINDEMONTE.

PORTA

TOMB OF JULIET, ETC.

THE country between Vicenza and Verona is even more agreeable than that we had passed through between Padua and the first mentioned place. It seemed one continued garden, the sides of the road being lined with acacias, mulberry, and other trees, and the fields. bearing testimony to the excellence of the soil and the fatness of the land. Besides which, instead of a flat champaign, the surface is pleasingly diversified by swells and hollows, although not in such degree as can be termed a combination of hill and vale. In some parts, however, the scenery assumes a bolder character, and at about twelve miles from Vicenza, we passed the remains of an ancient fortress, situated on an eminence looking down upon Montebello, a place which gave the duke to one of Napoleon's satellites. At Villa Nova we halted for the purpose of taking some refreshment, and as all around this place had been the scene of hard con