changes which are now developing themselves throughout the social system of nearly all the rest of Europe, not excluding Turkey itself, can hardly fail to reach Italy, and then instead of breaking the shock, her subserviency to Catholicism may only render it all the more violent and clashing; and the sudden revolution of opinions is as likely as not to lay her church prostrate, causing it to be regarded as an edifice too crazy to admit of being repaired, and therefore better demolished and swept away altogether to make room for another more in accordance with actual exigencies.

FROM Bergamo we directed our course towards Lecco, which is situated on a branch or arm of the lake of Como, distinguished by the name of Lago di Lecco; and we now took leave of that fertile plain through which we had travelled the whole way from Padua, turning off from the main road into one that led across the mountains. During our passage through Lombardy, if we had been struck both by the fertility of the soil and the care bestowed on its cultivation, we were no less so, and equally to our satisfaction, at finding so great a contrast between this part of Italy and the Papal States, where half the population seems to consist of beggars and haggard mendicants, who incessantly demand alms of all travellers; a tolerable proof of bad government, when they might be usefully employed in tilling lands that now lie utterly waste.*

* In Bavaria, on the contrary, the laws against mendicancy are so exceedingly strict, not to say harsh, that it is absolutely forbidden, under a severe penalty, for any one to give alms to beggars in the streets or highways.

After travelling so long upon a level flat, the transition from that to the district we now entered was exceedingly striking; and after passing some small villages beautifully situated in hollows, beside a glassy lake which reflected them and the mountains above them as in a crystal mirror, fringed around with a margin of verdure, we reached a romantic vale, most delightful for its air of happy pastoral seclusion and tranquillity, and equally so for the variety of its landscape. At one while we passed close beneath jagged rocky cliffs; at another, along the banks of a stream meandering amid garden, grove, and vineyard, so mingled that it was difficult to say which predominated. Beyond towered the Alpine pinnacles, some bare, others mantled with a fleece of snow:

Mountain, and vale, and waters all imbued
With beauty, and in quietness.

The whole together formed a scene of delicious retirement, quite shut out from all commerce with the busy world, and rarely intruded upon by strangers like ourselves. In fact this enchanting spot lies quite out of the beaten road of travellers, consequently, its varied beauties have not obtained for it that notoriety which it deserves; yet I know not whether greater notoriety is to be desired for it, or that it should become one of the lions to which all the mob of travellers pay a visit. Its sylvan haunts would seem absolutely profaned, were

VERBAL PAINTING.

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they haunted by flocks of tourists and sketchers; and one would be half put out of conceit with it, were one to pop upon a party of London acquaintances issuing from between jutting crags that would have afforded studies to a Salvator, or from bowering groves that seem to have risen from the fabled elysium. Here the landscape painter and the landscape gardener might study nature under some of her choicest forms and more alluring combinations. Here, too, would the botanist and mineralogist meet with new stores suddenly opened to them in this fair region which has hitherto hardly been at all explored with a view to the enrichment of their sciences; while the meditative lover of nature could hardly fail to gaze in silent rapture on this beauteous miniature epitome of the universal scheme. I do not pretend to describe; for after all, the most exact description can accomplish nothing positive, except in the way of re-awaking ideas dormant in the memories of those who have beheld either the same or very similar scenes. Painting with words is, for the most part, mere slobbering; and, at the very best, amounts to little more than setting before the eye the tints which go to compose the colouring of a picture, but conveying no idea of arrangement and forms; so that in its liveliest and most animated specimens, this sort of writing necessarily bears some similitude to Milton's personification of Death. Arrived at Lecco, where we found about six hundred Austrian soldiers, posted by way

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CROSSING THE LAKE.

of garrison over the surrounding district, we embarked on the lake, not in a trim steam vessel, such as we crossed the Adriatic in from Venice to Trieste, but in a rude flatbottomed boat, with no other covering than an awning of canvass stretched on broad hoops; and yet, even this sorry accommodation was, I dare say, delicate and luxurious compared with the ships in which the Greeks made their expedition against Troy, for our bark contained a table extending between the benches on each side. It had only one sail a square one, but was rowed along by four men; the chief use of said sail being, apparently, to catch, every now and then, a sudden gust of wind that threatened to upset us, thereby calling to mind, more for our disquietude than edification at the moment, sundry trite similes relative to the frailty of human existence and the precariousness of all mortal affairs; since most truly did we reckon ourselves embarked in a most precious concern, and turned adrift in a piece of frailty. By way of quieting our fears, the men assured us that the wind frequently sweeps over the lake with tremendous violence — a piece of information that caused us to eye our sail with a suspicious glance. The senior of the crew was garrulously communicative, telling us of the number of great folks he had had the honour of taking under his charge, over the lake, in the course of the half century during which he had followed his vocation; among others, of Queen Caroline of England, or rather the Princess of Wales, whom he