LETTER LXXVII.

Milan.

OR a poft or two after leaving Flo

FOR

rence, and about as much before you arrive at Bologna, the road is very agreeable; the reft of your journey between those two cities is over the fandy Apennines.

We had the good fortune to find at Bologna Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Mr. Fitzherbert, Mr. Kennedy, Lord Lumley, and Sir Harry Featherfton. Our original intention was to have proceeded without delay to Milan; but on fuch an agreeable meeting it was impoffible not to remain a few days at Bologna.

I went to the academy on the day of diftributing the prizes for the beft fpecimens and defigns in painting, fculpture,

and architecture; a difcourfe in praise of the fine arts was pronounced by one of the profeffors, who took that opportunity of enumerating the fine qualities of the Cardinal Legate; none of the virtues, great or small, were omitted on the occafion; all were attributed in the fuperlative degree to this accomplished prince of the church, The learned orator acknowledged, however, that this panegyric did not properly belong to his fubject, but hoped that the audience, and particularly the Legate himself, who was prefent, would forgive him, in confideration that the eulogy had been wrung from him by the irresistible force of truth. The fame force drew forth fomething fimilar in praise of the Gonfalonier and other magistrates who were prefent alfo; and, what you may think very remarkable, the number and importance of the qualities attributed to thofe diftinguished perfons kept an exact proportion with their rank. Power in this happy city feems to have been weighed

weighed in the fcales of juice, and diftributed by the hand of wisdom. All the inferior magistrates, we were informed, are very worthy men, endowed with many excellent qualities; the Gonfalonier has many more, and the Legate poffeffes every virtue under the fun. If the Pope had entered the room, the too lavish profeffor would not have been able to help him to a fingle morfel of praise which had not been already ferved up.

This town is at prefent quite full of ftrangers, who came to affift at the proceffion of Corpus Domini. The Duke of Parma, feveral Cardinals, and other perfons of high diftinction, besides a prodigious crowd of citizens, attended this great feftival. The streets through which the Hoft was carried, under a magnificent canopy, were adorned with tapestry, paintings, looking-glaffes, and all the various kinds of finery which the inhabitants could produce. Many of the

paintings feemed unfuitable to the occafion; they were on profane, and fome of them on wanton fubjects; and it appeared extraordinary to fee the figures of Venus, Minerva, Apollo, Jupiter, and others of that abdicated family, arranged along the walls in honour of a triumph of the Corpus Chrifti.

On our way to Milan we ftopped a fhort time at Modena, the capital of the duchy of that name. The whole duchy is about fifty miles in length, and twentyfix in breadth; the town contains twenty thousand inhabitants; the ftreets are in general large, ftraight, and ornamented with porticoes. This city is furrounded by a fortification, and farther fecured by a citadel; it was anciently rendered famous by the fiege which Decimus Brutus fuftained here againft Marc Antony.

We proceeded next to Parma, a beautiful town, confiderably larger than Modena,

and

and defended like it, by a citadel and regular fortification. The ftreets are well built, broad, and regular, The town is divided unequally by the little river Parma, which loses itself in the Po, ten or twelve miles from this city.

The theatre is the largest of any in Europe; and confequently a great deal larger than there is any occafion for. Every body has observed, that it is fo favourable to the voice, that a whisper from the ftage is heard all over this immense house; but nobody tells us on what circumftance in the conftruction this surprising effect depends.

The Modenese was the native country of Correggio, but he paffed most of his life at Parma. Several of the churches are ornamented by the pencil of that great artist, particularly the cupola of the cathedral; the painting of which has been so greatly admired for the grandeur of the defign and the boldness of the fore-fhortenings.

8

It is

now