Or as in scorn, yet more and more inclining Soon a boatman's shout Should have the power, the will to make this world A dismal prison-house, and life itself, Life in its prime, a burden and a curse To him who never wrong'd them! Who that breathes A consciousness how soon we shall be gone, At length the day departed, and the moon So fast it flow'd, her tongue so voluble, Among its golden groves and fruits of gold, XXIII. GENOA. THIS house was Andrea Doria's. Here he lived; (181) Parent and child! How oft where now we rode (180) And here at eve relaxing, when ashore, Or yet more wretched sire, grown grey in chains, A voice in anger cried, "Use all your strength!" But when, ah when, do they that can, forbear To crush the unresisting? Strange, that men, Creatures so frail, so soon, alas' to die, Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse (182) He left it for a better; and 't is now 1 Genoa. "Tis still the noblest dwelling-even in Genoa! "Tis in the heart of Genoa (he who comes, Thy children, for they hail'd thee as their sire; Thou art now Where, when the south-wind blows, and clouds on Gather and fall, the peasant freights his bark, Where the wild-boar retreats, when hunters chafe Thine was a glorious course; but couldst thou Three temples rose in soberest majesty, there, Clad in thy cere-cloth-in that silent vault, A FAREWELL. AND now farewell to Italy-perhaps Many a courtesy, Blessing the nations, and reflecting round Gentle or rude, The wondrous work of some heroic race.2 But now a long farewell! Oft, while I live, narrow limits of our language allow us no other distinction of epic and tragic measures."-JOHNSON. It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In the Paradise Regained they occur oftener than in the Paradise Lost, in the proportion of ten to one; and let it be remembered that they supply us with another close, another cadence; that they add, as it were, a string to the instrument; and, by enabling the Poet to relax at pleasure, to rise and fall with his subject, contribute what is most wanted, compass, variety. Note 7, page 42, col. 1. St. Bruno's once The Grande Chartreuse. It was indebted for its foundation to a miracle; as every guest may learn there from a little book that lies on the table in his cell, the cell allotted to him by the fathers. "In this year the canon died, and, as all believed, in the odor of sanctity: for who in his life had been so holy, in his death so happy? But false are the judgments of men; as the event showeth. For when the hour of his funeral had arrived, when the mourners had entered the church, the bearers set down the bier, and every voice was lifted up in the Miserere, suddenly, and as none knew how, the lights were ex Shakspeare seems to have delighted in them, and in some of his soliloquies has used them four and five times in succession; an example I have not followed in mine. As in the following instance, where the sub-tinguished, the anthem stopt! A darkness succeeded, ject is solemn beyond all others: To be, or not to be, that is the question. They come nearest to the flow of an unstudied eloquence, and should therefore be used in the drama; but why exclusively? Horace, as we learn from himself, admitted the Musa Pedestris in his happiest hours, in those when he was most at his ease; and we cannot regret her visits. To her we are indebted for more than half he has left us; nor was she ever at his elbow in greater dishabille, than when he wrote the celebrated Journey to Brundusium. Note 3, page 41, col. 1. -like him of old. The Abbot of Clairvaux. "To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought," says Gibbon," the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his library that incomparable landscape." Note 4, page 41, col. 1. That winds beside the mirror of all beauty. There is no describing in words; but the following lines were written on the spot, and may serve perhaps to recall to some of my readers what they have seen in this enchanting country. I love to watch in silence till the Sun Sets; and Mont Blanc, array'd in crimson and gold, Note 5, page 41, col. 2. Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me. Berri, so remarkable for his sagacity, was dead. His skin is stuffed, and is preserved in the Museum of Berne. Note 6, page 42, col. 1. But the Bise blew cold. a silence as of the grave; and these words came in sorrowful accents from the lips of the dead. "I am summoned before a Just God!A Just God judgeth me!I am condemned by a Just God!" In the church, says the legend, "there stood a young man with his hands clasped in prayer, who from that time resolved to withdraw into the desert. It was he whom we now invoke as St. Bruno." Note 8, page 42, col. 1. M. Ebel mentions an escape almost as miraculous. L'an 1790, le nommé Christian Boren, propriétaire de l'auberge du Grindelwald, eut le malheur de se jeter dans une fente du glacier, en le traversant avec un troupeau de moutons qu'il ramenoit des pâturages de Bâniseck. Heureusement qu'il tomba dans le voisinage du grand torrent qui coule dans l'intérieur, il en suivit le lit par-dessous les voûtes de glace, et arriva au pied du glacier avec un bras cassé. Cet homme est actuellement encore en vie." Manuel du Voyageur. Art. Grindelwald. -a wondrous monument. Almost every mountain of any rank or condition The north-east wind. This description was writ- has such a bridge. The most celebrated in this counten in June, 1816. Itry is on the Swiss side of St. Gothard. Note 14, page 44, col. 2. speaking, escaped observation. If I cannot supply the deficiency, I will not follow their example; and hap Mine but for those, who, like Jean Jacques, delight. "J'aime beaucoup ce tournoiement, pourvu que je py should I be, if by an intermixture of verse and sois en sûreté."-Les Confessions, 1. iv. Note 18, page 45, col. 2. Like him who, in the days of Minstrelsy. Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Sen. 1. v, ep. Note 19, page 45, col. 2. Before the great Mastino. 3. Mastino de la Scala, the Lord of Verona. Cortusio, the ambassador and historian, saw him so surrounded.-L. 6. This house had been always open to the unfortunate. In the days of Can Grande, all were welcome; Poets, Philosophers, Artists, Warriors. Each had his apartment, each a separate table; and at the hour of dinner, musicians and jesters went from room to room. Dante, as we learn from himself, found an asylum there. Lo primo tuo rifugio, e'l primo ostello Sarà la cortesia del gran Lombardo, Che'n su la scala porta il santo uccelle. Their tombs in the public street carry us back into the times of barbarous virtue; nor less so do those of the Carrara Princes at Padua, though less singular and striking in themselves. Francis Carrara, the Elder, used often to visit Petrarch in his small house at Arqua, and followed him on foot to his grave. Note 20, page 46, col. 1. And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque. The old Palace of the Cappalletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the market-place; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference? When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say with Dante, Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappalletti. Note 21, page 46, col. 1. It has been observed that in Italy the memory sees more than the eye. Scarcely a stone is turned up that has not some historical association, ancient or modern; that may not be said to have gold under it. prose, of prose illustrating the verse, and verse embellishing the prose, I could furnish my countrymen on their travels with a pocket-companion. An old huntsman of the family met her in the haze Still glowing with the richest hues of art. The stutterer was in an agony; the word was inexorable. It was to no purpose that Harlequin suggested another and another. At length, in a fit of despair, he pitched his head full in the dying man's stomach, and the word bolted out of his mouth to the most distant part of the house."-See MOORE'S View of Society in Italy. Note 31, page 47, col. 2. A vast Metropolis. "I love," says a late traveller, "to contemplate, as 88 Note 40, page 49, col. 2. Down which the grizzly head of old Faliero Roll'd from the block. I float along, that multitude of palaces and churches," in the records of the Republic; and his house has, which are congregated and pressed as on a vast raft." from that time to this, been called La Corte del Mil-"And who," says anothor, "can forget his walk lioni," the house of the rich man, the millionnaire. through the Merceria, where the nightingales give It is on the canal of S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, and, you their melody from shop to shop, so that, shutting as long as he lived, was much resorted to by the your eyes, you would think yourself in some forest- curious and the learned. glade, when indeed you are all the while in the middle of the sea? Who can forget his prospect from the great tower, which once, when gilt, and when the sun struck upon it, was to be descried by ships afar off; or his visit to St. Mark's church, where you see nothing, tread on nothing, but what is precious; the floor all agate, jasper; the roof mosaic; the aisle hung with the banners of the subject cities; the front and its five domes affecting you as the work of some unknown people? Yet all this will presently pass away; the waters will close over it; and they, that come, row about in vain to determine exactly where it stood." Note 32, page 47, col. 2. A Caravan. Note 33, page 48, col. 2. A national game of great antiquity, and most probably the "micare digitis" of the Romans. Note 34, page 48, col. 2. -twelve Procurators. The procuratorship of St. Mark was the second dignity in the Republic. Note 35, page 49, col. 1. The brass is gone, the porphyry remains. Note 36, page 49, col. 1. Of the proud Pontiff Alexander III. He fled in disguise to Venice, and is said to have passed the first night on the steps of San Salvatore. The entrance is from the Merceria, near the foot of the Rialto; and it is thus recorded, under his escutcheon, in a small tablet at the door: Alexandro III. Pont. Max. pernoctanti. Note 37, page 49, col. 1. -resounding with their feet. Of him and his conspiracy I had given a brief account; but he is now universally known through a the admiration of other countries as of his own. Writer, whose poetical talents command as much Note 41, page 49, col. 2. A short inscription on the Doge's chair Locus Marini Faletri, decapitati pro criminibus. Note 42, page 49, col. 2. "Il Conte, entrando in prigione, disse: Vedo bene chi'o son morto, e trasse un gran sospiro."-SANUTO. Note 43, page 49, col. 2. And bore away to the canal Orfano. A deep channel behind the island of S. Giorgo Maggiore. Note 44, page 50, col. 1. "Who were the Six we supp'd with yesternight ?" An allusion to the Supper in Candide.-C. xxvi. Note 45, page 50, col. 1. "Who answer'd me just now?" See Schiller's Ghost-seer.-C. i. Note 46, page 50, col. 1. "But who stands there, alone among them all?" See the history of Bragadino, the Alchymist, as related by Daru.-Hist. de Venise, c. 28. A person yet more extraordinary is said to have appeared there in 1687. "Those, who have experienced the advantages which all strangers enjoy in that City, will not be surprised that one who went by the name of Signor Gualdi was admitted into the best company, though none knew who or what he was. He remained there some months; and three things were remarked con See Petrarch's description of them, and of the tour-cerning him-that he had a small but inestimable nament-Rer. Senil. 1. 4, ep. 2. Note 38, page 49, col. 1. -some from merry England. collection of pictures, which he readily showed to any body-that he spoke on every subject with such a mastery as astonished all who heard him-and that he never wrote or received any letter, never real-quired any credit or used any bills of exchange, but paid for everything in ready money, and lived respectably, though not splendidly. “Recenti victoriâ exultantes," says Petrarch, luding, no doubt, to the favorable issue of the war in France. This festival began on the 4th of August, 1364. Note 39, page 49, col. 1. And lo, the madness of the Carnival. "This gentleman being one day at the coffee-house, a Venetian nobleman, who was an excellent judge of pictures, and who had heard of Signor Gualdi's Among those the most followed, there was always collection, expressed a desire to see them; and his a mask in a magnificent habit, relating marvellous request was instantly granted. After contemplating adventures and calling himself Messer Marco Mil- and admiring them for some time, he happened to lioni. Millioni was the name given by his fellow-cast his eyes over the chamber-door, where hung a citizens in his life-time to the great traveller, Marco portrait of the Stranger. The Venetian looked upon Polo. "I have seen him so described," says Ramusio, it, and then upon him. This is your portrait, Sir,' |