common prifons of the city, from whence they are conveyed fuddenly and privately to the prison of the holy court; their removal is fo well concealed, that their families and friends fend them provifions daily to the common prison, long after they have been removed to that of the Inquifition, which you may be fure are not thrown away.

The power of the Inquifitors is esteemed by the Genoese a mere bugbear; judge then what it must be in other countries where they are invested with all the plenitude of fway the Dominicans defire. Can we ever fufficiently acknowledge the being born in a country, and under a government, where this bloody tribunal is unknown, and from whence Popery, with all her train of mischiefs, has been totally banished?

I believe you will not object to quitting the Galleys and the Inquifition for another fubject. Theatre. We were laft night at the play (for at present there is no opera); the theatre is rather large than fmall, but not beautiful, either as to architecture or painting. All the boxes below stairs are shut in with jaloufies, except when the owners choose to thew themselves to the audience; at which time they light them up with wax candles, and the jaloufies are removed. I think the play we faw meant to be a tragedy, as Harlequin kills feveral people on the stage; but it cannot be esteemed an epic poem; for, to the best of my knowledge, there was neither beginning, middle, nor end. This piece of confufion began at feven o'clock,

and

and lafted till eleven. Several piftols were fired to rouse the attention of the flumbering audience. There were magicians, devils, conftables, fine ladies, robbers, princes, ambassadors, and troops of wooden horses. The audience talked louder than the actors. The ladies turn their backs to the stage, which has an impertinent, ill-bred appearance. There was dancing, and no refpite between the acts. It feemed to me, the actors might have continued killing each other, till not a man remained alive to speak the epilogue; but I fuppofe the piece ended from their being, through fatigue, difabled to proceed, or the play might have lafted till now.

laces.

We have paffed a couple of fine days moft agreeably, in feeing the villa-palaces and gardens, Villa-pathough they disappointed our expectations in many respects; for were the poffeffors English, neatness, order, propriety, and confiftency would unite their aid to embellifh Nature. Instead of which, we find water, trees, and ground, as if arranged by the Holy Tribunal. The first confined in ill-fhapen bafons, or fpirted out of leaden pipes, without any kind of meaning, or end propofed, but that of procuring an ill-natured amufement for the company and gardener, by fpoiling the clothes, and wetting fuch people as fervants, &c. who dare not fhew any refentment. The trees are cut, clipped, and tortured into fans, bells inverted, umbrellas, &c. and the ground torn up to make a fort of hanging-gardens and parterres a l'Ang

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a l'Angloife. However, there is one garden which has escaped the general fate; it belongs to a Doria, who usually refides at Rome (I think his additional name is Pamfili). Thefe gardens are, more properly speaking, orchards of orange and lemon trees, as large as old apple trees, and are loaded with fruit whose branches bend beneath their golden burden. There is a fort of cottage fituated upon the fummit of a rifing ground, and embofomed in a thicket of the above trees, where strangers are permitted to dine. The people who belong to its owner provided us a dinner, confift ing chiefly of fish and fruit, with tolerable wine, at a very moderate price. The garden flopes fuddenly down to the road; at the end is an iron pallifade painted green, and immediately on the other fide of the road you have the fea, which appears to the greatest advantage, there being no furf. The fun was fetting, and fhone with fuch refulgent beams upon the orange-trees, pomegranates, and myrtle in bloffom, that we could have fancied ourselves in the garden of the Hefperides; nothing was wanting to augment the deception, except the dragon, whofe prefence I would rather supply by the force of imagi

nation.

Behind the villa is a rifing ground, well planted with ilex, or ever-green oak; though now much neglected, it admits of being made extremely beautiful. The pipes and conveyances of water, to produce jets d'eau, &c. have coft a great deal

of

of money, and are feldom in order. There is near this foreft of ilexes a pretence to a piece of water, with a wretched morfel of rock-work in the midft, distinguished by the appellation of un Ifole. This piece of machinery is lined with pipes, a man concealed from fight foon convinces the too curious vifitor that there may ftill be a Ligurian in the territory of Genoa; for after he has taken the trouble to ascend a painful kind of steep woodwalk, and feated himself under the protecting fhade of fome of thefe venerable ilexes, unfufpicious of the treacherous entertainment the man of the island has prepared for him; upon a fudden, the ilexes, from every branch, pour down an abundant fhower, the bank he fits on acts against the descending rains with repeated efforts, till a general engagement of fquirts concludes the amufement. In a fmall inclofure of this wood, we perceived a wild boar, fow and pigs, who, climbing up against the wall, expected bread from us, having been in fome measure tamed. We did not fee the villa; the fervants faid it was in fo bad a condition within, that they could not poffibly fhew it, affuring us there was neither picture, ftatue, nor any thing worth looking at.

As to the other villas, thofe of Durazza, Spinola, and another whofe owner's name I forget, their plans are fo well calculated for the great heats, that they are at prefent bleak, raw, and windy; no fires, no window or bed curtains; the rooms all washed with water colour (painted in fresco);

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armour.

frefco); the floors bricked. The outfides of these palaces are the most beautiful part, feen at a proper distance; the marble glistening in the fea, and the architecture (often) strikingly noble in the elevations, give a great idea of the wealth and noble manners of the modern Genoefe. But, alas! where is that confiftency the want of which you and I used to complain of in the Luxembourg, the Louvre, Versailles, &c? it is not to be found at Genoa. We are agreed, that we have seen a fufficient number of their first villas, to entitle us to truft to descriptions for the beauties of those we have not feen.

I pass this evening at home by the fide of a great wood fire, for it rains hard, and the feabreeze is very cold. On looking here and there over this letter, I find I have omitted to make Armory. mention of the Armory. The greatest curiofity it contains, feems to me to be, certain armour which Women's fome heroines made ufe of, in a Crufade to the Holy Land, in the year 1301, and the Pontificate of Boniface VIII. In the archives, are faid, to be depoûted three letters of his Holiness's concerning thefe Genoefe ladies. This armour is nicely contrived for women, yet there are fome ridiculous peculiarities belonging to it. Amongst other fingular warlike matters, a wooden cannon, lined in the infide with a thin plate of brafs, and a fword with a pistol in it, seemed to me the most extraordinary.

The