village B; no anticipation of events, or of the interest or pleasure, disgust or sacritice to result from them; no, not even any detailed system of conduct should be suffered to pre-engage the mind, or fix it in a sort of predestination not to be controlled by circumstances or exigencies as they arise. He, whose delight it is thus, animo late, longeque peregrinari, will rarely be a useful traveller. A tour thus peremptorily laid out may stretch over many provinces, but still be virtually short, and comparatively precipitate. It may be like a book (to borrow a simile from our own craft) plumped up with parentheses and digressions, but short and meagre in the execution of its design. Our eccentricity on this subject may urge us into extravagance, but we venture to say, that, cæteris paribus, he is likely to be the best traveller, as he will also be the most instructed and instructive, who quits his home to travel without any settled plan whatsoever, beyond the general outline of his tour. His observations will then be the vigorous offspring of events, and as such, they will be unprejudiced and impartial. His stay at different places should be regulated by their fair claim on manly curiosity, and by the importance they will be found actually to possess on examination. The choice of localities, as the field of surveys and inquiries, should be determined by the train of suggestions-by the daily inspection of surrounding objects-by the living testimonies of the eye and the ear.

If these remarks are just in general, they are peculiarly so with respect to travellers through Italy. The objects which there present themselves to liberal enquiry are more numerous and interesting than elsewhere. The pursuits of a traveller through that country may be conducted with reference to two very distinct objects. His visit may be to ancient or to modern Italy. An intelligent Italian will learn nothing of England in a visit to this happy part of the globe, but what it is in the 19th century; he will be rendered no wiser in respect to its past history; and in acquiring the knowledge of past events, he would acquire but little which would render him more interesting to his own country on his return. But the illustration of ancient Italy is matter of universal concern. All that is physically beautiful is there united with all that is ideally grand and august. If the present inhabitants of these captivating regions appear to us to be unworthy of them, we can people them from our recollections, and put into them a creation of our own. Italy we behold a stage on which man has shewn himself in his sublimest attitude; and see on its shining surface the still speaking monuments of its departed days. We see in it the asylum of

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the fugitive remains of ancient science; the focus into which its last rays were collected, and the scene of its refulgent restoration; we see in it that brilliant point of contact where the ancient and modern æras unite, completing the golden chain of man's progression, and educing the harmony of the moral and intellectual order of the world. The education of youth in every quarter is founded on it. The very spirit of that knowledge which we acquire by our earliest instruction is most intimately allied with the knowledge of that favoured part of Europe. No literary conversation can take place without bringing it before our thoughts. It accompanies the choicest of our studies, whether light or profound; its paintings, its buildings, its music, its poetry, all join their testimony in support of the paramount right of Italy, by rank and primogeniture, to the suit and service of the literary world.

As these are our feelings towards this interesting portion of Europe, it will follow that we must have been heartily disgusted with the greater number of those who have presumed to trouble the world with their idle rambles over its sacred territory. Mr. Eustace is not among the number of whom we are thus disposed to complain. If we have hinted at some little haste as occasionally characterising his progress, we are at the same time ready to own, that what he has done, he has in general done so well, as to make all that has escaped his notice more missed and regretted. The professed aim of Mr. Eustace's tour through Italy has been that of classical elucidation, and we venture to say, that this aim has been meritoriously accomplished, because he has taken care to bring to the undertaking those requisites to profitable travelling which he has enumerated in his introduction to his work.

Our readers must be made aware that this "Tour through Italy" does not describe what Italy is at the present day, but what it was eleven years ago; and we know that Italy has, during that period, undergone very material and unhappy changes.

Early in the year 1802, our author, with some other gentlemen, left Vienna, on their way to Italy, through Munich, Inspruch, and the Tyrol. And the approach to Italy by this route is elegantly described by the writer, who tells us that on the

"5th of February, at break of day, the Alps (the Rhetian Alps), just reddened by the beams of the morning, and mingling with the clouds, presented a new and interesting object, and continued to attract attention during the day, by shifting their situation with the

windings of the road, and changing their tints with every shadow that flitted over them." (Vol. I. p. 2.)

We presume, however, to doubt, whether this route was the happiest that could have been selected; and incline to think that it cannot be compared with any other through the western and north-western Alps.

Saltzburgh, Inspruch, and Trent (which last is the first important town which may be said to have some connexion with a description of Italy), are described with accuracy. Of Trent particularly we have a good account, together with some gratuitous but excellent reflections on the ever memorable council held at that place. He adverts to the splendour of the assembly, and imposing display of human dignity which it presented; he observes, that it fixed the faith of the Catholic church with logical precision, and then makes the following very sensible, manly, and touching remarks:

"After haying thus represented the council in a favourable light, I must now, reluctantly, I confess, turn to the charges advanced against it; the first of which is the influence supposed to have been exercised over it by the Roman court; an influence which, after all, seems to have been confined to subjects connected with the temporal interests and the interior concerns of that court, and never extended either to the deliberations or the final decrees of the Council. In the second place, many a benevolent man, many a true friend of the peace and union of the Christian body, has deplored the degree of precision, with which the articles in debate were defined, and a line drawn between the contending parties,-to separate them perhaps for ever! Real union, indeed, at that time of delirious contest, was not to be hoped for; but some latitude allowed to the wanderings of the human mind, a greater scope given to interpretation, and a respectful silence recommended to the disputants on subjects too mysterious to be explained, and too awful to be bandied about in scholastic disputation, might, perhaps, at a more favourable season, have soothed animosity, and disposed all temperate persons to terms of accommodation. Remote, however, as we now are from that æra of discord, and strangers to the passions which then influenced mankind, it might seem to border upon temerity and injustice, were we to censure the proceedings of an assembly, which combined the benevolence, the sanctity, and the moderation of the Cardinals Poje and Sadoleti, Contareni and Seripando," (Vol. I. p. 25.)

Roveredo is next mentioned, and on this occasion the author remarks, that

"As you approach Italy, you may perceive a visible improvement, not only in the climate of the country, but also in the taste of its inhabitants: the churches and public buildings assume a better

form; the shape and ornaments of their portals, doors, and windows, are more graceful; and their epitaphs and inscriptions, which, as Addison justly observes, are a certain criterion of public taste, breathe a more classical spirit." (Vol. I. p. 27.)

Mr. Eustace then descends from Roveredo to the last "swell of the Alps," where he finds Verona situated on the Adige; partly on the declivity of a hill, and partly on the skirts of an immense plain, extending from the Alps to the Apennines. But he shall speak for himself.

"The plains before the city are streaked with rows of mulberrytrees, and shaded with vines climbing from branch to branch, aud spreading in garlands from tree to tree. The devastation of war (1802) had not a little disfigured this scenery, by stripping several villas, levelling many a grove, and rooting up whole rows of vines and mulberry-trees. But the hand of industry had already begun to repair these ravages, and to restore to the neighbouring hills and fields their beauty and fertility. The interior of the town is worthy of its situation. It is divided into two unequal parts by the Adige, which sweeps through it in a bold curve, and forms a peninsula, within which the whole of the ancient, and the greater part of the moderu, city is enclosed. The river is wide and rapid: the streets, as in almost all continental towns, are narrower* than ours; but long, straight, well built, and frequently presenting, in the form of the doors and windows, and in the ornaments of their cases, fine proportions and beautiful workmanship. But besides these advantages, which Verona enjoys in common with many other towns, it can boast of possessing one of the noblest monuments of Roman magnificence now existing: I mean its amphitheatre, inferior in size, but equal in material and solidity to the Coliseum." (Vol. I. p. 30, 31.)

The author proceeds with a fine description of this superb monument, and concludes with paying a well merited eulogium to the Veronese, for the zeal they have always shewn in preserving this edifice from destruction. He gives us a full length portrait of Verona, its streets, buildings, and institutions. There existed a few years before Mr. Eustace's visit another great building, which, after the "Arena," rendered Verona an object of curiosity, we mean the "Fiera." This quadrangular building was situated at the east of the northern part of the city, in a very extensive square, called Campo Marzio. In the disposition of its parts it nearly resembled a small town, consisting of four equal square spaces, each of which was intersected by four streets with

This assertion is not founded on fact. Milan, Florence, Leghorn, Rome, Cremona, Piacenza, Turin, and many others, have wider streets than any provincial town in this country.

a large square in the centre, so disposed, that when a person stood in the largest square occupying the centre part of the building, and flanked by the above-mentioned square spaces, he could plainly see, almost at once, and as if by magic, the eight gates which gave entrance to the "Fiera," together with all the smaller squares of that singular building. These streets were lined with shops, disposed in excellent order, and with great symmetry: under them flowed a stream of clear water, which descended from the neighbouring hills, and was, as it is still called "Il Fiumicello." This building unfortunately threatened speedy ruin, and was demolished to prevent a greater calamity.

The famous church of St. Zenone is dismissed in two lines; a notice surely inadequate to its merits in a book like the present, in which many a page is lost in the description of "the craggy majesty of mountains," and in celebrating" the snows of four thousand winters." The church was erected by order of king Pepin, son of the emperor Charlemagne. At the time in which Mr. Eustace visited it, it contained several objects of curiosity. The table of the altar maggiore is one solid block of the finest marble of a beautiful red colour, one hundred and eight inches long, fifty-six wide, and nine deep. The vast vase of porphyry mentioned by Mr. Eustace is thirty-six feet in circumference, one foot thick, and one and a half deep. It stands upon a pedestal of the same material and colour, four feet high, and twentyone feet in circumference.

There is also another church in Verona claiming the attention of the traveller, namely, that of St. Procolo, in which the sepulchre of king Pepin is seen. It is a perfect square subterranean cell, supported by four handsome columns of marble, in the middle of which stands the shrine, of fine white porphyry, ten feet in length.

Mr. Eustace, consistently with the plan of his work, makes honourable mention of the celebrated writers to which Verona gave birth, and he might have added, that in the Palazzo della Ragione, a very ancient building, but re-edified in 1541, the Veronese have, with becoming pride, erected statues to Catullus, Emilius Macer, Cornelius Nepos, Pliny the elder, and Vitruvius, to which they afterwards added another to Jerolamus Fracastorius.

Of Vicenza we have an accurate description in the present work. It had been burnt down by the emperor Frederic the Second (1236), whilst at war with the pope; and though vying with Verona in the antiquities of its origin, it possesses no "remnants of its Roman glory."