and reflected to infinity from the fides of the cove, as you may imagine. Wreaths of flowers are painted on the glass, to hide the separations, which fucceed extremely well. The floors are of the marble of this country, compofed of many different pieces and colours like fineered wood, which have a good effect.-The ftables are commodious and large. The windows above the racks have green curtains drawn clofe over them, which are equally ornamental, as convenient.-The garden is in as bad a taste as that at la Venerie. At the back front of the palace is a parterre à l'Angloife, forming scrolls, and various flourishes filled up with grey fand and brick-duft, but no flowers. There is a kind of ill-kept grafs plat, called here a Boulingrin, with pavilions and cabinets de verdure on each fide, one leading into the other, like thofe at la Venerie. The only agreeable circumstance attending these gardens is, that you fee into the foreft through the walks. This foreft is divided into ridings, but they are all formal; and here the King and Royal family usually hunt twice a week. As the weather is very fine, we shall seize the first opportunity of seeing the royal chafe before we quit Turin.

Mont Callier, fituated upon the fide of a moun- Mont tain about a league from Stupenige, is an old pa- Callier, lace, very large, and capable of fuch improvement as to be much fuperior to any of the other country palaces of his Sardinian Majefty. It was here the

late King was feized and made prifoner, (and not at Rivoli) about one o'clock after midnight. The palace was furrounded by the guards, with fuch fecrecy and difpatch, that an officer and four or five foldiers afcending the stairs, eafily forced their way through the fmall guard that attempted to oppofe his paffage into the King's bed-chamber, before the leaft alarm could be given. The King was in bed with the Comteffe de St. Sebastienne, On their entering the room, he jumped out of bed, and being fhewn the order for his confinement, made this reflection aloud: Je n'auroit ja mais cru que mon fils eut eu tant d'efprit. He was immediately conveyed to the chateau of Rivoli, and foon after brought back again to Mont Callier, where he died about fix or seven years after. At the fame time that he was made prifoner, Madame de St. Sebaftienne was conveyed to a convent, and there fhut up for life. The room in which the King was feized, was his bed-chamber at his return, and in the fame fated room he died. The fame furniture remains in it, and fhews how fimply the apartment of a King was furnished in this country a few years paft. The floor is of brick, the walls white-washed, and hung with a few wretched portraits; there is one of a woman, which is handsome, and has wrote on the back Marchese D'Aftruzzi; I suppose it was her name. The chairs are covered with crimfon cut velvet, the window shutters plain brown oak. It is a Jarge

large fquare room; the bed has been taken away. I cannot but think the paffing the remainder of his days in the very apartment where his wife was torn from him, and he himself deprived of his liberty, are circumftances that might have been dispensed with in this poor old man's fituation.

There are no other pictures in this palace befides old family portraits, which are hung up in the galleries, and look fo terrific in their uncouth dreffes and armour, that I should not like to be left alone with them by candle light. Some old doors ftill remain, and are odd enough; they are embroidered all over in gold and filver, almost black at prefent, but rich in quaint devices and mottos. Two or three ftruck our fancy, as pretty for their day; namely, a tree burning, the motto Silere et uri. Over laurel wreaths-Fortem fponte fequor. One of the most delightful profpects (that imagination can paint) is given you by the windows of this palace. You look over a vast tract of country finely wooded, with the river Po wind. ing fantastically in the valley, whilst branching out different ways, it gives birth to a beautiful ifland, finely clumped with majestic trees; many buildings appear difperfed in fuch manner as if they had been placed on purpose to ornament, not crowd the scene; little hills clothed in vines, the plains in the highest cultivation, and the whole bounded by a chain of mountains covered with fnow.

His prefent Majefty never vifits Mont Callier. The Duke of Savoy, who has a very good tafte, is remarkably fond of this place, and is making gardens above the palace on the fides of the mountain, which when completed will be more agreeable to Nature, and confequently in a much truer tafte than any of thofe about Turin.

This letter is already fuch a packet, that I do not know whether the poft-mafter may not fend it to the prime minifter for infpection: for there is a fufpicion and a police reigns in this town that furpaffes the genius of Sartine. But more of this another time; for the prefent, I shall not absolutely add another word, except to beg you to obferve, if till now I have not kept my promise; and to tell me fincerely in your next, if I do not grow too circumftantial and tiresome. Upon the flightest hint I fhall mend of this fault; meantime, believe me, as always, yours most affectionately, &c.

My next letter shall positively be my laft from Turin.

LET

LETTER XI.

Turin, October the 24th,

As

S our time now draws near for quitting Turin in order to vifit Genoa, you must not expect to hear from me again till after we have reached that city, and I feize this first opportunity to conclude my obfervations upon the environs of Turin.

Church.

Upon the top of a very high mountain, a league and a half from the town, ftands the magnificent church called La Superga; it was built in confe- La Suquence of a vow made by Victor Amadeus, that if perga victorious, he would erect a church upon that spot, from which, with Prince Eugene, in the year 1706, during the fiege of Turin, he had obferved the diftribution and the operations of the enemy's troops before the town. Accordingly the French army being defeated, and obliged to raise the fiege, the building of this church was begun in 1715, and it was confecrated in 1731. The architect made choice of, was Philip Juvara; though it is not faid that Victor had included this preference in his vow.

The afcent to this church is fo extremely rapid and difficult even now, that it seems to have been almost impoffible for human art and addrefs to have brought together the materials here employ

ed.