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Verona is an ancient city, and retains striking evidences of its antiquity. The remains of the amphitheatre form a principal attraction to the tourist, as it is in perfect preservation, and nearly rivals, in size and magnificence, the Coliseum at Rome. Its outward circumference is 1330 feet; the greater diameter 464, the lesser, 367; length of the arena, 230, and breadth 130 feet. It contains 44 tiers of seats, which are computed sufficient to accommodate 23,000 spectators.

The modern theatre is a very beautiful structure, with five tiers of boxes, neatly fitted up. The churches, of course, are numerous; but of these we only visited the cathedral, and that of St. George, in which there are some fine paintings by Titian, lately restored by the French.

Verona stands on the river Adige, at the foot of the Alps, at the southern opening of the grand defile through Rhætia, formerly the only line of regular communication between Italy and Germany. The houses are well built, the streets wide, and the footways excellent with all the appearance of being a place of much trade.

No city contributed to Roman lite rature so many venerated names. Catullus, Macer, Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Secundus, Vitruvius, and the elder Pliny, form a constellation of the first magnitude. Our own "master of the heart" has immortalized it in several of his dramas-here is the scene of the luckless loves of "Romeo and Juliet," and we cannot forget "The two Gentlemen of Verona."

At Vicenza was our next halt. This town is the birth-place of Palladio, and contains numerous monuments of his genius. His palaces display exquisite taste, chastened by a judicious study of ancient art their beauty originating in their design, as the elevations enchant one, not by length and altitude, fine materials and finished sculpture, but by their proportion. No wonder Palladio has been copied over Europe, and that the Vicentian villas have been so frequently imitated in England.

We visited, after dinner, the Theatre Olympico, which is accounted to be Palladio's masterpiece. Alas, that this matchless model should be entrusted to wood and stucco, while masses of bad

taste and deformity are perpetuated in granite and marble!

From the theatres we went to the Madonna del Monte and the triumphal arch, about two miles from the town. From the height we had a grand view of mountain and flat country southward; and also a noble prospect from the rotunda of the Marquis Capia, which Lord Burlington imitated at Chiswick. We saw the picture of Christ sitting at table with St. Gregory, by Paul Veronese. It has been considered his chef d'œuvre, and ornaments the refectory of Notre Dame del Monte.

Some distant villages were pointed out among the Alps, with which a very curious historical fact is associated. In the year of Rome 640, the Cimbri and Teutonici, two tribes from the northern Chersonesus, invaded Italy, and were defeated near Verona by Marius. But few escaped the vengeance of the conqueror, and they sought refuge in the neighbouring mountains. They formed a little colony there, whose descendants occupy seven parishes, termed "sotto commune." This remnant of northern tribes to this day retain the tradition of their descent; and though surrounded for so many centuries by Italians, still speak the Teutonic language. I should have been happy to visit this singular people, but we are hurrying to Rome, and by day light, will leave this to-morrow for

"Fair Padua, nursery of arts." Whether my worthy companion has artiste, "blighting his hope," or that received a despatch from the pretty tender recollections have arisen over the tomb of the "gentle Montague" which we have just left-certes Mr. Mac Dermott is melancholy as "an old lion, or a lover's lute." I am dying to discover "what sadness lengthens Romeo's hours," and after dinner will dissolve the mystery and conjure him

"By Rosaline's bright eyes,

By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip." If Verona hold a stoop of Burgundy I'll unlock his tongue; and between love and wine, if he retain his secret, I'll believe that there is constancy in man, and no virtue in the bottle!

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'No, No, my peace of mind is over, and though now and then I may draw recollection in the goblet. Memory jogs one's elbow and whispers what a fool I have been." His eye glistened. Burgundy is the touch stone to the heart and I called for another flask. "Come Mac, rally man, fill me a brimming bumper-this is Miss Selwyn's health."

My pupil started, but I had no reason to complain that he did not fill fairly, and the spirit of the rosy grape was not allowed time to evaporate.

"What the deuce was that midnight divan you held at Breig, after you had seen the old cit and I retire ?"

"Nonsense, You only jest," returned Mr. Mac Dermott. "No faith: I heard enough to inform me who the dramatis personæ were. How were you engaged Mac, pointing pencils or making love? Was Chloe cruel, or are you fed on hope, and like a cameleon, air-crammed? Come, you are an excellent Catholic and know the value of a clean breast and believe me you'll find yourself all the better of confession. Surely, you once threatened me with a narrative of your adventures."

:

Poor Mac was agitated, his eye flashed, his cheek reddened, as with much bitterness, he replied. "If you

are curious to hear the confessions of a fool, ask for a detail of my career."

"No, Mac, you are chagrined. Many a man has made a wilder cast and redeemed it gallantly afterwards."

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"In my case, that is impossible,” said my pupil. Nothing to the determined is so, and so far as breaking heads, and drilling a man's carcass go, you're not amiss." "That may be so," said Mr. Mac. "But what the devil can I expect in life when I am dead already?"

"That is, indeed, a puzzler, and yet for a defunct gentleman, you have the sweetest swallow imaginable."

"But I'm worse than dead," returned Mr. Mac Dermott as he laid down the empty glass. "Indeed!" "Yes."

"How pray?"

He fetched a desperate sigh. married!"

"I'm

"There is no disputing your assertion, my friend. Where may the lady be at present ?"

"Heaven only knows," responded Mr. Mac.

"When do you expect to see her ?" I enquired.

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Never, if I have any luck."

"Have any pledges of mutual attachment blessed this auspicious union?"

Mac smiled, as he replied, "ladies of three score are not generally prolific."

"Alas! my friend, you must pardon me. I knew not the extent of your misfortunes. To be defunct was bad enough-but what was it to matrimony? Come, my boy, out with the tale while I order up a fresh bottle." Make it two if you love me," said Mr. Mac, or I'll choak in the middle of the narrative."

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The wine appeared. Mr. Mac Dermott having screwed his courage to the sticking place, by the agency of a second bumper, gave a preliminary cough, and thus began

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"Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing as it fell out."

I know of no case in which man, in his social and civilized state, has more signally, and, to his honour be it spoken, more perseveringly combated the influences and operations of nature -more successfully thwarted and countervailed the dispensations of a beneficent Providence, than in his reception and treatment, in large and populous cities, of that season of the year which God intended to be the most glorious, and fragrant, and abundant upon the earth-the most festive and happy to man.

In all towns, large or small, summer comes almost "shorn of his beams," of health and joy; but in an especial degree, a summer in London is to me intolerable. It is true, there are parks of vast extent, with some half score smoke-dried and sickly trees to the acre, thrusting out above green painted and smooth planed rustic seats, their starved and formal branches in almost leafless wretchedness, looking more like the ghosts of some cockney creation, which had once existed in the vegetable world, than the children of the mighty and vigorous denizens of the forest. But then, how to reach these friendly shades! that's the rub. A man should have, as my hairedbrained cousin, Jack Blake, used to say, a condenser upon his head or a saucer under his feet if he wants to walk out in London in July. Certes, you do run the risk either of going up in steam to the clouds, or flowing off in liquid dissolution along the next channel, before you can crane your dry and dusty throat over the bucket full of water in the Green Park, or stretch your listless

Midsummer Night's Dream.

length beside the dead serpentine in the Hyde Park; and yet the last is a fine thing enough in its way, and a wonderful consolation to the cits of a Sunday; but it no more represents nature in her own unrestained and sportive life and loveliness, than that cold, fixed, rayless marble, dearest Fanny, does those bright, and blushing, and ever varying charms which it fain would catch, but only mimics.

And then the streets. Heavens ! what a glare upon the eyes, flashing from the fronts of new houses ornamented with white stucco work-and of old ones faced with red brick, glowing like a drunkard's nose in the firelight; and from jewellers' windows, and cutlers' windows, and chemists' windows, with their huge globular glass vessels having mystical pothooks, squares, triangles, and crescents, to humbug you on the outside, and all varieties of villainously coloured water to dazzle you from within. And the flags, too, burning and blistering your swoln feet, reminding you at every step you take, of ploughshares heated for a witch's ordeal. And all this would be more endurable were the streets less densely crowded, and the bustle and din less torturing to the ear. You might then nurse your ill humour in your own company, as you stole, like a disquieted ghost, through some silent city of the dead: but parliament is still sitting, and the great and gay have not yet sought the luxu ries of their country mansions; for, by a strange perversion of taste and common sense, the fashionable London winter is scarcely concluded.

It was about the hour of sunset-if, indeed, there be any such hour in London-somewhere in the last few days of the month of June, 1830, that I sat, heated and languid in my chambers up two pair of stairs, in Pump Court, Inner Temple, feasting my mind with these and a thousand other pleasing and consolatory reflections of the same kind, and my eyes with the extensive and delectable view contained within the court afore mentioned.

The train of thought which I was then pursuing, naturally enough suggested itself from the weariness and chagrin caused by my mid-day occupation, which I was engaged in reviewing. I had just returned from a fatiguing and somewhat perilous expedition to the farther end of Oxfordstreet, which, as all the world knows, runs due east and west, and consequently affords neither shade or protection from the "solstitial summer heat" of a merciless sun that shines down from morning till night upon it. My Aunt Patience had, as my ill stars willed it, favoured me with a commission "for the absolute purchase" of a mate, for her sometime widowed green parrot, to which she had a short time previously taken a fancy, and I had, accordingly, proceeded to ascertain if the object of her admiration was still 'sound, wind and limb.'

Lord! what an undertaking it was. Now in High-street, St. Giles, limping across to cower under the invisible shade of a barber's pole, anon in Oxfordstreet, making pilgrimages to the penumbra of a lamp post, regaled on my way, ever and anon, with a suffocating whiff from some leaky gas pipe. Oh! Venice, Venice-why are there no canals through the streets? Why have they no awnings from the shops? Why have they no- -Jack Blake and a couple of wild wags at his heels, yelping and halloing, broke in upon my reverie. Confusion! They had been enjoying themselves all day in the country, and now came to torture me with the recital of their pleasures.

"Been to Richmond-glorious view from the hill at the Star and Garter -pulled to Twickenham-crossed over to Kew-on to Hampton Court -strayed through the park. Ah! what beautiful deer-dined under the beeches in the formal old avenue."

I lost all patience, and starting up, walked about the room. The fellows burst out laughing at me.

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Cursedly on the fidgets-some fun in view, eh! What was I up to? Where was I larking? They would join me-go any where with me.”

I bid them go to the devil. They went.

My thoughts had now got a new direction, and, like the gaze-hound that slips his leash upon a view, sprung away beyond my controul. I made a desperate effort to reduce them, seized a deed and proceeded to draft "all that farm or lot of land, &c., with the gardens, orchards"-in vain: it was as fuel to the fire, and only served to bring to my recollection that touching and beautiful picture of rural life that dwelt in unfading freshness, spread out before the mental vision and invigorating the spirit of the sightless Milton.

"As one who long in populous cities pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe

Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight,
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance with nymphlike step fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seem'd, for her now pleases more,

She most, and in her look sums all delight."

"And why," cried I, "should I not realize this enchanting description ?"

Besides my twelve months with Mr. L, the conveyancer, are out, and no term to be kept till MichaelmasHurrah! for liberty and La Belle France. I huddled a couple of shirt into my small velise and three or four pairs of stockings to keep them company. "The thinnest trowsers are the best for such a season,” thought I. Thanks to my washer-woman, and last summer's aid, I had no difficulty in suiting myself to a miracle in that respect. I consigned my law books to their respective shelves, dismissed my familiar, locked my chamber, put the key in my pocket, sallied out into Fleet-street, responded to the knowing beck of a cabman's fore finger, and at eight o'clock found myself at Threadneedle-street, seated in the mail for Dover.

In these days of galloping by land and steaming by sea, little time is lost in transporting yourself from place to

place; accordingly in less time than a Cockney, fifty years before, would have consumed in a pleasuring to Ramsgate. I had crossed over the narrow channel that severs us from those realms of dykes and ditches,

"Where the broad ocean leans against the land."

Disembarked at Ostend-muddled up the canal and found myself comfortably seated to dinner at Bruges, under the mahogany of an old friend and relation.

Distaste of town was, at the time my prevailing malady, so I need scarcely remark that my steps were not directed towards the capital of France indeed were my inclinations such, it might not have been altogether prudent to indulge them. That mighty city, although at that period engaged in no acts of open commotion, yet, to eyes that watched her closely and marked the current and colour of national events, exhibited unequivocal symptoms of deep seated internal uneasiness, and had already begun to heave with the throes of those wonderful and astounding events which "the three glorious days of July" brought to light. In a word, Paris seemed too hot for me, accordingly I shunned its shoals and syrtes and stood out for the provinces.

Your traveller, if he have any spice of the true wandering spirit of Cain in his composition, or possess that excellent taste for prying into other persons affairs, 'clept in modern phrase, "a laudable spirit of enquiry," must have a thousand times deserted the high roads, and wandered through bye ways, and where there are no ways at all, o'er field and fence-reposed in green lanes and by the fire side of the sequestered farm house. He must have asked a thousand questions about every body and every thing he sees, and never fail to capture a secret either by surprise, assault, or parley.

Heaven forbid that I should have set forward, altogether unfurnished with these excellent qualifications. By no means. Accordingly I have, as well as my betters, seen, and heard, and dreamed, both asleep and awake, and fancied divers marvellous things; but at this distance of time, I protest I cannot venture to arrange my knowledge according to the various channels

through which it has flowed in upon me, or say which is truth, which is fiction. If I have plagiarised from any man, let him come and take his own, "and no questions shall be asked him," only let him be sure that it is his own that he claims. From Solomon, whose apothegm would prove all writers since his days to be literary robbers, down to the last scribe in the last Penny Magazine, I defy them all. Have I not Virgil, and Tasso, and Boccacio; Milton, Byron, and a host more of "the mighty dead" on my side, and 'tis odd if we shall not be able to stand our ground against all the curs that can yelp and snarl around us.

To return, however: the green leaves of summer had long grown crisp and faded, and now, clinging with feeble grasp to the sprays that had nurtured them, they fell "sear and yellow" before the encreasing breath of advanced autumn, and the vine's red blood had ceased to gush from the full wine press of the south, ere I thought of turning my wandering feet fowards the metropolis. I had but few introductions there from England, one, however, which I had procured to my banker accompanying the drafts upon him, in a great measure supplied the deficiency and afforded me the means of spending many agreeable hours in the society of his family. The events which took place on one occasion at his house, I am now about to record.

This gentleman, as I have stated, was a banker, being the proprietor of one of the wealthiest houses in Paris, and had, as is usual, established many very extensive connections throughout Germany and other parts of the Continent. Now it chanced that shortly after my arrival in town he had invited to his house one of those friends with whom it is customary for mercantile men to connect themselves in various places, for the facilities which they afford in carrying on their correspondences.

This friend was the principal of some commercial house-I cannot now take upon me to say what one, but I remember at the time hearing it was of considerable importance in Neuremberg-he was a goodly corpulent German, a man of great goût and information. With a portly and large figure of the genuine Neurem

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