of distrust, impressed upon the people by the fearful system of espionage, impels them to trust their thoughts rather to a look or an action, than to a word or a phrase." There is a private theatre at Milan, supported with much spirit and considerable expense, chiefly by the second class of society; which in Italy, as in our own and most other countries, we believe, appears to comprise a large proportion of all that is valuable in the national character. The government of the Cisalpine Republic made a present of this theatre to some theatrical amateurs, who gave it the title of Teatro Patriotico; and chose the finest productions of their native Muses, in which to display their talents. It is at present termed Teatro Filodrammatico, and the pieces played in it are limited to such as have passed the ordeal of the censor; but its performances still remain in sufficient perfection to gratify the most fastidious judges. Several noblemen in Milan have entered into an association for the encouragement of Italian comedy: and in tragedy, the number of living geniuses that have already proved their talents, is sufficient to give celebrity to the age, had they a free atmosphere to write in; but Pellico, one of the most highly gifted among them, is in solitary confinement, in the dungeons of the police of Milan, on suspicion, as is alleged, though from all accounts without foundation, of being connected with the Carbonari. The best pieces of Monti are forbidden; and Niccolini is obliged to publish his works in England, because their tone of sentiment is not agreeable to the " ears polite" of existing authorities in Italy.

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The grand works of art which were begun, and many of them finished, in Milan, by the French, we have not space enough to enter into any description of; but it is with some reluctance we turn from the triumphal arch, which, though left since 1814 in a state of " incompleteness," to which Italian eyes are too well used to be shocked at, was yet the means, by the drawings and plans, the decorations and statuary commanded for it, of raising a school of sculpture in Lombardy, and bringing forward aspiring genius, with a rapidity equal to that with which the most astonishing projects were conceived and executed by him, whose mighty march, too often to be tracked by blood, was likewise at times marked by public benefits, and the application of gigantic efforts to the convenience and gratification of social life. Such efforts are, the Simplon, where all is now rendered easy and safe, which was once difficult, dangerous, and terrible to contemplate; such would have been the splendid arch which was meant to terminate with becoming dignity that magnificent road; and such is the arena, or circus, raised for the purpose of celebrating national festivities, and capable of containing thirty thousand spectators. "Much of the taxes complained of under the French regime, were expended on works of this description, by which the wealth taken from the few was distributed among the industrious many; and it is further to be remarked that, notwithstanding the largeness of the sums so taken, they have left the Milanese nobility by far the richest body in Italy. The system which accompanied these impositions, opened to the nobles new, more efficient, and more legitimate sources of wealth, than those which the old regime offered. They are now agriculturists, manufacturers, spe

culators, and spread their vast capital, formerly hoarded in chests, over the whole country; resembling in this particular the free citizens of ancient MILAN, from whom they are descended. We have it on the testimony of the noblest amongst them, that they have considerably increased their revenues by this abjuration of aristocratic prejudices; which has given, at the same time, a full play to their extensive pecuniary means, and to their native and natural intelligence."

Altogether Milan appears to be in a high state of mental improvement. Several of her nobility eagerly visited England, as soon as the peace of 1815 removed the obstacles to their doing so before; and whilst they mingled in the evenings in our most refined and fashionable circles, they devoted their mornings to the most active inquiries into all our arts and establishments, by which they might hope to benefit their native country at their return. From England, Count Confaloniere took the plan of the Lancastrian system of education, which was scarcely mentioned at Milan when " an association was formed for carrying it into execution; and the descendants of the Visconti, Trivulzi, Ubaldi, Lambertenghi, Litta, Borromeo, and Carafa,-names that sounded so fierce and feudal in old Italian story, so often opposed in contest, or ranged in deadly feud,-were here united, to spread that light among the people once so jealously withheld, and which even the fathers of these men would have denied, as dangerous to social order." The increasing influence of education is felt proportionably among the higher classes of Milan, and more especially among the females, hitherto so uncultivated, so immured in their early youth, and, of consequence, so idle, and so intriguing, under the sanction of matrimony, in their riper years. Equal to Count Confaloniere in patriotism and science, Count Porro must be mentioned as one of the chief ornaments of Milan, the best society of which he gathers together at his weekly dinners;-and be it known to all whom it may concern, that, from Lady Morgan's account, an Italian dinner is a very exquisite thing; whereas most of our travellers represent the Italians as scarcely dining at all. This nobleman, in conjunction with Count Confaloniere, has literally introduced new light from England into his native country; exhibiting his house splendidly illuminated with gas, to the great admiration of the Milanese in general.

"The class which immediately succeeds the high aristocracy, under the name of Cittadini, (once a noble distinction in Milan, for which feudal princes sued,) includes the whole of the liberal professions, the small landed proprietors, and even a sort of little nobility, which, with the title of Don, or Donna, prove the rank of their family to have originated with the Spanish power in Lombardy. Between this class and the aristocracy there was formerly a barrier, which none passed without the penalty of loss of cast. The late republican government cut through it boldly; and the Emperor Napoleon treated the Italian prejudices on this subject with ineffable and avowed contempt. With this large, well-educated, and most respectable class, it is extremely difficult for foreigners to become acquainted. The nobility of Italy now, almost exclusively, do the honours of the nation. The Cittadini keep

back in dignified reserve, under the consciousness of the revived disqualifications which legitimate restoration has imposed on them."

French is universally spoken at Milan, and in great purity. Italian is only spoken when strangers from other parts of Italy are present; and Milanese is the language of familiar life, with all classes. To speak with the Tuscan accent, is supreme mauvais ton, and savours of vulgar affectation.

From Milan Lady Morgan conducts us to Como, the streets of which she describes as dark, narrow, and filthy; its environs the haunts of smugglers, and the quarters of the Austrian soldiers, who are kept there in large and oppressive bodies, to prevent, if possible, their illicit negotiations. "But whatever are the internal defects of Como, however gloomy its streets and noxious its atmosphere, the moment that one of the little boats which crowd its tiny port is entered and pushed from the shore, the city gradually becomes a feature of peculiar beauty in one of the loveliest scenes ever designed by Nature." Along a part of the shore of the lake, a long line of spacious and beautiful road has been opened; sometimes walled, sometimes vaulted; always banked in from the incursions of the water, and secured, at vast expense and labour, from the falling-in of the heights impending over it. "This noble work has provided, at the end of centuries, a drive for the accommodation and pleasure of the Comasques, along that part of their lake (still the only part accessible to a carriage); and though it has not yet reached its intended extent, it is still a great public benefit, and is now the Corso of the little capital."—"On one side of the noble road which owes its existence to her munificence, a plain marble slab informs the passenger that this causeway was raised by a Princess of the House of D'Este, Caroline of Brunswick. But generations yet unborn, destined to inhabit the districts of Como, will learn with gratitude, that the first road opened on the banks of their beautiful lake, was executed in the 19th century, by a Queen of England."

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"Be

We can scarcely follow Lady Morgan through PAVIA, without pausing at the CERTOSA, one of the most interesting and most magnificent of Italian churches and monasteries:" at any rate, if we pass by the dazzling splendour of its temple, and all its concomitant buildings, we may be allowed to turn for a moment to its cloisters, where all is simple, solemn, and stamped with monastic gravity and sequestration. hind a noble fabric, once occupied by the Prior, and reserved for the reception of strangers and pilgrims of rank, are the cloisters, incrusted with tracery and relievos in terra-cotta, and serving as a portico to twenty-four isolated houses. These were the cells of the monks: each cell has two rooms, a little garden with a fountain and marble seat, A wheel on the outside turned to receive their food; for there was no communication between the brethren, except in the church. In one of these cells we remained for nearly an hour. It was precisely as its last inhabitant had left it, thirty years before. There was something melancholy in the pains he had bestowed in his little garden, of about thirty or forty feet in circumference: he had painted, or otherwise ornamented, every stone in the high wall: he had decorated his

little fountain till it resembled a child's toy. The walk was a mosaic; and the profusion of flowers, now wild and degenerated, which sprung up amidst the high grass and matted weeds, evinced how much he was thrown upon this sad and circumscribed recess for occupation. There was a fine fig-tree in fruit in one corner, which he had probably left a slip."

At the wretched village and unaccommodated post-house of Voltagio, the sleeping stage between Pavia and Genoa, the stranger first feels that he is about to take leave of the improved civilization of Italy: and the sad sight of the galley-slaves at the gates of Genoa, once so free, so renowned, so proud, with the mockery of LIBERTAS, the motto of the state, engraved on the iron fetters which manacled their ancles, afforded too speaking a lesson, that the spirit and meaning of the word was not to be looked for in further advancement towards the papal dominions.

We cannot linger with Lady Morgan as we would wish in the now deserted palaces, which had "Rubens for their historian, the DORIA, the DURAZZI, the FIESCHI, of old, for their masters, and emperors and kings for their guests:" nor can we here trace with her the causes of the decay which is spread through the very vitals of this once superb city, of which it might literally be said "her merchants are princes;" but most assuredly we can agree with her in opinion that the restoration of it to any thing like its former splendour is not to be effected, in the present day, by reviving every absurd ceremonial, and exhibiting every pretended relic of papal superstition, and filling the streets with the lowest and worst description of mendicant monks, who at once impoverish and corrupt the people. During the Revolution, a society of Capuchin nuns were pensioned by the French, their order abolished, and their vast monastic palace turned into a cotton manufactory, which promised to be productive of great prosperity to Genoa, and of desirable employment to the lower classes of her population. At the instigation of the Queen of Sardinia, however, three hundred industrious manufacturers have been turned adrift with their families to make way for four old nuns, who, being all that remained of their community, were reinstated in their wilderness of a convent, whence they daily sallied forth in couples, in their cloistral habits, with sacks on their shoulders, which were generally well filled by the pious with provisions before they went back, for the necessities of the convent.

The procession of the "Sagra Macchina, or "Casaccia," has been revived by the King of Sardinia in all its absurdity. It consists of drawing a Madonna or crucifix about the streets, on a wooden stage, with as much riot and noise as can well be made, whilst on one side a black Christ, and on another a white one, of gigantic dimensions, were carried by such as were strong enough, both in body and purse, to procure the honour. "Viva Christo bianco!" "Viva Christo moro!" are the cries raised alternately by the respective parties, who not unfrequently end their claims to superiority by contention and blows. "We arrived," says Lady Morgan, "just in time to lose the Casaccia. The streets were still crowded and tumultuous, though the procession was over. A man not having sufficient money to purchase the honour of carrying the crucifix, had torn his wife's gold ear-rings out of her ears,

on her refusing to sell them, to raise the money. She was seen flying through the streets, with her face covered with blood, and followed by friends, who openly avowed their intended vengeance upon the perpetrator of this barbarous act." Well may a government that can sanction and encourage such exhibitions as these choke up every channel that might comment on their absurdity and baneful effects.

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Three gentlemen of the noblest names and largest fortunes in Genoa, applied to the Sardinian government for permission to publish a journal, of which they themselves undertook to be the editors. After many months of deliberation leave was granted, on condition that the said journal should not touch, even remotely, upon politics, morals, or religion; and that it should be subjected to the inspection and revision of three royal Piedmontese Censors extraordinary. It is needless to say that the design was abandoned to the royal Piedmontese Censors altogether. Piacenza, or Placentia, the City of Pleasantness, looks, according to Lady Morgan's account, like the " City of the Plague." "To judge by its silent empty streets and dismantled edifices, it seemed to have been swept by pestilence, or depopulated by famine." A dinner has not been given in this ducal city within the memory of man, except by the Marchese di Mandelli, whose table is always open to such as have none of their own. Pliny has asserted that in his time men lived in Piacenza to the age of a hundred and forty; Lady Morgan seems to think it would be desirable to die somewhat sooner, if there was no other mode of escaping from its dark walls; and she does not seem to think PARMA much more animating. But at Bologna we have a very different picture presented to our view.

"There was always a portion of Italy which, under the name of The four Legations, was remarkable for perpetuated prosperity; and the best and first of these states was the Bolognese, which, in a moment of exigency, rather accepted of the Pope's formidable name as a protection, than submitted to his sway. This ancient republic struck us to be one of the States of Italy which best deserved a free government, and to be the most determined to obtain it. As we approached Bologna, the vintage was in all its splendid activity; every step was a picture -the sky was Claude's-the foliage was Poussin's-the groupings were Teniers'. Those gloomy and ruinous buildings in which the peasantry herd in Italy, even in the beautiful Milanese, were here replaced by cottages of English neatness, environed by more than English abundance; and gardens of natural fertility, vineyards dressed like flowerknots, and a population the most joyous and active, gave assurances of that equal distribution of the gifts of Providence, which best

"Justifies the ways of God to man,”

and is the consummation of all that philosophy can dream, or philanthropy can desire.

"The sale of the considerable Church-wealth of Bologna, during the Revolution, has greatly multiplied those little landed-proprietorships which make the blessing of a free country, and lighten the chain of an enslaved one: and it has raised up an agricultural population, whose thriving industry every where enriches and adorns the land, and banishes the groupings of want and mendicity.