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I had let it out of the chaise for the air, and it was waddling along close to the head of the horses, on the top of the highest Alps, by the side of a wood of firs. There darted out a young wolf, seized poor dear Tory by the throat, and, before we could possibly prevent it, sprung up the side of the rock and carried him off. The postilion jumped off and struck at him with his whip, but in vain. I saw it and screamed, but in vain; for the road was so narrow, that the servants that were behind could not get by the chaise to shoot him. What is the extraordinary part is, that it was but two o'clock, and broad sunshine. It was shocking to see any thing one loved run away with to so horrid a death.

Just coming out of Chamberri, which is a little nasty old hole, I copied an inscription set up at the end of a great road, which was practised through an immense solid rock by bursting it asunder with gunpowder. The Latin is pretty enough, and so I send it you:

"Carolus Emanuel II. Sab. dux, Pedem. princeps, Cypri rex, publicâ felicitate partâ, singulorum commodis intentus, breviorem securioremque viam regiam, naturâ occlusam, Romanis intentatam, cæteris desperatam, dejectis scopulorum repagulus, æquata montium iniquitate, quæ cervicibus imminebant precipitia pedibus substernens, æternis populorum commerciis patefecit. A. D. 1670."

We passed the Pas de Suze, where is a strong fortress on a rock, between two very neighbouring mountains; and then, through a fine avenue of three leagues, we at last discovered Turin :

E l'un à l'altro mostra, ed in tanto oblia
La noia, e'l mal della passata via.

'Tis really by far one of the prettiest cities I have seen; not one of your large straggling ones that can afford to have twenty dirty suburbs, but clean and compact, very new and very regular. The king's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the richest within; painted, gilt, looking-glassed, very costly, but very tawdry; in short, a very popular palace. We were last night at the Italian comedythe devil of a house and the devil of actors! Besides this, there is a sort of an heroic tragedy, called "La rappresentazione dell' Anima Damnata." A woman, a sinner, comes in and makes a solemn

This incident is described also by Gray in one of his letters to his mother. "If the dog," he adds, " had not been there, and the creature had thought fit to lay hold of one of the horses, chaise and we, and all, must inevitably have tumbled above fifty fathoms perpendicularly down the precipice."-E.

This representation is also mentioned by Spence, in a letter to his mother:-" In spite of the excellence," he says, " of the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils were like to carry off the Damned Soul, every body was in the utmost consternation; and when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the stage, every body looked respectful; and, on several words spoke by the actors, they pulled off their hats, and crossed themselves. What can you think of a people, where their very farces are religious, and where they are so religiously received? It was from such a play as this (called Adam and Eve) that Milton, when he was in Italy, is said to have taken the first hint for his divine poem of Paradise Lost.' What small beginnings are there sometimes to the greatest things!"-E.

prayer to the Trinity: enter Jesus Christ and the Virgin: he scolds, and exit: she tells the woman her son is very angry, but she don't know, she will see what she can do. After the play we were introduced to the assembly, which they call the conversazione: there were many people playing at ombre, pharaoh, and a game called taroc, with cards so high, to the number of seventy-eight. There are three or four English here; Lord Lincoln, with Spence, your professor of poetry; a Mr. B * * *, and a Mr. C ***, a man that never utters a syllable. We have tried all stratagems to make him speak. Yesterday he did at last open his mouth, and said Bec. We all laughed so at the novelty of the thing that he shut it again, and will never speak more. I think you can't complain now of my not writing to you. What a volume of trifles! I wrote just the fellow to it from Geneva; had it you?

Farewell! Thine.

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

From Bologna, 1739.

I DON'T know why I told Ashton I would send you an account of what I saw don't believe it, I don't intend it. Only think what a vile employment 'tis, making catalogues! And then one should have that odious Curld get at one's letters, and publish them like Whitfield's Journal, or for a supplement to the Traveller's Pocket Companion. Dear West, I protest against having seen any thing but what all the world has seen; nay, I have not seen half that, not some of the most common things; not so much as a miracle. Well, but you don't expect it, do you? Except pictures and statues, we are not very fond of sights; don't go a-staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases. Don't you hate, too, a jingling epitaph of one Procul and one Proculus that is here? Now and then we drop in at a pro

In the manuscript the writing of this word is extraordinary tall.

b Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln, who having, in 1744, married Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, inherited, in 1768, the dukedom of Newcastle-under-Line at the demise of the countess's uncle, Thomas Pelham Holles, who, in 1756, had been created Duke of Newcastle-under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of Lincoln.-E.

The Rev. Joseph Spence, the author of one of the best collections of Ana the English language possesses-the well-known "Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men," of which the best edition is that edited by Singer.-E.

d Edmund Curll, the well-known bookseller. The letters between Pope and many of his friends falling into Curll's hands, they were by him printed and sold. As the volume contained some letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the House of Lords for breach of privilege; but, when the orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.-E.

The Epitaph on the outside of the wall of the church of St. Proculo

Si procul à Proculo Proculi campana fuisset,
Jam procul à Proculo Proculus ipse foret.

A. D. 1392.

cession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twould make a delightful masquerade dress. We asked his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinallegate? Signor, no: ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of the academy, between the orator and the first poet. At two semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent among many candles. The chief made a little introduction, the orator a long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old abbé, and three lay,-read their compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the town. As we came out of the church, we found all the convent and neighbouring houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two bonfires. But you are sick of this foolish ceremony; I'll carry you to no more: I will only mention, that we found the Dominicans' church here in mourning for the inquisitor; 'twas all hung with black cloth, furbelowed and festooned with yellow gauze. We have seen a furniture here in a much prettier taste; a gallery of Count Caprara's: in the panels between the windows are pendent trophies of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turks. They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect. I looked about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose feet they were indisputably offered. In coming out of Genoa we were more lucky; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario were to have fought, "west of the town, a mile among the rocks."

My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I will transcribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you in a sort of a new light. They are no newer than Virgil, and what is more odd, are in the second Georgic. "Tis, that I have observed that he not only excels when he is like himself, but even when he is very like inferior poets: you will say that they rather excel by being like him: but mind, they are all near one another:

Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis
Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam:

And the four next lines; are they not just like Martial? In the following he is as much Claudian:

Illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum
Flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres;
Aut conjurato descendens Dacus ab Istro.

Then who are these like?

nec ferrea jura,
Insanumque forum, aut populi tabularia vidit.
Sollicitant alii remis freta cæca, ruuntque
In ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum.
Hic petit excidiis urbem miserosque Penates,
Ut gemma bibat, et Sarrano indormiat ostro.

Don't they seem to be Juvenal's?-There are some more, which to me resemble Horace; but perhaps I think so from his having some on a parallel subject. Tell me if I am mistaken; these are they:

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati:
Casta pudicitiam servat domus-

inclusively to the end of these:

Hanc olim veteres vitam coluêre Sabini ;

Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit,
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma.

If the imagination is whimsical; why, at least, 'tis like me to have imagined it. Adieu, child! We leave Bologna to-morrow. You know 'tis the third city in Italy for pictures: knowing that, you know all. We shall be three days crossing the Apennine to Florence: would it were over!

My dear West, I am yours from St. Peter's to St. Paul's!

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

Florence, Jan. 24, 1740, N. S.

DEAR WEST,

I DON'T know what volumes I may send you from Rome; from Florence I have little inclination to send you any. I see several things that please me calmly, but à force d'en avoir vû I have left off screaming Lord! this! and Lord! that! To speak sincerely, Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen since. I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but once see the great duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a congregation of good sort of people, that I have a great deal of unruffled regard for. The farther I travel the less I wonder at any thing: a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen custom; and men are so much the same every where, that one scarce perceives any change of situation. The same weaknesses, the same passions that in England plunge men into elections, drinking, whoring, exist

here, and show themselves in the shapes of Jesuits, Cicisbeos, and Corydon ardebat Alexins. The most remarkable thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people so obviously mad as the English. The French, the Italians, have great follies, great faults; but then they are so national, they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so excessively, that almost every one's faults are peculiar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly from our climate, partly from our government: the first is changeable, and makes us queer; the latter permits our queernesses to operate as they please. If one could avoid contracting this queerness, it must certainly be the most entertaining to live in England, where such a variety of incidents continually amuse. The incidents of a week in London would furnish all Italy with news for a twelvemonth. The only two circumstances of moment in the life of an Italian, that ever give occasion to their being mentioned, are, being married, and in a year after taking a cicisbeo. Ask the name, the husband, the wife, or the cicisbeo, of any person, et voilà qui est fini. Thus, child, 'tis dull dealing here! Methinks your Spanish war is little more lively. By the gravity of the proceedings, one would think both nations were Spaniard. Adieu! Do you remember my maxim, that you used to laugh at? Every body does every thing, and nothing comes on't. I am more convinced of it now than ever. I don't know whether S****'s was not still better, Well, 'gad, there is nothing in nothing. You see how I distil all my speculations and improvements, that they may lie in a small compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that, after travelling three years, brought home nothing but a nut? They cracked it in it was wrapped up a piece of silk, painted with all the kings, queens, kingdoms, and every thing in the world: after many unfoldings, out stepped a little dog, shook his ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy tale for you. If I had any thing as good as your old song, I would send it too; but I can only thank you for it, and bid you good night.

Yours ever.

P.S. Upon reading my letter, I perceive still plainer the sameness that reigns here; for I find I have said the same thing ten times over. I don't care, I have made out a letter, and that was all my affair.

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

Florence, February 27, 1740, N. S. WELL, West, I have found a little unmasqued moment to write to you; but for this week past I have been so muffled up in my domino, that I have not had the command of my elbows. But what have you been doing all the mornings? Could you not write then?—No, then I was masqued too; I have done nothing but slip out of my domino into bed, and out of bed into my domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian; all the morn one makes parties in masque

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