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and valleys, country seats, and trelliced walks, covered with vines. To the right is the sea; over which fishing-boats skim with their felucca sails. Further on is a large bay; and to the left rise the mountains, crowned with fortified posts: here and there a church, with other picturesque appearances. On a fine day the Island of Corso can be distinguished from this point. Close by the church is the bridge of Carignan, which unites two hills. It is composed of seven arches, but has little to recommend it except its immense elevation. A street is below, and the tops of the loftiest houses, though many of them seven stories high, are seen far beneath it. At this time they were drying wheat, which was spread out in nicely arranged portions upon the pavement of the bridge,

The Hon. Captain Spenser, of the Naiad, sailed a few days before our arrival at Genoa. He brought the Sardinian court information of a pacific arrangement having been made with the Algerine powers, in place of an expected war. It seems his most gracious majesty was so delighted with the intelligence, that he ordered on board, as a present to the

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English frigate, a calf and a basket of vegetables. Captain Spenser directed the consul to pay for them, supposing, perhaps, that such unbounded liberality might reduce too materially the state's revenue!-A consideration highly laudable, and which, I trust, his majesty will duly estimate.

2

Tuesday, 7th Dec.-On Monday evening I was present at the representation of one of Goldoni's comedies, at the theatre San Augustino: I thought the acting excellent. This evening the puppets, at one of the minor theatres, afforded me considerable diversion. The plot, as far as I could understand it, represented a nun, who had transgressed her VOWS. She is struck with remorse, and consumes her days in "penitence and prayer." The devil, enraged at the loss of a proselyte, endeavours to draw her back into error, but is put to flight by a furious speech of her confessor, who enters during the struggle. The last scene discovers the penitent on her deathbed, and the monk exhorting her to be of good cheer. The whole of this was admirable. The faint melancholy tones of the expiring sinner, her mental and corporeal exhaustion,

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were excellently well acted. The puppet, at intervals, elevated the hands and the head, so as to give great effect to what was going on. Perhaps an exception might be taken to the colour of the cheeks; they were certainly too rubious; yet the spectator might indeed have concluded, that her repentance was of a most cordial nature. But, in short, infinitely more pathos was manifested than I should have thought it possible to represent by mechanism. An interlude followed, representing harlequin and his wife dancing to the music of three grotesque figures. This ended in a battle-royal, and so, exeunt omnes. The concluding part of the performance was very long and very stupid. It consisted in a succession of scenes without meaning, save that it appeared a most unhappy effort to dramatize certain passages of Ariosto. There were griffins and hypogriffins, Archimagos and Bradamantes, " 'tag-rag and bob-tail three or four scores. I employed the whole of this day in running over certain palaces; the Cambrian having been detained by contrary winds. It was, indeed, the Captain's intention to sail on the very day of our arrival, provided Sir Manley and Lady Power

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could so arrange it. But his sister-in-law, a daughter of Lieutenant-General Cockburn, happening to be then in Genoa, Sunday was fixed for our departure. Unfavourable weather has since kept us in harbour.

I wish to observe, that in the desultory observations I have made relating to the capital of Liguria, I have been led by a desire to avoid as much as possible the common track of other travellers; not only because of the small degree of interest which it appears to me this place is capable of exciting; but because it would only be a wearisome repetition of what others have said. I have, therefore, omitted many things which might, perhaps, have been detailed in a journal, as well in this as at other places which we have visited. I have no intention to present a guide-book to the public. Whatever strikes me, I shall commit to paper; embodying such reflections as the occasion may suggest, without much regard to systematic arrangement. Details of pictures, and statues, and palaces, are, at best, but a mawkish kind of reading:-people rarely agree about these things, or rise much better or wiser from the perusal. And it would be impossible to con

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vey, even to an amateur, any considerable portion of that pleasure which an inspection of the originals may have produced. But the majority of mankind are not amateurs; and, of those who call themselves such, how many are governed by affectation, by fashion,-by any thing but a real taste. A book, therefore, which abounds much in these matters, may not be a bad book; but the chances are greatly in favour of its being thought so. In reality, these are subjects which should be seen,-not read of; examined in person, not judged of at second-hand. As a taste for them cannot be acquired by reading, so neither by reading can a matured taste find a solid gratification. It is the feast of the Barmecide; subtile, unsubstantial fare; a vapour exhaled by the appetite, and lost in the warmth of its embrace. Descriptions of natural objects, on the other hand, I shall omit no opportunity of giving. Here the scene lives-breathes: art has not contaminated its beauty, nor diminished the brilliancy of its character. Instead of a feeble copy, the eye dwells upon a glowing original, and the impression, which it carries to the feelings, has a vividness and a fidelity of re