are uniformly bad, and the harness, often consisting of slender ropes, is horrible.

Although the rates of posting in all the Italian states is regulated by law, impositions are in one way or another practised upon the traveller, in spite of his utmost vigilance. The most general mode of exacting exorbitant fees, is by /putting on a stronger team than the carriage requires. Remonstrances in such cases are entirely useless, and the only alternative is patient submission, under the authority of the maxim, that" when you are among the Romans, you must do as the Romans do." Our two friends who are in person both light men, and were encumbered with but little baggage, frequently presented the ludicrous picture of being dragged up the hills by six horses and four oxen, strung out at such lengths, and moving at such a solemn pace, as to appear like a funeral procession. As our coach was of a different kind, we were never compelled to take more than four horses and one pair of oxen. But manage as you will, the expense of posting is more than treble that of travelling with a vetturino ; and he that makes the experiment will soon repent of his bargain. With many of the English, who make the tour of Italy merely for the sake of riding and spending money, the case is different. They often bring with them the principles of their jockey clubs, and boast of performing such and such routes, in so many hours.

At 7 o'clock on the morning of the 20th, our three-horse coach, (a sort of triangular team,) drove up with a flourish of whips, and the postillion in livery as the law directs, to the door of Mynheer Schneider's Hotel, and we set out for "the City of the Seven Hills," our friends leading the way as pioneers. Within the first hour after leaving Florence, our coach was turned bottom upwards against the fence, without injury to us, having descended a few minutes before the accident, to walk up a hill. The persons left in charge of it concealed as many of the particulars, as the fractured axle would permit. In general, the road though hilly is smooth and excellent; and nothing but this circumstance saves the necks of hundreds. Two of our acquaintances, whom we met at Florence on their return from Rome, had been capsized on this same route, and one of them severely bruised. Coachmen are often killed by their own carelessness, and disposed of with as little ceremony, as soldiers are carried from the field of battle.

M

For the first ten or twelve miles, the country was not new to me, having been already traversed in my excursion to Vallombrosa. My companions satisfied their curiosity with a glance at the forests of fir, which mantle the heights of the Apennines, and overhang that secluded retreat, at the distance of four or five miles on the left of the road. At Incisa, two posts from Florence, we crossed the Arno, which here preserves the character of a torrent. This little village excited a degree of interest, from having once been the residence of Petrarch's mother, while he was an infant. It now consists of a cluster of mean houses, extending along the bank of the river. The other villages, though sometimes large, are generally mean in appearance, and unworthy of the splendid scenery which surrounds them.

What is called the Superior or Upper Vale of the Arno, extends from Florence onward towards Rome. Though it does not differ essentially in character from that portion denominated the Inferior, in the direction of Pisa, and already described, if possible it surpasses the latter in fertility of soil and exactness of tillage. The products are the same, and the distant landscape, always embracing peaks in the eternal chain of the Apennines, is often superlatively rich and beautiful. This portion of Italy has been celebrated for its exuberance by all writers from the age of Livy to the present time. Its cattle are the finest I have seen on the continent. They are commonly of a dove colour, both large and fat, the oxen having their heads set off with scarlet fillets and tassals, with as much taste as a peasant girl at a gala. The country is extremely populous, and the inhabitants appear to be industrious in the cultivation of their few acres, appropriated as usual to grain, the olive, and vine.

After crossing a beautiful sunny plain, embosomed among the mountains, we reached Arezzo at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and took lodgings for the night at the Post House. While dinner was preparing, an hour was occupied in looking at the town, which is charmingly situated in the midst of a smiling country, and contains a population of about 10,000. It has seen better days, and some of the streets exhibit an air of former magnificence, being remarkably well paved, spacious, and lined with stately edifices. The Cathedral is a vast building, standing upon an eminence, with a showy exterior. Among the usual share of ornaments in the interior, is a splendid painting of Judith presenting the head of

Holofernes to the people. The most has been made of a bad subject, and the picture possesses so much merit, that Morghen has hence drawn one of his best prints. In one of the aisles is a marble tomb of an Archbishop, furnishing a curious specimen of antique sculpture. Before the church spreads an extensive promenade, planted with trees, and ornamented with a lofty column of granite rising in the

centre.

One of the first objects which the traveller inquires for on entering Arezzo, is the birth-place of Petrarch. Our curiosity was greatly augmented by having visited his secluded residence in the vale of Vaucluse. But what was our disappointment, on being conducted to the street, to find that the old house, in which he was born in 1304, had been demolished about eight years since, and a new one erected on its site. Such a revolution has dissolved the charm of association, and the traveller scarcely pauses long enough before the fresh stucco walls, to read a Latin inscription of great length, posted up like the rates of a toll-gate in front of the house. The early life of Petrarch seems to have given rise to several legendary and fabulous tales, though it was sufficiently romantic without any of these incredible stories. He was emphatically the child of misfortune. At the time of his birth, his parents were exiles from their native Florence, and his father was waging in the field an ineffectual struggle to restore the liberties of his country. While the poet was an infant, his mother returned to Incisa, the village mentioned above; and in crossing the Arno, her babe, put into a sack fastened to the end of a pole, and entrusted to a peasant whose horse fell in fording the river, was nigh being drowned. So says tradition. At the age of seven, he and his parents embarked at Leghorn for Marseilles, on their way to Avignon. They were wrecked during the voyage, and the infant bard again narrowly escaped. These moving accidents of his childhood were in consonance with the misfortunes of his riper years, and perhaps have been invented to harmonize with the story of his woes.

Arezzo (the old Arretium,) was anciently a town of great importance, and here the Consul Flaminius had his head quarters, previous to the fatal battle with Hannibal on the shores of lake Thrasymenus. Some vestiges of its antiquities still remain. We visited the ruins of the Amphitheatre, situated near the Roman Gate. Its construction almost

exactly resembles that of Frejus, in the south of France, less spacious as well as less perfect than the one at Nismes. A few of the arches are yet entire; but the walls are overgrown with shrubbery, and the arena covered with rank grass. In musing over these wrecks of other ages, the mind involuntarily reverts to vanished scenes, when the benches were crowded with circles of Roman beauty, and the pulse of thousands beat high with enjoyment.

Early the next morning we left Arezzo, and pursued our journey through the vale of Chiana, sixteen miles in extent, across which the eye stretches, charmed with the richness of the landscape, and rests on the picturesque village of Chiusi, seated on the top of a round insulated hill several bundred feet above the surrounding plain. This town, anciently called Clusium, was the castellated kingdom of old Porsenna, whose arms carried terror to the gates of Rome. The ramparts and towers of Cortona, once the capital of Etruria, but now wasted away into comparative insignificance, crown the heights on the left of the road, and overlook the whole of the beautiful valley blooming below. It is said the Cathedral in this town contains an ancient tomb, which is supposed to have been erected in memory of the Consul Flaminius, whose death gave eclat to the victory of the Carthaginian.

Passing the post of Camuccia, we reached the little village of Ossaia, on the frontiers of Tuscany, which pretends to derive its name from the bones (ossa) of the ten thousand Romans, who fell in the memorable engagement above referred to, and here found a grave. An inscription in front of a building on the left of the street urges this claim, strengthened by fragments of human bones found in the vicinity. But its authenticity is denied by antiquaries, and the scene of the battle is uniformly laid several miles farther on. I seize this occasion to say, that a note to the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold comprises, within a narrow compass, more authentic information on this subject, than all the volumes of modern travellers put together. Byron's topographical descriptions, aided by the patient labours of his friend Hobhouse, are more minutely accurate than any one would expect in the pages of a poet. His text of course often exaggerates and embellishes; but you may always rely on his notes, and if any of my readers wish for a perfect picture of one of the most renowned fields in the whole history of

Rome, they have only to turn to the passage above referred to, which is too long for quotation, and to concise for abridgment.

Idle

On leaving Ossaia, we continued to ascend an eminence of moderate elevation, shaded with oaks and olives, till our arrival at the narrow Pass of Borghetto, by which the Consul and his army entered the semi-circular plain upon the shore of the lake, at the dawn of the ill-fated day, the events of which spread dismay through the streets of Rome. as the curiosity may seem, and remote as the associations must be, the eye loves to trace even the ground, upon which the Roman legions trampled, as they advanced with high hopes and proud bearing to meet the inveterate enemy of their country. None but a rash leader would have entrusted an army to such a field, from which there was no retreat in case of discomfiture. But the Roman arms were at that period unaccustomed to reverses, and the wily African was not looked for in such a secluded recess of the mountains. is not, however, my business to balance the merits of generalship, nor to dwell on the incidents of a battle, which have been recorded by a thousand pens since the days of Livy, from whose copious and "pictured page" my classical friend recited passage after passage, as the inspiration of the ground awakened the chain of associations, and opened the treasures of memory.

It

In winding round the pass of Borghetto, glimpses of the blue waters of Thrasymenus were at first indistinctly seen, through the groves of oak which fringe the road, till at length the whole lake, cradled among the Apennines, and girt by verdant shores, spread in all its brightness full before us. The feelings of the moment may be much more easily conceived than described. To the impressions produced by the charms of natural scenery were added the recollections of history, and the classic dreams of boyhood. If the lake is not peculiarly remarkable for either its grandeur or beauty, it is intensely interesting; and it is difficult to analyze the complex emotions which the first view of it produced in my mind. Its length is ten miles, and its breadth five or six; it is of an irregular form, and encircled on all sides by mountainous and woody borders, which give it an air of deep solitude. Three small islands rise boldly from its bosom, and contribute greatly to its picturesque beauty. Its immediate mar

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