And greatly venerate our recent glories,
And wish they were not owing to the Tories.
1891 72XLVIL

But to my tale of Laura, for I find it
Digression is a sin, that by degrees ots
Becomes exceedingly tedious to my mind, to
And, therefore, may the reader too displease-
The gentle reader, who may wax unkind,
And caring little for the author's ease,
Insist on knowing what he means, a hard
And hapless situation for a bard.

of medica XLVIII.

Oh that I had the art of easy writing.
What should be easy reading! could I scale
Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing

Those pretty poems never known to fail,
How quickly would I print (the world delighting)
A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale;
And sell you, mix'd with western sentimentalism,
Some samples of the finest Orientalism.
s or lie bes XLIX,

lus de But I am but a nameless sort of person, is

(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)
And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,
The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels,
And when I can't find that, I put a worse on,
Not caring as I ought for criticks' cavils;
I've half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion-so here goes!
Isi olet livsb 96 097 00 Br

The Count and Laura made their new arrangement,
Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do,
For half a dozen years without estrangement
They had their little differences, too;

Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant:
In such affairs there probably are few
Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble,
From sinners of high station to the rabble.

But on the whole, they were a happy pair,
As happy as unlawful love could make them
The gentleman was fond, the lady fair,

Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to
WOTO break them: das dies
The world beheld them with indulgent air;
The pious only wish'd" the devil take them!"
He took them not; he very often waits,
And leaves old sinners to be young ones baits.

MAGAZINE:

A REPOSITORY OF ORIGINAL PAPERS, & SELECTIONS FROM

ENGLISH MAGAZINES.

Published every Saturday Morning, at Robinson's Circulating Library, No. 94, Baltimore-street.

VOL. 1.] BALTIMORE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1818. [No. 3.

EXTRACTS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF A TRAVELLER VISITING ITALY. [Continued from p. 19.]

From the Edinburgh Magazines

Florence, Oct. 16th 1817. er of the theatre) was the animating IVISI VISITED also at Milan Il C. soul and voice of these grotesque R. Palazzo della Scienze e belli images. He had to speak and moArti di Brera, a celebrated esta- dulate his voice in the characters of blishment, and one of the finest nine or ten different dramatis peredifices in that city. As our time sone, male and female: He was, of Was limited I could not visit any course, invisible. After an overture other parts of this palace but those from a most miserable orchestra, in which contain the paintings and sta- which there was neither time nor tues, and casts in plaster,-the col- tune, nor any thing like tolerable lection is admirable, some of the musick, the curtain (on which was a works of the greatest masters are very clever painting) drew up, and deposited here in a number of apart- a little deformed black, in a suit of ments dedicated to different styles brown, with scarlet stockings, and and stages of the pictorial art; and immense cocked hat, moved forward there are some very ancient paint- upon the stage, and began a soliloings in fresco. There were several quy, which was interrupted by the artists at work in the rooms making entrance of another strange figure, copies of some of the paintings. The (a female,) who entered into a smart casts are very fine, and there are a dialogue with the little black, whose few heads and figures in marble by gestures, grimaces. and contortions modern artists of celebrity. This of limb were amazingly absurd, alacademy of painting and sculpture though perfectly in unison, in point has produced some excellent ar- of time and Italian manner, with tists. the recitation which seemed to proAmong other sights in Milan, I ceed from his inflexible lips. Had went to Girolamo's theatre of pup- it not been for a certain awkward pets, (le Marionette,) and laughed rigidity in their sidelong motions, more than at any exhibition I ever when moving from one part of the beheld. You may perhaps think this stage to another, and for the visibiwas childish enough entertainment; lity of the wires attached to their so it was. But you don't know it, heads, and descending from the nor have you ever seen any thing roof above their heads, one might like it, nor any thing so superlatively have been deceived for a little into ludicrous. The puppets were about a belief of the actual existence of five feet (or perhaps less) in height; these strange personages. They and Girolamo (the master and own- walked about very clumsily, to be MAG. VOL. I.

3

sure; but then they bowed and curt- cipal streets of this city are very sied, and flourished with their arms, well calculated to shelter foot-pasand twisted themselves about, with sengers from the rains and from as much energy and propriety of ef- the scorching sun of that climate. fect as most of those worthy living Ever since we began to ascend puppets who infest the stages of the the Simplon the weather has been little theatres in London. There very cold. Here, at this moment, were two skeletons who played their it is as cold as it is in Scotland at parts admirably. They glided about, the same season. My fingers are and accompanied their hollow voic- quite benumbed. Yesterday morned speeches with excellent gesticu- ing, about nine o'clock, we arrived lations, while their fleshless jaws here, having been two days and a moved quite naturally. Then to half in crossing the Appenines, in crown all, there was a ballet of about shocking weather, misty, rainy, a dozen of these puppets; and they and very cold. By the by, a few danced with all the agility of Ves- years ago, there was a tremendous tris, and cut much higher than ever troop of banditti on these mountains, he did in his life. They actually near Pietra Mala, at which we restdid cut extremely well while in the ed for a few hours the day before air. You know the technical mean- yesterday. It is a wild, horribleing of that word in the dancing-mas- looking place. These miscreants ter's vocabulary. All the airs and had for their captain the curate of a graces of the French opera-dancers, village in the neighbourhood, and their pirouettes, spinning round with they endeavoured to shun detection a horizontal leg, &c were admira- in this way. They murdered every bly quizzed. One of these dancers passenger whom they stopped, and (dressed like a Dutchman) stopped buried them along with the horses short, after a few capers, and, draw- which they killed. They burned ing a snuff-box from his pocket, took the carriages and the baggage, rea pinch; then replaced the box, and serving only the money, watches, set off again with a most exalted ex- rings, &c. The publick were amazample of the entrechat. His partner ed by the disappearance of all the helped herself (from a pocket-pis- travellers going between Florence tol) to a dram, and then recom- and Bologna, for no vestige of them menced her furious exertions! or their carriages, &c. could be

The streets of Milan are wonder- found. A celebrated English trafully dark and quiet in the evening. veller mentions that two of his The city seems deserted; and you friends, (Pisans,) passing that road, would almost imagine yourself in rested near Pietra Mala to sleep. the midst of that place (mentioned They had a horrid supper; and the in the Arabian Nights) where the landlady told them she must send inhabitants were turned into stone. two miles for sheets. They observThe contrast between the streets of ed, in the midst of the poverty and Milan and those of Paris or London, filth of the house, that she wore diaof an evening, is quite striking; the mond rings; and this, with the terlatter full of moving life, and light, rible accounts of the place, deterand bustle, and vivacity, and noise, mined them not to remain there. -the former gloomy, silent, and They slipped out of the house before lifeless. midnight, and, fortunately, escaped

At Bologna I saw nothing remark- with their lives. We slept two able, excepting the bronze Neptune nights among those wild and dreary of the fountain by John of Bologna. mountains, the scenes of so many The arcades that run along the prin- murders and robberies.