of considerable elevation deviate considerably from the plumbline. If there were any reasonable doubt on the question, it would appear to be decided by the fact, that the holes left for the scaffolding, and still visible in the wall, are at right angles with the mural line.

M. Simond avails himself of his sojourn at Pisa, to discuss the eternal subject of cicisbeism, and to supply some rather interesting details in connexion with its effect on the public mind. The Italians stiffly maintain its innocence, but their defence is a lame attempt to gloss over an indefensible practice. Amongst

us,' they will say, a lady who should shew herself on the 'coach-box, sitting by the side of her coachman, would be deemed lost to all sense of delicacy. Yet, we draw no such 'inference in regard to Englishwomen who do so, because we presume that it is the fashion in their own country, and that 'with them it means no more than, with us, the tête-à-tête of a lady and a cavaliere.' We confess ourselves to be among those who have no particular pleasure in seeing ladies on the driving-box of their own carriages, unless the husband or some relative should be the charioteer; but the very attempt to parry the condemnation of an infamous custom, by appealing to what cannot possibly be taken as any thing more than a trespass on fastidious delicacy, goes further than specific evidence to prove the demoralizing effects of the system. The same men who affect such a sensitive horror at a lady's contiguity to her coachman, would think nothing of ten thousand proximities' of the same kind inevitably occurring in exterior life; and they hold guiltless the allowance of a mode which throws onefourth of the married females of Pisa into incessant private association with their avowed lovers, and, on the shallow pretext of pure platonicism, without interfering with their reception in the best society.

Most of the ladies whom we met at Pisa in mixed society, were attended by gentlemen pointed out to us as their cavalieri serventi; (cicisbeo, meaning properly a coxcomb, is rather injurious, and not used ;) and we have heard (whether in joke or not I cannot say) of some who had three in constant attendance,-il bello, il brutto, il buono; the first loves, the second goes on errands, the third pays; but in general, one individual unites the various offices. Not many months ago, an unfortunate lady, who had only one cavaliere, was cruelly abandoned by him,-a very uncommon case; and when we arrived at Pisa, the melancholy story still filled every heart, and employed every tongue. Although far from young, having a grown-up son, she still retained some share of beauty; but the faithless cavaliere, after wearing her chains for twenty years, had thought fit to take a wife to himself. Afraid to convey the fatal intelligence in person, he employed a friend: but at the first hint, she flew to punish the disloyal man, and might

have stabbed him, had he not been on his guard. From a window of his house, he saw her coming, escaped by a back-door, and did not return till very recently, when the storm was a little abated. In the mean time, the whole town paid visits of condolence to the forsaken lády, avowedly on the occasion; and the husband, who sympathizes with her as much as any one, finds great fault that he was not employed to break the matter to her, as it might, in that case, have been done with due delicacy and tenderness. They are not rich; but the cavaliere kept his carriage, and had a box at the Opera, whither the lady went always, and her husband sometimes.'

The extensive stock-farm, on the borders of the sea, belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with its sandy soil and its groupes of camels, reminded M. de Chateauvieux of Asia and the crusades, Arabia and the desert: with M. Simond, they excite less poetical, but more tangible and profitable calculations. He suggests the employment of those useful animals in the deep, sandy plains of South America, where they would be at home in climate and situation, and perform much labour at small cost. Agriculture must be miserably conducted in the neighbourhood of Pisa, if it be true, as here stated, that the hand-cart and wheelbarrow are unknown.

The road from Florence to Rome leads through the upper division of the Val d'Arno, still more productive than the lower, and still more unpicturesque. Vallombrosa, however, M. Simond did not visit. In the neighbourhood of Arezzo, he crossed the lower part of the Chiana, a scene of improvement well worth describing.

The valley of the Chiana, sixty miles in length and about three in breadth, was formerly a pestilential marsh, which, about the year 1525, Julian de Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., undertook to drain. The works, suspended during the civil dissensions of the country, were resumed in 1551, and with little intermission continued during the last 266 years. It was Torricelli, the learned successor of Galileo, who first thought of rendering inundation subservient to the draining of marshes; that is, of elevating, by means of alluvial deposites, the level of the land above that of water. Some mountainstreams, so muddy at certain seasons as to carry from three to nine parts of earth in one hundred of water, were made to deposit their sediment over the marshes; the water being detained between artificial embankments till it became clear, that is, about forty-eight hours. Upon an average, the general level of the valley has been raised four braccia, or about eight feet, by this occasional folding of water in the course of nearly three centuries; and the whole accumulation is estimated at eight hundred and sixty-seven thousand cubic metres (something more than cubic yards) of earth.'

Terni, the Cascata delle Marmore, excited in our Traveller the same emotions of admiration which it can never fail to kindle in

all who have an eye or feeling for the exquisite in beauty and grandeur. Strange, that one of the finest water-falls in existence should be an artificial work ;-and stranger still, as some folk would think, that the Romans should have so thorough a knowledge of the picturesque, so many centuries before Gilpin or Uvedale Price had enlightened the world on that oracular, subject. Next came the waste tract, where scattered clusters of the evergreen-oak mark the spot where once spread far and wide the Ciminian forest, dark, awful, and impervious; then, after passing the air-hung bridge of Civita Castellana, ten leagues of unhealthy desert, supplying pasture to numerous herds of cattle; and lastly, in the heart of this depopulated wilderness-imperial Rome!

It may, however, so happen, that the sublime shall merge in the vexatious; and it did so happen in the present instance. The rain, the custom-house, the post-boys out of humour, sadly obscured the attractions of the Porto and Piazza del Popolo; yet, the more cheering circumstances of leisure and a fine day only drew from our cool and unimaginative Traveller the conclusions, that there is nothing peculiarly characteristic of Rome about either of them; that Roma Antica is quite hidden by Roma Moderna; and that the seven hills' are not to be found but with the assistance of a guide. In the same iconoclastical style does M. Simond traverse the 'eternal city' in all directions, rejecting every thing in the shape of poetical illusion, and subjecting all that he encounters to the stern examination of resolute and inexorable common sense.

We have amused ourselves with tracing the description of St. Peter's in the volumes of the three most popular-including M. Simond by a very allowable prolepsis-writers of Italian travel. Eustace is more than poetical in his licence; writes at random; describes what is certainly on the spot, but, as certainly, is not to be seen at one view, nor with the effect which he portrays. Forsyth's delineation is expressive and ably discriminated. How beautiful the colonnades! how finely pro'portioned to the church! how advantageous to its flat, forbidding front, which ought to have come forward, like the Pantheon, to meet the decoration! how grand an enclosure 'for the Piazza! how fortunate a screen to the ignoble objects around it! But, advance or retire, you will find no point of 'view that combines these accessories with the general form of the church. Instead of describing its whole cycloid on the ' vacant air, the cupola is more than half hidden by the front; ' a front at variance with the body, confounding two orders in 'one, debased by a gaping attic, and encumbered with colossal apostles. One immense Corinthian goes round the whole edi'fice in pilasters, which, meeting a thousand little breaks and

projections, are coupled and clustered on the way, parted by windows and niches, and overtopt by a meagre attic. Yet, 'the general mass grows magnificently out, in spite of the hi"deous vestry which interrupts it on one side, and the palace 'which denies it a point of view on the other.' This is good description and excellent criticism, subject, of course, to discussion, but evidently the writing of an able and well-furnished man. We feel ourselves strongly tempted to extract the corresponding part of Eustace's description, for the purpose of shewing how extravagant and little to be trusted is that attractive writer; but he has been so long and so extensively before the public, that we shall content ourselves with a simple reference. We must, however, suffer M. Simond to speak for himself on the subject. His criticism is homely, but sound.

The numerous representations in print of this celebrated edifice, enable those who were never at Rome, in a great degree to judge of its merits; and the general impression certainly is, that the main front, instead of resembling that of a temple, resembles rather that of a showy palace. It consists of three stories and attics, with nine windows to each story, heavy balconies awkwardly intersecting the Corinthian columns and pilasters of the pediment at half height. Instead of this pediment terminating, as it ought, the upper part of the edifice, the attic story is raised above it, and above again are thirteen colossal statues in a row, with a colossal dial-plate of bright red at each corner. The avenue to St. Peter's, a mere appendage, is infinitely finer than the main object which it was intended to adorn. This avenue consists of a double colonnade partly circular, and more than a thousand feet in length, with an Egyptian obelisk 124 feet high, base and cross included, and two fountains of ever-flowing water in the middle. The effect is truly magnificent; and ancient architecture, I believe, furnishes nothing comparable. As to the celebrated dome of St. Peter's, rising at a considerable distance behind the gay front, it scarcely seems to belong to it. While, on ascending the wide flight of steps which forms the base of the edifice, you are struck with the magnitude and beauty of the eight Corinthian columns, (8 feet 3 inches in diameter, and 88 feet high,) which support the pediment; and the portico behind is in point of size exceeded by few churches in Europe.'

After some further observations well worth reading, on the exterior and interior of this splendid structure, M. Simond goes" on to express his opinion, that, as a palace, it is not compar'able with the colonnade of the Louvre at Paris; as a temple, it is inferior to St. Paul's in London; and most of the Gothic ' cathedrals of the twelfth century far surpass it in solemn and profoundly religious effect.' He strongly and very justly condemns the effort to produce magnificence by the employment of gilding and coloured marbles, and proposes to diminish the glare of light, by walling up three-fourths of the windows. Our readers are aware that the enormous dome of this immense

building, long ago exhibited signs of weakness, and that the architect (Zabaglia, if we recollect rightly,) bound it with immense iron chains or hoops: these, it seems, have been found, on recent examination, not merely strained or broken, but 'riven 'wide asunder.'

Strange appositions sometimes occur in very common-place circumstances, and so complicated an affair as the Roman Forum could not but supply them in abundance. Inquiry was made concerning the Curtian gulf-There it is', exclaimed the cicerone, 'There, just before the shabby little house on the ' other side of the Forum; and the puddle of water with a pair ' of ducks waddling through and flapping their wings, is what ⚫ remains of Curtius's gulf, which, you know, closed upon him!' A good deal of uncertainty appears to exist relating to the very form and extent of the Forum itself; for the space at present assigned to it would hardly accommodate a 'twentieth part of the 'immense population of Rome'. The only method of approaching the solution of this question is, to remove twenty feet deep of rubbish, and, by digging fairly down to the old pavement over the whole extent of the Campo Vaccino, on a systematic plan, to ascertain, as far as possible, the relative position of the buildings.

We are sorry to feel compelled to say without reserve, that we have read M. Simond's Strictures on Raffaelle's transcendent productions in the Vatican-the Loggie, as they are usually termed-with unqualified disgust. They will, by some, be ascribed to miserable affectation; we believe that they are the expression of honest ignorance: but ignorance should learn to be silent. With a coolness that would be amusing if it were not incredibly annoying, he analyses those immortal composi tions, and rails on them without remorse; we cannot say, in good set phrase. The admirable figures of the Incendio del Borgo excite in him nothing but spleen; and he either misconceives or inexcusably misrepresents the movement which connects the lower with the upper section of the sublime Transfiguration. We decline, however, all controversy on this subject, with M. Simond: if he be sincere in his statements, we should entirely fail in making ourselves understood by him, and we have no taste for discussion where there is no common ground.

M. Simond treats the ceremonies of the Holy Week with great irreverence. He detects the actors laughing at their own gesticulations; finds out resemblances to the Opera Comique in the Papal processions; and refuses altogether to give himself up to the illusion of the scene. Even where he designs to praise, he performs the part of eulogist but languidly. Compare, for instance, his description of the far-famed Miserere of St. Peter's, with that of Eustace, and that of Forsyth. The en