of hills commands the city, variegated with green inclosures and villas innumerable. On the highest acclivity of this range appears the magnificent convent of Madonna del Monte, embosomed in wood and joined to the town by a corridor a league in length. This vast portico ascending the steeps and winding amongst the thickets, sometimes concealed and sometimes visible, produces an effect wonderfully grand and singular. I longed to have mounted the height by so extraordinary a passage; and hope on some future day to be better acquainted with Santa Maria del Monte.

At present I have very little indeed to say about Bologna (where I passed only two hours) except that it is sadly out of humour, an earthquake and Cardinal Buoncompagni having disarranged both land and people. For half-a-year the ground continued trembling; and for these last six months, the legate and senators have grumbled and scratched incessantly; so that, between natural and political commotions, the Bolognese must have passed an agreeable summer.

Such a report of the situation of things, you may suppose, was not likely to retard my journey. I put off delivering my letters to another opportunity, and proceeded immediately after

dinner towards the mountains. We were soon in the midst of crags and stony channels, that stream with ten thousand rills in the winter season, but during the summer months reflect every sunbeam, and harbour half the scorpions in the country.

For many a toilsome league our prospect consisted of nothing but dreary hillocks and intervening wastes, more barren and mournful than those to which Mary Magdalene retired. Sometimes a crucifix or chapel peeped out of the parched fern and grasses, with which these desolate fields are clothed; and now and then we met a goggle-eyed pilgrim trudging along, and staring about him as if he waited only for night and opportunity to have additional reasons for hurrying to Loretto.

During three or four hours that we continued ascending, the scene increased in sterility and desolation; but, at the end of our second post, the landscape began to alter for the better: little green valleys at the base of tremendous steeps, discovered themselves, scattered over with oaks, and freshened with running waters, which the nakedness of the impending rocks set off to advantage. The sides of the cliffs in general consist of rude misshapen masses; but their summits are smooth and verdant, and continually browsed by herds

of white goats, which were gambolling on the edge of the precipices as we passed beneath.

I joined one of these frisking assemblies, whose shadows were stretched by the setting sun along the level herbage. There I sat a few minutes whilst they shook their beards at me, and tried to scare me with all their horns. Being tired with skipping and butting at me in vain, the whole herd trotted away, and I after them. They led me a dance from crag to crag and from thicket to thicket.

It was growing dusky apace, and wreaths of smoke began to ascend from the mysterious depths of the valleys. I was ignorant what monster inhabited such retirements, so gave over my pursuit lest some Polypheme or other might make me repent it. I looked around, the carriage was out of sight; but hearing the neighing of horses at a distance, I soon came up with them, and mounted another rapid ascent, from whence an extensive tract of cliff and forest land was discernible.

A chill wind blew from the highest peak of the Apennines, and made a dismal rustle amongst the woods of chesnut that hung on the mountain's side, through which we were forced to pass. Walking out of the sound of the carriage, I began inter

preting the language of the leaves, not greatly to my own advantage or that of any being in the universe. I was no prophet of good, and had I but commanded an oracle, as ancient visionaries were wont, I should have flung mischief about me.

How long I continued in this strange temper I cannot pretend to say, but believe it was midnight before we emerged from the oracular forest, and saw faintly before us an assemblage of miserable huts, where we were to sleep. This wretched hamlet is suspended on the brow of a bleak mountain, and every gust that stirs, shakes the whole village to its foundations. At our approach two hags stalked forth with lanterns and invited us with a grin, which I shall always remember, to a dish of mustard and crows' gizzards, a dish I was more than half afraid of tasting, lest it should change me to some bird of darkness, condemned to mope eternally on the black rafters of the cottage.

After repeated supplications we procured a few eggs, and some faggots to make a fire. Pitching my bed in a warm corner I soon fell asleep, and forgot all my cares and inquietudes.

LETTER XI.

A sterile region.-Our descent into a milder landscapeDistant view of Florence.-Moonlight effect. -Visit the Gallery. Relics of ancient credulity. - Paintings.— A Medusa's head by Leonardo da Vinci.-Curious picture by Polemberg. The Venus de Medicis. - Exquisitely sculptured figure of Morpheus. Vast Cathedral. - Garden of Boboli. Views from different parts of it. Its resemblance to an antique Roman garden.

September 14th, 1780.

THE sun had not been long above the horizon, before we set forward upon a craggy pavement hewn out of rough cliffs and precipices. Scarcely a tree was visible, and the few that presented themselves began already to shed their leaves. The raw nipping air of this desert with difficulty spares a blade of vegetation; and in the whole range of these extensive eminences I could not discover a single corn-field or pasture. Inhabitants, you may guess, there were none. I would defy even a Scotch highlander to find means of subsistence in so rude a soil.