"which the Italians now call Lago di Garda. It was so rough with tempests when we passed by it that it brought into my mind Virgil's noble description of it. Adde lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque Mr. Eustace also had the fortune to see the lake in its state of classical agitation. "Before we retired to rest, about midnight, from our windows we observed the lake calm and unruffled. About three in the morning I was roused from sleep by the doors and windows bursting open at once, and the wind roaring round the room. I started up, and looking out, observed by the light of the moon, the lake in the most dreadful agitation and the waves dashing against the walls of the inn, and resembling the swellings of the ocean more than the petty agitation of inland waters. "Next morning, the lake so tranquil and serene the evening before, presented a surface covered with foam, and swelling into mountain billows that burst in breakers every instant at the door of the inn, and covered the whole house with spray." At Peschiera the lake terminates in the river Mincius, "Smooth-flowing Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds," which like the Benacus has preserved its classical character, Tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat Mincius, et tenera prætexit arundine ripas. Georg. II. 14. But the most striking feature of the Lago di Garda is the promontory of Sermione, the favourite retreat of Catullus, himself a native of Verona. Peninsularum Sirmio, insularumque Ocelle, quascunque in liquentibus stagnis Quam te libenter, quamque lætus inviso, &c. This delightful little poem has lost none of its beauty in the version of Moore. Sweet Sermio! thou the very eye Of all peninsulas and isles, That in our lakes of silver lie, Or sleep enwreath'd by Neptune's smiles, How gladly back to thee I fly! Still doubting, asking, can it be That I have left Bithynia's sky And gaze in safety upon thee? Oh! what is happier than to find Our hearts at ease, our perils past; When tired with toil, on land and deep, Of our own home, and sink to sleep This, this it is, that pays alone The ills of all life's former track Shine out, my beautiful, my own Sweet Sermio-greet thy master back. And thou, fair lake, whose water quaffs The extremity of the promontory is covered with ruins, and a vault is exhibited to the stranger under the name of the Grotto of Catullus. The neighbourhood of the Lago di Garda is also rendered interesting by its connexion with the second era of classical literature in Italy. Its beauties inspired the muses of Bembo, Navagero, and Fracastoro, the latter of whom possessed a delightful villa, situated near the lake. The traveller may, probably, be able to trace its site from the pleasing description which the biographer of the poet has given. It was placed amidst the range of hills, which extend between the lake and the Adige, about fifteen miles from Verona. Here, after a moderate ascent, rose the villa of the poet, which was sufficiently elevated to command a view of the lake. The house was plain; had little to boast from artificial ornament, but much from the natural beauty of its situation. It was of a square form, with an open aspect on every side, except the north. On the east, where the Adige rolls its rapid current, hastening from the interior of Germany and laving the foot of the mountain, it commanded a view of Verona, with innumerable villas scattered here and there on the subjacent plain. Herds and flocks added to the picturesque beauty of the scene, heightened still more by the smoke of the scattered habitations, scen more distinctly towards evening. On the west, the appearance of the Lago di Garda was no less pleasing-hills rising in alternate succession met the view the sometimes disturbed and tumultuous billows of the lake-the charming peninsula of Catullusvessels with expanded sails, and fishing barks seen approaching from a remote distance, and numerous towns and hamlets seated on the sunny promontories. Beneath, lay Bardoleno, its declivities crowned with olives and orange trees-the hilly summits here embrowned with shady woods, there spreading a green and luxuriant pasture. The damp unwholesome winds from the south were warded off by an orchard of the choicest fruit trees, so arranged as to form a screen to the villa, while mount Baldo on the north, towering behind, protected it from the rigorous blasts of winter. Fracastoro has himself celebrated, in a poem addressed to his friend Francesco Torriano, the studious pleasures of this charming retreat. "Here peaceful solitude the muse befriends, GRESWELL. In this retreat Fracastoro died in the year 1553. The inhabitants of Verona, of which city he was a native, erected a statue to his memory. VICENZA. Monia, templa, domus, et propugnacula, et arces, Fama unde illius vivet, honorque diu. BRESSANI. VICENZA is to be visited as the city of Palladio. It is the Mecca of architects, adorned with a hundred shrines, each claiming the devotion of the pilgrim. "Vicenza," says an excellent critic (Mr. Forsyth), " is full of Palladio. His palaces here, even those which remain unfinished, display a taste chastened by the study of ancient art. Their beauty originates in the design, and is never superinduced by ornament. Their elevations enchant you, not by the length and altitude, but by the consummate felicity of their proportions, by the harmonious distribution of solid and void, by that happy something between flat and prominent, which charms both in front and in profile; by that maestria which calls in columns, not to encumber, but to support, and reproduces ancient beauty in combinations unknown to the ancients themselves. Even when obliged to contend with the coarsest Gothic at La Ragione, how skilfully has Palladio screened the external barbarism of that reversed hulk, by a Greek elevation as pure as the original would admit. His Vicentine villas have been often imitated in England, and are models more adapted to resist both our climate and |