Letters from Italy

single question before him, will turn pale at the conclusions he cannot escape."

When this was uttered I had no idea it would so soon prove true. The immediate results in Italy and Europe no man can foretell; but that there will be a reaction against the panic that has paralyzed monarchs, I have but little doubt. This will probably be followed by a struggle and a long war. That Italy may gain from the conflict and collision at hand, is my most ardent wish. The spirit the Italian people have shown thus far, proves that many of my views respecting them were incorrect; that they possess far more greatness and stability of character than travellers have given them credit for. I rejoice that it is so, and hope that the Italian Republics of a former age may be more than renewed in the present century. At all events, the people have shown themselves worthy of a noble destiny.

PREFACE.

THE accompanying Letters were not originally written with the intention of being published in a book, and, very probably, would have been worse written if they had been. In passing through Italy, one is constantly subjected to sudden and great transitions of feeling. The "classic land" and the "home of the Cæsars," have so long been a portion of the scholar's dreams, and so brightly colored with his own feelings, that the very matter-of-fact objects that stare him in the face, when he is expecting some hallowed monument of the past, will often quite upset his gravity, and compel him to laugh, where he thought to have been serious and reflective. It has been my effort, in these Letters, to give a faithful transcript of my feelings, in all these sudden transitions. To some there may often appear too much lightness and frivolity; yet most men like to have one give himself in his travels; they wish to hear him soliloquizing. We read his book not to learn that he can be, or is, a very serious and profound man, but to know how things struck him—that is, travel with him. Amid the new and exciting scenes that constantly meet travellers, in perhaps a hurried passage over a country, they cannot, and do not, have the views and feelings so often given, for appearance's sake, as their honest ones.

My purpose has been to let others, if possible, look through my eyes; and whether I have succeeded or not, or whether they would have obtained a very interesting view if they did, I leave the reader to judge. Descriptions of galleries of art, paintings, etc., have been avoided, as possessing interest to those only who have travelled over the same ground, and become familiar with the details necessary to make those descriptions clear. I have attempted, also, to give some idea of the condition of the inhabitants, especially of the lower classes, as they are topics seldom referred to in passing over the most classic land on the globe.

It was designed at first to publish these Letters in numbers, and the first number was issued, but the plan was immediately abandoned, and the publication of the remainder deferred till the whole could be issued in a volume. The first number em

braced only Genoa and a portion of Naples-the least interest

ing part of Italy. Rome, Florence, Milan, the provinces, etc., are included in the remainder.

CONTENTS.

II.

III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS-LUNATICS

IV. DESCRIPTION OF GENOA

LET I. VOYAGE TO ITALY-MAN LOST OVERBOARD

GIBRALTAR-APPROACH TO GENOA

XII. LORD BYRON-MARQUIS DI NEGRO

V. HOUSE-HUNTING-ROMANTIC MARRIAGE

VI. FUNERAL IN THE MORNING-MURDER OF AN AMERICAN