rampant; snow-drifts choked the ditches, a thick mist buried us alive. One comfort is, you cannot stop to think about it: one wheel is locked in the "sabot," the postboy's whip plays like a cracker, your horses mean to lunch this time in Italy. So down you plunge, right, left, round that corner; "mind the granite post;" bless me ! what a jump we got then! here we are at the bottom; little Nap's road is a splendid affair after all.

Then came Susa, a pretty town of Piedmont: and then a level drive of twenty miles to Turin. Rocks and precipices had melted away as though they had formed a part of the mist, and our eyes were regaled with a champaign country, planted out in orchards or vineyards, and intersected by long lines of mulberry trees. The road swept between hedges of the white acacia now in bloom, and recalled a pretty scene in Surrey on a smaller scale. At Asti we tasted a delicious wine of the country, and apples better than I ever ate any where.

"Sunt nobis mitia poma."

GENOA.

May 20.

In a few hours we shall leave this city after a too brief stay. It is provoking, but I have long wished to see what Florence is like in the month of May, and we have no time to lose. The road from Turin hither introduced us to the battle-field of Marengo, and the fortified town of Alessandria.

The plain where Dessaix's arrival made Napoleon master of Italy is now given up to the culture of the Mulberry, every leaf of which is precious to the silk-factories in the neighbourhood, for silkworms must eat as well as great people. I saw nothing in the features of the spot which arrests attention like the field of Waterloo.

Alessandria is entered by covered bridges, and under the teeth of a heavy portcullis: it has in addition all the amiable devices of flanking towers, loopholed passages, and ramparts bristling with cannon. A strong place, truly. It might however be starved out; for I saw no provision within the citadel for growing a crop, a resource indispensable to all besieged places.

A stage or two over Apennine slopes shaggy with the Spanish chestnut brought us down upon the coast of the Mediterranean. Approaching Genoa the heights were thronged with villas where every terrace displayed a phalanx of roses. The site of this city is superb: westward, the eye follows, for a score or two of miles, the curve of the Bay, distant mountains dipping down upon it: eastward, Genoa, with her bold promontory and quay, dome and sundry towers, stands out like rock-work on the bright water. Behind the town are considerable heights, crowned by the fortress which Massena held so stoutly, when they ate I believe their last horse.

We have visited the doge's palace, the Serra, the duomo, and a beautiful church. In their public buildings black and white occur alternately in horizontal layers: the effect of this on a tower a hundred and fifty feet high is pitiable; all unity, all impression of the sublime, is done away by these ledger lines. You are left with a feeling of wonderment at the immeasurable masses of marble, coupled with a regret that the republic should have had such a gigantic penchant for the pattern of a sailor's shirt.

The palace halls are enormous, whitewashed, and empty. In the duomo stands John Baptist's shrine, behind which no woman is ever permitted to go: for an obvious reason, certainly; whether a valid one may be doubted. The church "della Consolazione" has an absolute gallery of paintings on plafond and wainscot: this glare looks ill in a consecrated building.

After this it was a relief to stroll through the villa of the Marchese di Negri, where a charming view is obtained from one of the slopes. The owner has assembled some rare exotics, and a profusion of the usual ones. We noted the Cauotchouc, Pepper-tree, Coffee-bush, and Date; and, amidst a wilderness of flowers, found the Scented Camelia. There were some splendid yellow roses, and orange and citron trees, at once in flower and fruit; the Magnolia, too, is odoriferous here. The effect under a southern sun was like that of a jar of pot-pourri first opened.

No villa bouquet, however, will wean my fancy from an old description in Bacon of the requisites for an English flower-garden and shrubbery; albeit I admit the yellow rose to be peerless.

But I hear the music of our courier's boots,

announcing that those jackals "i cavalli," in their old rope harness, are ready for us. So, a truce to horticultural remarks, and adieu to Doria's city.

FLORENCE.

May 24.

We arrived here yester-evening, having come through the finest country we have yet seen. Among many striking spots, no one who has viewed it at morning prime will forget Spezia, a little fishing-hamlet crowding round a corner of a bay of the Mediterranean. The road dips, at first, as if it meant to bisect the village, then turns at a sharp angle, and climbs a sandstone cliff, whose slope descends on the very eaves of the houses. On this spot I was first seized with a sense of Italian scenery. We were skirting banks tufted with the wild fig and olive; here and there hung a spiky aloe on the face of the rock, its huge cup-like recesses filled with liquid crystal; the early dew still lay heavy on the uplands, but behind these a forest of mountain tops rose fresh and clear in the