house where the elegant Pliny was content to take his repast in "a small banquetting room,", and watch the inexplicable “ebbs and flows” of his favourite fountain. Yet with all this expensive parade of attachment to ground illustrated by a classic pen, not even a bust of Trajan's pro-consul offered itself to our regards. Two or three wretched attempts at cutting marble into a semblance of the human form, stand on the garden walks, in place of statues. But the whole design of the villa is oppressively heavy, and its present condition, that of neglect: a neglect as repelling to the fair-weather visitant, as the rock on which it has been constructed must be dangerous to the storm-o'ertaken bark driven against its adamantine base by the force of "the dreaded Burasco.”*

At six o'clock we re-embarked, and stood across towards the western borders of the lake, which we coasted for some time, feasting our eyes on the ever-varying scene, graced with elegant seats, superb terraces, beautiful gardens, and a back-ground of vivid green-wood mountains: we then landed at the stately portico of Il Garuo, better known after it was christened by the name of the Villa d'Este. This building, . whatever it might have been whilst it was the residence of an Illustrious Personage, is now in a very forlorn state. It was purchased of its late unfortunate and ill-advised proprietress by Tolornia, the Roman banker-Duke of Braciano. He leaves it in charge of a few domestics, who

• The name given by the boatmen to the violent thunder storms, which frequently and suddenly take place on the lake, sometimes with fatal effect. They are attributed to the co-operation of the winds, the Tivano and Breva, the first blowing from the north from night fall to sun rise; the latter blowing from mid-day till evening.-Lady Morgan.

+ Built by Cardinal Gallio.

seem to take no care of it at all. They shewed us through the lower suite of apartments, which have an air of comfortless pomp about them; their furniture and decorations by no means corresponding with any thing Royal in England. We noticed the room with groups of figures painted on the ceiling, walls, and glass of the windows. They tell the story of Cupid and Psyche much in the same style of moral voluptuousness in which Raphael originally took delight to pourtray its mystical incidents. We saw as much as the obscurity produced by nearly closed shutters would permit, of the Theatre, where the Automaton of an Italian Pantomime was ingloriously performed by one who (if virtue-if decencydelicacy-or even discretion had had a share in the management) might have been "every inch" a Queen on the British Stage of exalted society. The silk damask with which the drawing-room walls are hung, still bears, within medallions, the initials C. P. G. We passed through the ante-chamber, in which the statues of Adam and Eve, well executed in marble, (each decorated with the leaf of a fig, suspended to an encircling bough of wire) still remain for the closest inspection of amateurs.

The gardens and grounds which are very extensive command some uncommonly fine views in the direction of the lake, and also contrariwise, looking towards the stupendous heights at the back of the place. We walked up to the summer-house or grotto which has nothing in itself to recommend it. A plaster image of Ariosto on a clumsy pedestal of wood stands in the centre. There is a pretty water-fall in the immediate vicinity. The horticultural plan, and embellishment of statues and fountains, are in the heaviest and most disagreeably formal stile of a

hundred years back. Yet neither for this, nor for the more modern folly which has modelled the uppermost points of closely impending rocks into a group of mock turrets, churches, and embattled walls (like the pasteboard painted fortifications of a mimic scene) is any but Italian taste to be impeached. On the other hand an excellent road, which the Lady caused to be made from this residence to Cernobio, is a work, whose spirited design and rare utility need not be spoken of in terms of higher commendation than by observing, that it is the only carriage way existing on the banks of this "ocean of fresh water." The façade of the palace has a magnificent appearance as you approach it from the lake. The rest seems little better than mere pretension; though a large quarto, with plates, has recently been published by an architect of Milan, to praise its conspicuous merits and reveal its hidden advantages. Nevertheless, the historical association is so strong, and the transactions personally and locally connected with it are so recent, that few English travellers omit to visit the Villa d'Este.

At eight o'clock we proceeded on our homeward voyage. The wind for the three preceding hours had dropped. The lake was pure; the air serene. To a fine day a sweet and tranquil evening had succeeded. And as the sun sank in radiant majesty behind the distant Swiss Alps, the moon appeared above the eastern hills, casting in unclouded brightness her silvery beams on the waters over which we were gently gliding. It was at the

that we skirted the shores of Larius, from the town of Cernobio; and, passing one magnificent villa after another, along the beautiful Borgo di Vico, our nocturnal entry into the little bay of Como was as safe and agreeable as had been our morning departure.*

The excursion was a most delightful one; performed under advantageous circumstances as to the weather; and though the wind proved boisterous and unfavourable, we may confidently affirm that we saw the southern arm of the lake in its best and most brilliant state.t The objects which it displays are replete with interest: but their predominating character is of an awful description. The astonished eye dwells on pictures of extraordinary boldness and grandeur, from whose overpowering impression it is relieved indeed by occasional traits of loveliness: yet we feel from time to time in looking around us, that hurricanes and tempests would be accidents more congenial to such scenery than a perfect calmness on the waters, or a pleasing serenity in the heavens. If, however, this part of our route were to be planned anew, the corrected judgment which local knowledge and experience alone can give, would unquestionably suggest the propriety of ascending from Lecco; and after taking a closer survey of the peculiarly

The fare is four francs a head, going and coming back, whether the same or the next day. Our boatmen were well-behaved and steady fellows; who performed their task cheerfully, and were quite satisfied with a couple of francs extra among them (pour boire) as drink money.

The surface of the lake of Como is 654 feet above the level of the sea. -Reichard.—“It is about thirty-six miles in length, in general from two to three miles broad, and four at the widest part, where it is divided into two branches; the greater of which leads to Como, the smaller to Lecco." -Coxe,

Y

striking scenes that offer themselves at and beyond Cadenobia, we should descend by the Como branch; thus making a two day's voyage, richly worth the additional time.

July 26th.-" How stands Comum, that favourite scene "of yours and mine? What becomes of the pleasant "villa, the vernal portico, the shady plane-tree walk, the "crystal canal, so agreeably winding along its flowery "banks, together with the charming lake below?" These questions put by Pliny to his friend Caminius Rufus, at a period somewhat anterior to the hundred and sixteenth year of Christ, touching a place in which the former was born, might now be answered almost in the same favourable and satisfactory terms as his friend may be supposed to have done (if he was a good correspondent) just after receiving his letter. "Comum" not only "still subsists upon the lake Larius or Lago di Como," as a note of Mr. Melmoth's rather oddly expresses it; but subsists as a tolerably large and populous town, and as the see of a Bishop: its immediate vicinity at this time is in no less a degree the resort of the Italian Nobility than it was of the Consular Dignitaries and Patricians of ancient Rome; and can equally boast of the pleasant villa, the vernal portico, the shady elm tree walk, the crystal canal, the flowery bank, and the charming lake below.

At an early hour, we left "the City of the Lake," but not before our curiosity had been excited, rather than gratified, by a rapid perambulation through some of its streets, well paved à la mode de Milan. Como contains

* See Pliny's Letters, book 1. epist. 3.