Nature seems to have labored to express her full heart in as many ways as possible, when she made these lakes, moulded and planted their shores.  Lago Maggiore is grand, resplendent in Its beauty; the view of the Alps gives a sort of lyric exaltation to the scene.  Lago di Garda is so soft and fair,—­so glittering sweet on one side, the ruins of ancient palaces rise so softly with the beauties of that shore; but at the other end, amid the Tyrol, it is sublime, calm, concentrated in its meaning.  Como cannot be better described in general than in the words of Taylor: 

  “Softly sublime, profusely fair.”

Lugano is more savage, more free in its beauty.  I was on it in a high gale; there was a little clanger, just enough to exhilarate; its waters were wild, and clouds blowing across the neighboring peaks.  I like very much the boatmen on these lakes; they have strong and prompt character.  Of simple features, they are more honest and manly than Italian men are found in the thoroughfares; their talk is not so witty as that of the Venetian gondoliers, but picturesque, and what the French call incisive.  Very touching were some of their histories, as they told them to me while pausing sometimes on the lake.

On this lake, also, I met Lady Franklin, wife of the celebrated navigator.  She has been in the United States, and showed equal penetration and candor in remarks on what she had seen there.  She gave me interesting particulars as to the state of things in Van Diemen’s Land, where she passed seven years when her husband was in authority there.

I returned to Milan for the great feast of the Madonna, 8th September, and those made for the Archbishop’s entry, which took place the same week.  These excited as much feeling as the Milanese can have a chance to display, this Archbishop being much nearer tire public heart than his predecessor, who was a poor servant of Austria.

The Austrian rule is always equally hated, and time, instead of melting away differences, only makes them more glaring.  The Austrian race have no faculties that can ever enable them to understand the Italian character; their policy, so well contrived to palsy and repress for a time, cannot kill, and there is always a force at work underneath which shall yet, and I think now before long, shake off the incubus.  The Italian nobility have always kept the invader at a distance; they have not been at all seduced or corrupted by the lures of pleasure or power, but have shown a passive patriotism highly honorable to them.  In the middle class ferments much thought, and there is a capacity for effort; in the present system it cannot show itself, but it is there; thought ferments, and will yet produce a wine that shall set the Lombard veins on fire when the time for action shall arrive.  The lower classes of the population are in a dull state indeed.  The censorship of the press prevents all easy, natural ways of instructing them; there are