These northern emigrants the Goths, however, have done more; they have fixed a mode of carrying on human affairs, that I think will never be so far exterminated as to leave no vestiges behind:  and even while one contemplates the mischief they have made—­even while one’s pen engraves one’s indignation at their success; the old baron in his castle, preceded and surrounded by loyal dependants, who desired only to live under his protection and die in his defence, inspires a notion of dignity unattainable by those who, seeking the beautiful, are by so far removed from the sublime of life, and affords to the mind momentary images of surly magnificence, ill exchanged perhaps by fancy, though truth has happily substituted a succession of soft ideas and social comforts:  knowledge, virtue, riches, happiness.  Let it be remembered however, that if the theme is superior to the song, we always find those poets who live in the second class, celebrating the days past by those who had their existence in the first.  These reflections are forced upon me by the view of Lombard manners, and the accounts I daily pick up concerning the Brescian and Bergamase nobility; who still exert the Gothic power of protecting murderers who profess themselves their vassals; and who still exercise those virtues and vices natural to man in his semi-barbarous state:  fervent devotion, constant love, heroic friendship, on the one part; gross superstition, indulgence of brutal appetite, and diabolical revenge, on the other.

In all hot countries, however, flowers and weeds shoot up to enormous growth:  in colder climes, where poison can scarce be feared, perfumes can seldom be boasted.

Verona is the gayest looking town I ever lived in; beautifully situated, the hills around it elegant, the mountains at a distance venerable:  the silver Adige rolling through the Valley, while such a glow of blossoms now ornament the rising grounds, and such cheerfulness smiles in the sweet countenances of its inhabitants, that one is tempted to think it the birth-place of Euphrosyne, where

    Zephyr with Aurora playing,
    As he met her once a maying, &c. 
    Fill’d her with thee a daughter fair,
    So buxom, blythe, and debonair—­

as Milton says.  Here are vines, mulberries, olives; of course, wine, silk, and oil:  every thing that can seduce, every thing that ought to satisfy desiring man.  Here then in consequence do actually delight to reside mirth and good-humour in their holiday dress. A verona mezzi matti[Footnote:  The people at Verona are half out of their wits], say the Italians themselves of them, and I see nothing seemingly go forward here but Improvisatori, reciting stories or verses to entertain the populace; boys flying kites, cut square like a diamond on the cards, and called Stelle; men amusing themselves at a game called Pallamajo, something like our cricket, only that they throw the ball with a hollow stick, not with the hand, but it requires no small corporal strength; and I know not why our English people have such a notion of Italian effeminacy:  games of very strong exertion are in use among them; and I have not yet felt one hot day since I left France.