They shewed us an agreeable garden here belonging to some man of fashion, whose name I know not; it was cut in a rock, yet the grotto disappointed me:  they had not taken such advantages of the situation as Lomellino would have done, and I recollected the tasteful creations in my own country, Pains Hill and Stour Head.

The Veronese nobleman shewed however the spirit of his country, if we let loose the genius of ours.  The emperor had visited his improvements it seems, and on the spot where he kissed the children of the house, their father set up a stone to record the honour.

Our attendant related a tender story to me more interesting, which happened in this garden, of an English gentleman, who having hired the house, &c. one season, found his favourite servant ill there, and like to die:  the poor creature expressed his concern at the intolerant cruelty of that fact which denies Christians of any other denomination but their own a place in consecrated ground, and lamented his distance from home with an anxious earnestness that hastened his end:  when the humanity of his master sent him to the landlord, who kindly gave permission that he might lie undisturbed under his turf, as one places one’s lap-dog in England; and there, as our Laquais de place observed, he did no harm, though he was a heretic; and the English gentleman wept over his grave.

I never saw cypress trees of such a growth as in this spot—­but then there are no other trees; inter viburna cypressi came of course into one’s head:  and this noble plant, rich in foliage, and bright, not dusky in colour, looked from its manner of growing like a vast evergreen poplar.

Our equipages here are strangely inferior to those we left behind at Milan.  Oil is burned in the conversation rooms too, and smells very offensively—­but they lament our suffocation in England, and black smoke, while what proceeds from these lamps would ruin the finest furniture in the world before five weeks were expired; I saw no such used at Turin, Genoa, or Milan.

The horses here are not equal to those I have admired on the Corso at other great towns; but it is pleasing to observe the contrast between the high bred, airy, elegant English hunter, and the majestic, docile, and well-broken war horse of Lombardy.  Shall we fancy there is Gothic and Grecian to be found even among the animals? or is not that too fanciful?

That every thing useful, and every thing ornamental, first revived in Italy, is well known; but I was never aware till now, though we talk of Italian book-keeping, that the little cant words employed in compting-houses, took their original from the Lombard language, unless perhaps that of Ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning Detto or Sudetto, as that which was already said before:  but this place has afforded me an opportunity of discovering what the people meant, who called a large portion