Well! these are unpleasant reflections:  I would rather, before leaving the plains of Lombardy, give my country-women one reason for detaining them so long there:  it cannot be an uninteresting reason to us, when we ref left that our first head-dresses were made by Milaners; that a court gown was early known in England by the name of a mantua, from Manto, the daughter of Teresias, who founded the city so called; and that some of the best materials for making these mantuas is still named from the town it is manufactured in—­a Padua soy.

We are going thither immediately through Vicenza; where the works of Palladio’s immortal hand appear in full perfection; and nothing sure can add to the elegancies of architecture displayed in its environs.  I fatigued myself to death almost by walking three miles out of town, to see the famous villa from whence Merriworth Castle in Kent was modelled; and drew incessant censures on his taste who built at the bottom of a deep valley the imitation of a house calculated for a hill.  Here I pleased my eyes by glancing them over an extensive prospect, bounded by mountains on the one side, on another by the sea, at so prodigious a distance however as to be wholly undiscoverable by the naked eye; nor could I, or any other unaccustomed spectator, have seen, as my Italian companions did, the effect produced by marine vapours upon the intermediate atmosphere, which they made me remark from the windows of the palace, inferior in every thing but situation to Merriworth, and with that patriotic consolation I leave Vincenza.

Padua la dotta afforded me much pleasure, from the politeness of the Countess Ferres, born a German; of the House of Starenberg:  she thought proper to shew me a thousand civilities, in consequence of a kind letter which we carried her from Count Wiltseck, the Austrian minister at Milan; called the literati of the town about us, and gave me the pleasure of conversing with the Abate Cefarotti, who translated Offian; and the Professor Statico, whose attentions I ought never to forget.  I was surprised at length to hear kind inquiries after English acquaintance made in my native language by the botanical professor, who spoke much of Doctor Johnson, and with great regard:  he had, it seems, spent much time in our island about thirty years before.  When we were shewn the physic garden, nicely kept and excellently furnished, the Countess took occasion to observe, that transplanted trees never throve, and strongly expressed her unfaded attachment to her native soil:  though she had more good sense than to neglect every opportunity of cultivating that in which fortune had placed her.

The tomb of Antenor, supposed to be preserved in this town, has, I find, but slight evidence to boast with regard to its authenticity:  whosever tomb it is, the antiquity of the monument, and dignity of the remains, are scarcely questionable; and I see not but it may be Antenor’s.