Where dwelt in haughty wretchedness a lord,
    Whose rage was justice, and whose law his word: 
    Who saw unmov’d the vassal perish near,
    The widow’s anguish, and the orphan’s tear;
    Insensible to pity—­stern he stood,
    Like some rude rock amid the Caspian flood,
    Where shipwreck’d sailors unassisted lie,
    And as they curse its barren bosom, die.

And it is, I trust, for no deeper reason that the subjects of this republic resident in the capital, are less savage and more happy than those who live upon the Terra Firma; where many outrages are still committed, disgraceful to the state, from the mere facility offenders find, either in escaping to the dominion of other princes, or of finding shelter at home from the madly-bestowed protection these old barons on the Continent cease not yet to give, to ruffians who profess their service, and acknowledge dependence upon them.  In the town, however, little is known of these enormities, and less is talked on; and what information has come to my ears of the murders done at Brescia and Bergamo, was given me at Milan; where Blainville’s accounts of that country, though written so long ago, did not fail to receive confirmation from the lips of those who knew perfectly well what they were talking about.  And I am told that Labbia, Giovanni Labbia, the new Podesta sent to Brescia, has worked wonderful reformation among the inhabitants of that territory; where I am ashamed to relate the computation of subjects lost to the state, by being killed in cold blood during the years 1780 and 1781.

The following sonnet, addressed to the new Magistrate, by the elegant and learned Abbe Bettolini, will entertain such of my readers as understand Italian: 

    No, Brenne, il popol tuo non e spietato,
      Colpa non e di clima, o fuol nemico: 
      Ma gli inulti delitti, e’l vezzo antico
      D’impune andar coi ferro e fuoco a lato,

    Ira noi finor nudriro un branco irato
      D’Orsi e di lupi, il malaccorto amico
      Ti svenava un fellon sgherro mendico,
      E per cauto timor n’era onorato.

    Al primiero spuntar d’un fausto lume
      Tutto cangio:  curvansi in falci i teh,
      Mille Pluto perde vittime usate.

    Viva l’Eroe, il comun padre, il nume
      Gridan le gente a si bei di ferbate. 
      E sia che ardisca dir che siam crudele.

Imitation.

    No, Brennus, no longer thy sons shall retain
    Of their founder ferocious, th’original stain;
    It cannot be natural cruelty sure,
    The reproaches for which from all men we endure;
    Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame,
    ’Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame: 
    While arm’d at all points men were suffer’d to rove,
    And brandish the steel in defence of their love;
    What wonder that conduct or