contrast.  The moment the service was over, the tapers were suddenly extinguished; the priests and the relatives all disappeared in an inconceivably short time, and before I was quite aware of what was going forward:  the coffin, stripped of its embroidered pall and garlands of flowers, appeared a mere chest of deal boards, roughly nailed together; and was left standing on tressels, bare, neglected, and forsaken in the middle of the church.  I approached it almost fearfully, and with a deeper emotion than I believed such a thing could now excite within me.  And here, thought I, rests the human being, who has lived and loved, suffered and enjoyed, and, if I may judge by the splendour of his funeral rites, has been honoured, served, flattered while living:—­and now not one remains to shed a last tear over the dead, but a single stranger, a wanderer from a land he perhaps knew not:  to whom his very name is unknown!  And while thus I moralized, two sextons appeared; and one of them seizing the miserable and deserted coffin, rudely and unceremoniously flung it on his shoulders, and vanished through a vaulted door; and I returned to my room, to write this, and to think how much better, how much more humanely, we manage these things in our own England.

Oct. 21.—­Verona is a clean and quiet place, containing some fine edifices by Palladio and his pupils.  The principal object of interest is the ancient amphitheatre; the most perfect I believe in Italy.  The inner circle, with all its ranges of seats, is entire.  We ascended to the top, and looked down into the Piazza d’arme, where several battalions of Austrian soldiers were exercising; their arms glittering splendidly in the morning sun.  As I have now been long enough in Italy to sympathize in the national hatred of the Austrians, I turned from the sight, resolved not to be pleased.  The arena of the amphitheatre is smaller, and less oval in form than I had expected:  and in the centre, there is a little paltry gaudy wooden theatre for puppets and tumblers,—­forming a grotesque contrast to the massive and majestic architecture around it:  but even tumblers and puppets, as Rospo observed, are better than wild beasts and ferocious gladiators.

There are also at Verona a triumphal arch to the Emperor Gallienus; the architecture and inscription almost as perfect as if erected yesterday;—­and a most singular bridge of three irregular arches, built, I believe, by the Scaligieri family, who were once princes of Verona.

It is well known that the story of Romeo and Juliet is here regarded as a traditionary and indisputable fact, and the tomb of Juliet is shown in a garden near the town.  So much has been written and said on this subject, I can add only one observation.  To the reality of the story it has been objected that the oldest narrator, Masuccio, relates it as having happened at Sienna:  but might he not have heard the tradition at Verona, and transferred the scene