the cause of the poet on his tyrant!—­and as we emerge from his obscure dungeon and descend the steps of the hospital of St. Anna, with what fervent hatred, indignation, and scorn, do we gaze upon the towers of the ugly red brick palace, or rather fortress, which deforms the great square, and where Alphonso feasted while Tasso wept!  The inscription on the door of the cell, calling on strangers to venerate the spot where Tasso, “Infermo piu di tristezza che delirio,” was confined seven years and one month—­was placed there by the French, and its accuracy may be doubted; as far as I can recollect.  The grass growing in the wide streets of Ferrara is no poetical exaggeration; I saw it rank and long even on the thresholds of the deserted houses, whose sashless windows, and flapping doors, and roofless walls, looked strangely desolate.

I will say nothing of Bologna;—­for the few days I have spent here have been to me days of acute suffering, in more ways than I wish to remember, and therefore dare not dwell upon.

At Covigliajo in the Apennines.—­O for the pencil of Salvator, or the pen of a Radcliffe!  But could either, or could both united, give to my mind the scenes of to-day, in all their splendid combinations of beauty and brightness, gloom and grandeur?  A picture may present to the eye a small portion of the boundless whole—­one aspect of the every-varying face of nature; and words, how weak are they!—­they are but the elements out of which the quick imagination frames and composes lovely landscapes, according to its power or its peculiar character; and in which the unimaginative man finds only a mere chaos of verbiage, without form, and void.

The scenery of the Apennines is altogether different in character from that of the Alps:  it is less bold, less lofty, less abrupt and terrific—­but more beautiful, more luxuriant, and infinitely more varied.  At one time, the road wound among precipices and crags, crowned with dismantled fortresses and ruined castles—­skirted with dark pine forests—­and opening into wild recesses of gloom, and immeasurable depths like those of Tartarus profound; then came such glimpses of paradise! such soft sunny valleys and peaceful hamlets—­and vine-clad eminences and rich pastures, with here and there a convent half hidden by groves of cypress and cedars.  As we ascended we arrived at a height from which, looking back, we could see the whole of Lombardy spread at our feet; a vast, glittering, indistinct landscape, bounded on the north by the summits of the Alps, just apparent above the horizon, like a range of small silvery clouds; and on the east a long unbroken line of bluish light marked the far distant Adriatic; as the day declined, and we continued our ascent (occasionally assisted by a yoke of oxen where the acclivity was very precipitate), the mountains closed around us, the scenery became more wildly romantic, barren, and bleak.  At length, after passing the crater of a volcano, visible through