barbarians, whether Sclavonians or French, who used it for a target to shoot at, for these soldiers had never seen the wonderful composition until it had been long neglected, and already much effaced. Bossi's copy of it in the Brera is a very fine picture, much superior to the old painting of 1612 in the Ambrosian library. In 1816 we saw that the attempts of the French government to preserve the work from further injury were recorded in an inscription in honour of Eugene. In 1828 the inscription had disappeared.

*

"The picture is now nearly lost, and all its beauty gone," says John Bell, who saw it in 1817. This accomplished and scientific observer adds that "This is principally owing to the whimsical theories Leonardo had conceived in the composition, and manner of laying on his colours. He is reported to have been occupied sixteen years in this painting, the chief part of which time was, I doubt not, employed in experiments more properly chemical; and after having tried and rejected many materials, he at last finished the picture in oil, on a ground composed of pitch, mastic, and plaster, combined with some fourth ingredient, and wrought with heated iron; an invention probably altogether his own, but which was afterwards used by Sebastian del Piombo. Over this preparation he laid his fresco, a cement of burnt clay and ochre, which, being mixed up with varnish, formed a colouring of great beauty, but short duration."

* See 'Observations on Italy,' vol. i. p. 67, edit. Naples, 1834,

MONZA.

We visited Monza and saw the curiosities there, having obtained the usual permission from Count Saurau. What most struck us, after the holy nail in the inside of the far-famed iron crown, was the skeleton of Count Hector Visconti, who was killed at the siege of Monza in 1412. It was found in the ruins of the old castle, and kept in a cupboard in the cloisters of the cathedral. The flesh was sticking to many parts of it, particularly the hands and the left leg, the ankle of which looked as if just shattered by the shot which killed him: there was an appearance of blood upon it. The hole under his right breast was made after his body was found. His sword, a short, broad, very sharply-pointed weapon, was hanging with him in its sheath. The beginning of the inscription, on a paper in the case containing the bones, runs thus: "This skeleton once enclosed the soul of Count Hector Visconti." This skeleton and the tombs in the cathedral, and the plaster busts in the old Visconti Palace at Milan, were all that recalled to us the powerful family that so long governed this fine country.

*The Italians do not feel that dread of human bones found amongst other nations. In a little wayside open chapel I have seen skulls piled in fantastic forms of pyramids like cannon-balls in a battery, or stuck in niches like shells in a grotto, with the names of those who owned them living, such as the Canonico' and 'il Cavaliere;' and no other distinctive note-no time, or place, or date of age.

CHAPTER V.

Brescia The neighbourhood

Road to the Adriatic The Lago di Garda - Sirmium · Catullus Famine in the Venetian Provinces Desenzano Verona The Amphitheatre — The Congress of 1822 The tombs of the Scaligers - Romeo and

Juliet

In our journey from Milan to Venice (1816) we passed through Brescia. The decayed fortifications, the narrow arcaded streets, and the tall towers and battlements,' gave an air of antiquity to this town; but the welldressed crowd, the gay equipages, and the new theatre, one of the most magnificent in Europe, bespoke prosperity and a large population. The famous pistol manufactory had lost much of its former renown, but there were still 40,000 inhabitants in Brescia, and there was trade enough to supply many well-furnished shops. The palaces, a name given in Italy to the mansions of the higher nobility, were numerous, and the houses in the principal streets were handsome and of a good size.†

*Torre dell' Orologio, Torre di Pallade, the towers and battlements of the Broletto.

+ Mr. Murray's Handbook will show how many things were to be seen in Brescia in 1848. I visited this city in 1845, and went over the Museum of Antiquities, which had been put together since my first visit. I quite agree with the Handbook, that converting the

The immediate neighbourhood of Brescia appeared extremely populous. The interminable plain below it was studded with houses of every description, from the spacious villa to the vine-dresser's cottage; and villages embosomed in fruit-gardens rose one above the other on the sides of the hills as far as the eye could reach. From Rezzato, where the high road leaves the hills, the country did not seem so thickly inhabited, but was equally well cultivated. The road itself, from Milan to the Adriatic, was one of the many works of the French a noble contrast with the old Venetian road, which was one of the worst in Europe. After Ponte St. Marco we again approached the hills, and beyond Lonato, a small town with a military post on a height, the scenery changed at once, and gave us a view of the high Alps, rising round a dark deep basin, to the north. Descending from Lonato, we soon had our first view of the great lake of Garda, and the thin long strip of land, the Sirmio of the poet, to whom, as is usual in Italy, all the wonders of the Benacus are said to belong. The subterranean ruins of a palace of the Scaligers, on the promontory, are called the grottos of Catullus; and some vestiges of an old town, which may occasionally be seen beneath the surface of the lake, are given to the same classical personage. There were a few fishermen's huts,

cell of the ruined Temple into a museum for the reception of these remains, was an unhappy idea-as unhappy as desecrating the chapel at Holyrood by modern tombstones.

sheltered by an olive grove, on Sirmione, for it retains its old name; but, when approached, the little peninsula had a desolate and unhealthy appearance-half choked with reeds, the resort of innumerable wild fowl. We stopped at Desenzano, a small town on the side of the lake, with a stone pier and a little port for the boats that exchange the grain from Mantua and the Milanese for the timber of the Tyrol; but our project of visiting Sirmione was not carried into effect, for the rain and mist of an autumnal evening gradually gathering on the mountain shores in the distance, and driving down the lake upon us, we soon saw only an horizon of foaming waters; and had we wished to try the voyage, no boat would have ventured out with us. The waves leapt up the little promontories which we could now and then discern for a moment, and drove against the pier with all the roar and violence of a stormy sea. Although Virgil recollected the tempests of the Benacus, Catullus, the poet of Sirmio, found perfect repose in his muchloved home; and, in regard to Virgil's epithet, Lord Byron remarked that, in one respect, the lake did not resemble the sea, for when the storm subsided there was no swell in the offing.

This was a year (1816) of great distress in the Venetian provinces ;* millet, the principal food, had risen

The peasants were reduced to feed on cakes made of grass. New diseases appeared. The medical faculty memorialized the Aulic Council, who transmitted an Imperial rescript to be read in all the churches, recommending the people to live generously, on