SHRINE OF ST. CARLO BORROMEO.

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On four successive days did I labour to the summit of the cupola, and still the prospect, in every direction, excited new feelings of delight.*

The transition from this splendid scene to the subterranean vault, in which the skin and bones of St. Carlo Borromeo find no repose, though enshrined in a sarcophagus of crystal, is most disgusting! The puffers and procurators of the Siamese youths-the fire-eater-the cameleopard-or the Bengal tiger, are not more alert on their post, than are the monks of Milan, or their employées, to enveigle down into this splendid dungeon the traveller, from whom a five-franc piece is modestly demanded, for a sight of the noseless and disgusting face of a sainted mummy! In short, the exhibition of the venerated" ARCHBISHOP OF MILAN" is just as much a matter of mercenary avocation, as the exhibition of any wild beast in London. If Eustace, a catholic, and the eloquent, amiable advocate of catholicism, condemns this exhibition, it is clear that it deserves reprobation. "The face is exposed very improperly, because much disfigured by decay—a deformity increased and rendered more hideous by its contrast with the splendour of the vestments which cover the body, and by the pale and ghastly light that gleams from the aperture above." Improperly, because "much disfigured!" I would say, improperly in all respects—but peculiarly so, when done solely for the money which the exhibition produces.† And here I may observe, that a constant charge against England is, the expence of seeing public sights in her metropolis. I fearlessly aver that, with a few exceptions, which shall be mentioned in their places, the public sights on the Continent-more especially in Italy, require the purse to be kept constantly in hand! A set of more selfish, insatiable, and mercenary sharks never existed, than are to be seen round the museums and public edifices of Italy. They will not publish any catalogues-they hurry a squadron of visitors round a whole museum in a given time, bawling out the names of a few of the principal objects—and dismiss the company as quickly as possible, in order to pocket the offerings of the succeeding batch !

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I shall not trouble the reader with any description of the gloomy interior

It

* Errors are propagated by describing from books instead of nature. must have been some fallacy of this kind that led John Bell to talk of the enchanting prospects, in every direction," that open to the eye from the CORSO, OF PUBLIC WALK! I only ask any one who paces the Corso, what kind of prospect he sees? It is physically impossible, in a plain like that of Lombardy, to have any thing like a prospect, except from the summit of some high building.

† One fool makes many. I acknowledge myself a fool, for spending a moment's time in going down to the vault of St. Carlo; but this is one of the lions of Milan, not to have seen which would argue great stupidity.

of this celebrated cathedral. The outside is my favourite, because a splendid view of Nature encircles an interesting spectacle of art. I can hardly take leave of the Duomo, however, without adverting to another disgusting and tasteless exhibition-the flayed body of St. Bartholomew. The statuary has disarmed criticism, by telling us candidly that he is not PRAXITELES—which is, perhaps, a work of supererogation.

"Non me Praxiteles sed Marcus fecit Agrates."

If Agrati had ever seen a human being flayed alive, he would not have represented him in the posture of a dancing master-and if he had been acquainted with anatomy, he would not have committed such obvious errors as are here

seen.

The great theatre, La Scala, is another lion of the first magnitude in Milan, which I did not see-for this good reason, there is but one chandelier suspended from the roof-all the rest of the house, the stage excepted, being in the dark. I went three nights in succession, to hear the music and see the actors—and these being the two legitimate and proper objects of the philodramatists, the Italians gain great credit for their good sense in keeping the boxes in obscurity, so that attention may not be distracted from the opera. Nothing can be more erroneous than this opinion. The same innate or instinctive love of darkness, or dread of light, (phœbo-phobia) which induced the inhabitants of Pompeii to live in pigeon-holes, where light could never enter but through the solitary door, when opened—which induced every Italian, from that period to the present time, to construct his mansion like a prison, with iron-grated glassless windows in the exterior-and a dirty, gloomy court in the centre furnishing the only prospect, and carefully excluding the sun-the same propensity, I say, with the additional stimulus of economy, prompts the Italian to prefer a dark to an illuminated box.* When I say innate or instinctive love of darkness, I use a wrong expression. It is a physical necessity of avoiding light and heat-common to the inhabitants of all hot countries. Throughout the vast regions and various nations of the East, the same physical necessity exists and the same propensity prevails. The Turks, the Hindoos, and all intervening people, exclude the beams of the sun by means of narrow streets, high houses, thick walls, and gloomy apartments, clustered round a central court. The Romans took the hint from

* Ammianus Marcellinus, when censuring the effeminacy of the ancient Roman nobility, has these remarkable expressions :—“ should a fly presume to settle in the silken folds of their umbrellas, or a sun-beam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their hardships, and lament that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness."-Gibbon.

AMPHITHEATRE OF MILAN.

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the Greeks, and the Italians continue the custom, which has long since become a second nature.

As to LA SCALA, there was not much lost by the darkness of the housethe whole being, indeed, " a beggarly account of empty boxes,” though some of the first warblers in Italy were wasting their sweets upon the desert air. But the Dons of the pit made up for the vacuity of the boxes. They nearly drove from the stage a fair and meritorious songstress by repeated groans and hisses, savouring more of tobacco than of liberality. These same Dons, and on the same day, rent the skies with acclamations, at the sight of a race round the arena of the amphitheatre, where two Smithfield bullocks would have distanced the fleetest of the Lombardy coursers! An equestrian looby (poor representative of Ducrow) next strode, or attempted to stride, on the backs of two ponies, while galloping round the arena-but soon measured his length in the dust, which produced loud plaudits. These are sufficient specimens of the feats performed in this great place of public amusement.

If amplitude be the measure of magnificence, this amphitheatre is superb. It is a fortified field, the interior wall of whose rampart is built sloping, with rows of seats. The rampart itself is not higher than an ordinary wall round a town ;-and this is the whole affair. It is a poor imitation of the Colisseum, or the amphitheatre of Capua, which accommodated nearly treble the number of spectators, defended from rain and sun, and gave them an infinitely better view of what was going on in the arena. The area is too great and the spectators too low, for any kind of exhibition except that of horse-racing, charioteering, or such spectacles as require no very distinct or accurate perception through the medium of sight or hearing.†

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* Tacitus tells us that, after the burning of Rome by Nero, that Emperor caused the new city to be built with wide streets and houses detached from each other, in opposition to the plan of the old town, with narrow crooked streets and high houses. Nero's taste was then criticised by men of observation. The original construction (such as Genoa now presents) was thought more conducive to the health of the inhabitants. The narrowness of the streets and the elevation of the buildings served to exclude the rays of the sun; whereas the more open space, having neither shade nor shelter, left men exposed to the intense heat of the day."-Tacitus, Annals, B. XV. Brotier, in remarking on this passage of Tacitus, says, "it is well known that the more open parts of Rome are more sickly than the narrow streets, where the inhabitants are shaded from the intense heat."

To this may be added, the security which narrow streets and high houses afford against the malaria, wafted from the pestiferous Campagna di Roma in Autumn.

↑ P.S. I find, however, that I have done injustice to LA SCALA. During the BALLET, I saw things there, which I had never so plainly seen in any

TRIUMPHAL ARCH.

The intended triumphal arch near the Amphitheatre, and at the termination of the great military road of the Simplon, may afford ample food for reflexion on the "vanity of human wishes"-or, at all events, of human projects!It is well known that a famous colossal statue in Rome represented successively a devil, a man, and a god. Why should not the emblazonments of Gallic victories, on the Porta Sempione, be changed, with change of events, to emblems of defeat? The piling of the Austrian arms, after the battle of Marengo, and Mack's surrender at Ulm, may be easily transformed into the discomfiture of the French at Montmartre, and Marmont's capitulation of Paris-Napoleon having chosen to array the warriors on both sides in the costume of ancient Romans! The long series of brilliant epochs in his eventful life, may be readily transmuted (since statuary is not very nice in chronology) into the train of rapid and precipitate disasters, by which he fell from the summit of power to the abyss of captivity! The dreary crags of the Great St. Bernard are very easily converted into the scarcely less steril cliffs of St. Helena. The L'ORIENT, which bore him as an eastern conqueror to the banks of the Nile, can be changed to the Belerophon, which conveyed him, "like Themistocles," to the shores of Britain for a last asylum. For the Bridge of LODI may be substituted that of the BERESINA-for the carnage of the PYRAMIDS, the conflagration of Moscow. The sands of EGYPT may be converted into the not less dazzling snows of RUSSIA-Wagram into Waterloo -and finally, the sombre scenes of captivity at Longwood and the Briars, may well usurp the places of Fontainbleau and Valençy, the dreary prisons of PIUS and FERDINAND!

PELLAGRA.

A phenomenon resulting from the physical operation of climate on the human race, and which is equally curious and melancholy to contemplate, may be seen on a large scale in the great hospital of Milan-the PELLAGRA of the Lombardo-Venetian plains. Those who have not courage to view it

other theatre, notwithstanding the want of lights. But my countrymen and my countrywomen will see things in every part of Italy, which the prudenceI beg pardon the PRUDERY of their English ancestors has kept out of sight. Nature is always superior to art. Why should the Medicean Venus, the Belvidere Apollo, or the Farnese Hercules, be allowed the luxury of nudity, in a warm climate, while their living descendants are condemned to the expense and misery of clothing? But of this more hereafter.

in the living body, may form a tolerable idea of its external characters from some excellent representations in wax, at the Museum of the University of Bologna.

This horrible malady, or complication of maladies, has only been observed during the last 60 or 80 years, and is rapidly increasing. The proportion of cases in the hospital is very considerable.* It begins by an erysipelatous eruption on the skin, which breaks out in the Spring, continues till the Autumn, and disappears in the Winter-chiefly affecting those parts of the surface which are habitually exposed to the sun or the air. This cutaneous symbol of an internal disorder is accompanied or preceded by remarkable debility, lassitude, melancholy, moroseness-hypochondriacism—and not seldom a strong propensity to suicide. Year rolls on after year, and the cutaneous eruption, as well as the general disorders, become more and more aggravated, with shorter and shorter intervals in the Winter. At length the surface ceases to clear itself, and becomes permanently enveloped in a thick, livid, leprous crust, somewhat resembling the dried and black skin of a fish! By this time, the vital powers are reduced to a very low ebb-and not seldom the intellectual functions. The miserable victim of this dreadful pellagra loses the use of his limbs, more particularly of the inferior extremities-is tormented with violent colick, head-ache, nausea, flatulence, and heartburn— the appetite being sometimes nul, at others voracious. The countenance becomes sombre and melancholy, or totally void of expression-the breath fetid-the teeth rotten-the inside of the mouth ulcerated-the mucous membrane highly irritable, and diarrhoea is a common accompaniment of the other disastrous train of miseries. But the most distressing phenomenon of all, is a sense of burning heat in the head and along the spine, from whence it radiates to various other parts of the body, but more especially to the palms of the hands and soles of the feet-tormenting the wretched victim day and night, and depriving him completely of sleep! He frequently feels as if an electric spark darted from the brain, and flew to the eyeballs, the ears, and the nostrils, burning and consuming those parts. To these severe afflictions of the body are often added strange hallucinations of the mind. The victim of pellagra fancies that he hears the incessant noise of millstones grinding near him—of hammers resounding on anvils-of bells ringing—or the discordant cries of various animals! The disease when advanced, takes the form of many other maladies, as tetanus, convulsions, epilepsy, dropsy, mania, and marasmus+-the patient ceasing at last to exist and to suffer, when reduced to the state and appearance of a mummy. It is by no means

* It has been supposed that a sixth or seventh of the population is affected with pellagra, in those parts of the country where it is most prevalent.

It is on this account that we see written over the heads of the beds in