treatise in five books, "De Consolatione Philosophiæ."

Leaving Pavia before five o'clock in the morning, we reached Novi ere dark, and are to set off equally early to-morrow in order to reach Genoa in due time, from an apprehension of robbers now infesting this road. The Diligence which passed us on our journey was guarded by two dragoons; and we use the precaution of regularly loading our pistols every evening, though happily we have not yet been put to the pain of using them.

The classical reader will recollect in his approach to Genoa, that Livy, in the beginning of the 39th book, details the predatory, and irregular, warfare long carried on by the Roman Legions against the then Ligurians, now Genoese; and the amazing difficulty of subduing them owing to the facility of attack and retreat which the natives possessed by their precipices, and fastnesses.

Only a few miles from Novi are the ever-memorable plains of Marengo, with the record of a victory achieved by Bonaparte, perhaps one of the most splendid in history; and whose first, and most immediate, consequence was the entire subjugation, pillage, and possession by the French of this fairest portion of the earth--Italy. By this battle, fought in June, 1800, not only were all hopes of future resistance to the power of France rendered vain by the utter wreck of the Austrian armies; but all

Italy was so completely laid low, so denuded, and exposed, as almost to verify the emphatic language of the conqueror: "The Alps were annihilated." Near Novi a bridge of boats crosses the Po; and is it possible to pass this classic stream lined with its appropriate poplars without recalling to mind the beautiful fable of Phaeton, and his sisters, annexed to its history?

The Apennines are crossed at the pass of the

* Phaeton, son of Apollo and Clymene, one of the Oceanides, was beloved by Venus herself. Intoxicated with the distinction, he boasted too much of the favours he had received; and the envious Ephalus, mortified him so keenly by affecting to doubt his godly birth, that the youth, instigated also by his mother, ascended to the palace of the Sun, and besought the God of Day, if really he were his father, to give him some incontrovertible proof. Too rashly, Apollo swore by the Styx that he would grant whatever he requested, and Phaeton demanded to drive his chariot for one day. Fain would Phoebus have retracted; persuasion was vain: all that remained was to counsel his son how to direct the car of day, and how to drive the lightning steeds through the regions of the skies, and from pole to pole. Phaeton snatched the reins; too soon he found his timid ignorance, and the immortal coursers, despising his feeble guidance, dashed from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and threatened the world with universal conflagration. Jupiter beheld the disaster, and hurling a thunderbolt at Phaeton precipitated him into the Po: The Naiades of the stream buried his burnt body; and his sisters, weeping their brother's fate, were changed into poplars on its banks. The fiery chariot had passed too near Africa, which from that hour was burnt up, and has since seemed but as a sandy desart; and the skin of the Ethiopians, with all the inhabitants of the torrid zone, which before was white, has ever since been black.

Bocchetta, an elevation of 5000 feet above the level of the sea the ascent is tedious, and barren; on a sudden the prospect bursts upon the view, and we behold one immense range of mountains at every point sloping their fertile sides into the luxuriant plains stretched out at their base; we trace the winding, circuitous, road that leads to Genoa, seen with its suburbs at a distance of fifteen miles, and forming with its harbour a graceful semicircular sweep; and we admire the white villas of the nobility that contrast with, and stud, the verdant hills around; with the nobler sight of the dark blue, expansive, Mediterranean that bounds the distant horizon.

The road formerly led through the bed of the river Porcifera, in the valley of Polcivera, always rocky and generally dry, but a bridge is now thrown over it, erected by a Genoese at his individual expence; a Doge of the house of Cambiaso. In the year 1746, the Austrians, then in possession of Genoa, were driven out by a popular insurrection, and encamped in the bed of this river, about six miles from the town. In the night, the torrent suddenly burst forth, and though by its distant roar it gave some little time to escape, in the general confusion, some hundreds of men, with their horses, &c. were swept away.

The view of Genoa is very imposing and grand. Seen at some distance from the shore, or on the

Gulf, this ancient mistress of the seas appears to rise from the bosom of the waters; in front, we behold noble, and capacious, harbours, and ports, filled with the vessels, and the traffic, of all nations; then the "proud" city, forming a graceful curve, its houses, villas, and churches, rising each above the other, uniformly white, amidst the verdure of the mountains; and lastly the bold Apennines somewhat like an amphitheatre behind, which sweep it in on every side. It appears very strongly fortified; batteries defend its coast; an inner strong wall of six miles circuit, an outer one of thirteen ; with fortresses on the summits of the Apennines, besides eight or nine gates, and drawbridges, to defend the entrance of the city.

Its history, or origin, is pretended to be as old as Janus. Muratori, in his descriptions of Italy, supposes it to have been visited by Eneas, and that it was founded more than 1400 years before the birth of Christ. It was destroyed either by Annibal, or his brother Mago, in the year of Rome 524, and rebuilt by the Romans in 545. By the Roman historians it was called Genua, and always considered as the capital of Liguria. Subsequently it was ravaged, and utterly destroyed by the Goths and Saracens, in the sixth, seventh, and tenth centuries; yet we find it pre-eminent at the period of the Crusades, and that when Godfrey of Bouillon led his armies to the siege of Jerusalem, and chased the

Saracens from Palestine, and Syria, in the year 1199, the Genoese furnished forty galleys, commanded by their own Admiral Guglielmo Embriaco.

In 1339, Simon Boccanegra was the first elevated to the dignity of Doge, or Duke. This ducal mode of government lasted with various modifications, and under Doges elected every two years, until 1797 when the revolutionary furies of France extended even here.. Since that period it has had alternately a royal, and a republican government, but by the general peace consequent upon the battle of Waterloo, and by the decision of the Congress of Vienna, it is at the present moment under the dominion of its ancient sovereign, the King of Sardinia. During these intervals of centuries, so rapidly sketched, it is to be remembered that the fleets of the Genoese were almost universally triumphant; and that their conquests had humbled Saracens, Turks, Pisans, Spaniards, and Venetians. Corsica, Malta, Majorca, Minorca, Crete, Scio, and Smyrna, the islands of the Archipelago, with parts of the coasts of Asia and Africa, were at one time either tributary to, colonised by, or otherwise acknowledged the supremacy of Genoa.

Among its illustrious men, Andrea Doria stands pre-eminent. By his talents and virtues he effected that revolution in 1528 which restored his oppressed country to freedom, and established an equitable constitution. Genoa being at that period under